Project Grant 2548684

The National Science Foundation Division of Information and Intelligent Systems awarded Northwestern University $259,000 on October 1, 2026, under the Computer and Information Science and Engineering program (CFDA 47.070) for collaborative research on management and control methods for next-generation wireless networks that share infrastructure and spectrum.

The project, titled "VINES: Track 1: Management and Control of Multi-Infrastructure Spectrum-Sharing Networks," develops a sharing-native network framework enabling service providers to pool spectrum bands, share base station infrastructure, and use service level agreements to specify performance targets. The research is organized into three thrusts: developing control architectures, market models, and resource pooling methods for multi-infrastructure spectrum sharing; creating centralized and decentralized resource provisioning algorithms that provide quality of service guarantees for throughput, delay, reliability, and queue stability under stochastic wireless conditions; and mapping these algorithms into practical open radio access networks using non-real-time, near-real-time, and real-time control applications.

The work is performed at Northwestern University's Evanston, Illinois campus with performance ending September 30, 2029. The project is collaborative, bringing together investigators from Northwestern University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to improve efficiency, affordability, and reliability of next-generation wireless networks by enabling shared use of scarce spectrum and costly infrastructure.