MAESTRO members are currently involved in the Inria-Nokia Bell Labs (aka Inria-Alcatel-Lucent Bell Labs) joint laboratory which consisted of three ADRs (Research Actions) in its first phase (2008–2012) and consists of six ADRs in its second phase (started October 2012). They participated in 3 ADRs.
MAESTRO members were involved in the Inria-Alstom joint laboratory which consists of four projects; they participated in project P11.
MAESTRO members also frequently collaborate with Orange Labs through CRE grants (CRE stands for “Contrat de Recherche Externalisée”).
On-going projects are: ADR Network Science, ADR SelfNet, collaboration with Thales-Alenia Space, collaboration with Lucielabs, and collaboration with WingR.
Complete list, by partner and reverse date of completion:
Grants with Nokia/Alcatel-Lucent Bell Labs
Since 2008 MAESTRO has been actively collaborating with Nokia, formerly Alcatel-Lucent Bell Labs, in the framework of the Nokia/Alcatel-Lucent Inria Joint Laboratory. MAESTRO was involved in the following Research Actions (Actions de Recherche (ADR) in French) of this laboratory.
- ADR Network Science (June 2013 – August 2016)
“Network Science” aims at understanding the structural properties and the dynamics of various kind of large scale, possibly dynamic, networks in telecommunication (e.g., the Internet, the web graph, peer-to-peer networks), social science (e.g., community of interest, advertisement, recommendation systems), bibliometrics (e.g., citations, co-authors), biology (e.g., spread of an epidemic, protein-protein interactions), and physics. The complex networks encountered in these areas share common properties such as power law degree distribution, small average distances, community structure, etc. Many general questions/applications (e.g., community detection, epidemic spreading, search, anomaly detection) are common in various disciplines and are being analyzed in this ADR “Network Science”. In particular, in the framework of this ADR we are interested in efficient network sampling and models of influence/information propagation over the complex networks
- ADR Self-Organized Networks in Wireless/Self-Optimizing Wireless Networks (July 2008 – June 2016)
The work program within this ADR corresponds to two phases. During the first phase that ended mid-2012, MAESTRO was involved in the design of pico cell networks whose objective is to increase the capacity with lower energy requirements. This collaboration has resulted in one patent (inventor for Inria: E. Altman)
Many key features in mobile access networks rely on user velocity information in order to reinforce the perception of performance stability during mobility. Based on the analytical framework elaborated during the first phase that show the need for an efficient method of user speed estimation, a main objective of the research activity during the second phase, strongly supported by the wireless eNB team (System Engineering and Modem), was to devise a procedure for user speed estimation or classification. M. Haddad and E. Altman have proposed three technical solutions to the LTE Mobility State Estimation problem. Three patents have been submitted and filed (inventors for Inria: M. Haddad and E. Altman).
- ADR Semantic Networking (January 2008 – April 2013)
The paradigm of semantic networking for the networks of the future brings together flow-based networking, traffic-awareness and self-management concepts to get plug-and-play networks. The natural traffic granularity is the flow. One task of MAESTRO was to design and evaluate fair flow scheduling mechanisms for routers. Another task devoted to MAESTRO was to evaluate the pros and cons of introducing very large packets that would coexist with other packets whose size will not change. Another task concerned graph-based semi-supervised learning methods. This collaboration has resulted in 3 patents (inventors for Inria: K. Avrachenkov, S. Alouf, A. Blanc, P. Nain).
Grant with Alstom Transport
This collaboration is in the framework of the Inria-Alstom joint laboratory.
- Project P11 “Data Communication Network Performance” (December 2013 – May 2016)
The objective of this study is to build a simulation platform and develop an evaluation methodology for predicting Quality of Service and availability of the various applications supported by the data communication system of train networks.
Grants with Orange Labs/France Telecom R&D
Contractual collaborations with Orange Labs/France Telecom R&D are called CRE, which stands for “Contrat de Recherche Externalisée”.
- “Multi-Objective Optimization for LTE-Advanced Networks” (December 2012 – November 2015)
This grant from Orange Labs is related to a Cifre thesis allocated to A. Tall, whose advisors were E. Altman and Z. Altman (Orange Labs). The objective of this Cifre thesis is threefold: (1) to develop solutions based on stochastic approximations and optimal control for the optimization and setting of LTE-Advanced Networks; (2) to develop queuing models to capture the dynamics of the traffic and the physical layer mechanisms (e.g. relay, MIMO, scheduling); and (3) to apply the developed methods to engineering problems such the interference management, load balancing, optimization of coverage and capacity, and mobility management.
- “Content-Centric Networking” (October 2010 – December 2012)
The objective of this grant is to develop mathematical models for the analysis of Content-Centric Networks (CCN). The research focuses on the design and performance evaluation of routing and caching policies.
- “Self Optimization in Networks” (October 2009 – September 2012)
This grant from Orange Labs is related to a Cifre thesis allocated to R. Combes, whose advisors were E. Altman, S. Sorin (UPMC) and Z. Altman (Orange Labs).
- “QoS and Quality of Experience” (2010-2011)
The objective of this grant (CRE) is to study the performance and to optimize protocols related to new applications over the Internet such as YouTube.
- “Internet Traffic” (2005-2007)
The focus of this grant with France Telecom R&D in Sophia Antipolis is twofold: the application of size-based scheduling to IP networks, and the analysis of new TCP versions for high-speed links. K. Avrachenkov and P. Nain jointly coordinated this grant for MAESTRO and P. Brown was the coordinator for France Telecom R&D. Following this collaboration a patent has been filled (inventor for Inria: K. Avrachenkov).
- “Resource Allocation in Wireless Networks 2″(2005-2007)
This collaboration was carried out with J.-M. Kelif and his group at France Telecom R&D in Issy-les-Moulineaux. The grant is concerned with the optimization and control of UMTS networks and WLANs. In 2006 a patent has been filed concerning new policies for scheduling TCP connections between dedicated and shared channels in UMTS (inventor for INRIA: E. Altman). E. Altman was the coordinator of this grant for MAESTRO.
- “Resource Allocation in Wireless Networks” (2002-2004)
This collaboration was carried out with J.-M. Kelif and his group at France Telecom R&D in Issy-les-Moulineaux. In this grant strategies for resource allocation and optimization in wireless (in particular UMTS) networks were developed. This collaboration has given rise to a patent on optimal and fair bandwidth allocation and call admission control in UMTS [190] (inventor for Inria: E. Altman). E. Altman coordinated this grant for MAESTRO.
Grants with ESA
- “Simulation of SpaceWire networks” (January 2016 – December 2017)
This collaboration funded by the European Space Agency (ESA) is with Thales-Alenia Space (France); the objective is to study different simulation alternatives for SpaceWire networks.
- “BitTorrent for satellite communications” (September 2013 – April 2014)
This collaboration funded by ESA was also with Thales-Alenia Space (France) and with Teletel S.A. (Greece). The objective was to investigate the application of a BitTorrent-like data distribution model to mission operations.
- “Scheduling” (2004-2006)
The topic of this collaboration funded by ESA was the design of efficient online scheduling policies for payloads. It was executed jointly with Ph. Chr ́etienne and E. Hyon, both from University of Paris 6, Paris. The specificities of the problem include various temporal and feasibility constraints, and a stochastic environment. A. Jean-Marie was the coordinator of this project.
Grants with startup companies
- WingR (2016)
Members of MAESTRO were involved in a research contract with this company.
- Lucielabs (2016)
Grant from AMIES (Agence pour les mathématiques en interaction avec l’entreprise et la société) to fund a 6 months internship to work on “Hybrid GPS-free Localization Algorithms”.
- MELAUDY (2007)
Members of MAESTRO were involved in a research contract with this company (now called Soledge), funded by Languedoc-Roussillon Incubation. The system under study was a high-fidelity audio streaming system over power lines (CPL). The research convention involved the quality of service characterization of different PLC devices at the packet level, and the design of protocols allowing the high-throughput, multi-canal, zero-loss transport of data over this communication medium. A. Jean-Marie was the coordinator of this project.
- VodDnet (2006-2007)
Members of MAESTRO were involved in a research contract with this company, funded by Languedoc-Roussillon Incubation. The system under study was a multi-source content distribution infrastructure based on data segmentation and replication. The research convention involved the programming of a simulation software, the design of a mathematical model for the control and performance prediction of the system, and simulation experiments validating the model. This contract has been followed by a 3-year research grant – ANR VOODDO – from the National Research Agency (ANR-07-RIAM-0012, program “Audiovisual and Multimedia”). A. Jean-Marie was the coordinator of this project.
