Credit: Jeff Fitlow/Rice University

Advanced Wireless Research @ NSF

The National Science Foundation's (NSF) leadership of wireless research has three intertwined components:

Establishing platforms for advanced wireless research enabled by a new industry consortium and engagement of public and private partners;
Supporting fundamental research enabling advanced wireless technologies; and
Catalyzing academic, industry, and community leaders to work together to prototype innovative wireless approaches to address societal challenges.

These efforts will provide new insights capable of making wireless communication faster, smarter, more responsive, and more robust - with profound implications for science and society.

Platforms for Advanced Wireless Research (PAWR)

Research platforms that are the size of an entire small U.S. city will foster use-inspired, fundamental research and development that will in turn enable advanced wireless networks. The platforms - called PAWR (pronounced "power") - will enable academic and industry researchers to experiment with approaches at scale, allowing experimentation that would not be possible in lab environments, over the next decade.

PAWR is supported through public and private partners, bringing together funding from NSF as well as a newly established industry consortium comprising leading networking vendors like Juniper, Ericsson, Nokia-Bell Labs and Interdigital; device manufacturers such as Samsung, Intel and Qualcomm; and wireless carriers AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon.

NSF is supporting a PAWR Project Office (PPO) led by US Ignite, Inc and Northeastern University to manage the design, development, deployment, and operations of the advanced wireless research platforms.

Fundamental research enabling advanced wireless networks

Fundamental research on novel communication technologies, networking and information architectures, and mobile applications will enable advanced wireless capabilities.

NSF will support research on PAWR, and continues to support advancing wireless technologies generally, to identify solutions to address the increased data and networking requirements of the emerging Internet of Things.

Community leadership and engagement

Community engagement is key to enabling use-inspired research and development for future generations of advanced wireless technology to provide solutions for important societal challenges.

NSF will support projects that bring together academic researchers, corporate leaders, entrepreneurs, and civic organizers from across the country to prototype and demonstrate advanced wireless innovations. NSF will also support experts from academia, industry, and government to identify best practices and research directions to guide PAWR. All of these efforts will help to cultivate a new generation of researchers and educators poised to transform society for decades to come.

Funding Opportunities for Advanced Wireless research

Testbed/Research Platforms Infrastructure Programs:

Research Programs: