Semiari tackles need for wireless streaming speed

A need for speed – streaming speed, that is – is top of mind for Omid Semiari, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering.

That’s why Semiari contributed a chapter on promising new techniques to boost the capacity of wireless cellular networks to “Wireless Edge Caching: Modeling, Analysis, and Optimization.” The book, available in print this month, is published by Cambridge University Press.

Edge caching refers to the use of caching servers to store content closer to end users – so that ultimately, it takes less time for users to pull data. For non-computer scientists, think of edge caching like going to a movie theatre, rather than driving to Hollywood, to see a film. Localizing cached content at the network edge helps to prevent traffic jams on the side of the content provider and helps to satisfy the demands of user requests more quickly.

Semiari’s chapter, “Caching in mobile millimeter wave – sub-6 GHz networks,” focuses on the technical hurdles of meeting high traffic demand for content caching in mobile wireless cellular networks. From speed, storage and mobility, the chapter sheds light on critical issues of content caching in current cellular networks, particularly over high-frequency bands. It provides performance analysis of caching methods and proposes solutions to challenges faced when streaming data to mobile cellular users.

Semiari co-authored the chapter with Walid Saad, professor of electrical and computer engineering at Virginia Tech, and Mehdi Bennis, associate professor for the Centre for Wireless Communications at the University of Oulu in Finland.

The publication as a whole presents state-of-the-art techniques for academic researchers, postgraduate students and engineers working in wireless communications. It describes a number of new techniques to maximize key performance metrics, including energy efficiency, quality of the user experience and security.

With use of Netflix, TikTok and similar platforms trending upwards, streaming content doesn’t appear to be going anywhere. Fortunately, neither is the innovation of leading researchers like Semiari.

Omid Semiari teaches, researches and writes within the College of Engineering and Applied Science at UCCS, which enrolls more than 1,700 students and offers 22 engineering and computer science degrees ranging from bachelors to doctorate. The college is a Department of Homeland Security / National Security Agency Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense and works closely with the National Cybersecurity Center and with more than 250 aerospace and defense, information technology and cybersecurity, and engineering organizations in the Pikes Peak region.