This report outlines findings from the National Science Foundation funded workshop on Ultra-Low-Latency Wireless Networks, held in Arlington, VA on November 3-4, 2016.
Wireless networks have become a ubiquitous part of everyday life all around the world. Yet, wireless networks are very unpredictable on one critical aspect: communication latency. It is wellknown and widely observed that the latency incurred in accessing a wireless network can vary widely. The issue of unpredictable and often high latencies precludes wireless networks from being used in mission-critical environments.
Today's communication networks are largely geared towards latency tolerant (web, chat, email) content. Thus, these networks have been typically engineered with a focus on improving network capacity, with little attention to latency. However, in a range of domains, a wave of socially useful applications are emerging based on automated sensors and actuators operating in closed-loop or open-loop control systems. In these systems, including internet of things (IoT) applications, vehicular networks, smart grid, distributed robotics, and other cyber-physical systems, the requirements for latency could be two or three orders of magnitude more stringent than traditional applications. In addition, there are immersive services such as augmented reality that also require latency much smaller than what is achievable in today's wireless systems.
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