COMONSENS project focuses on the fundamental theory, algorithm design and implementation in two main themes:

• Communication Networks
• Sensor Networks

Communication Networks. There is an urgent need to completely rethink the architecture of wireless communication networks. Ubiquitous connectivity with wireline-like quality of service (QoS) requires transmission rates as high as two orders of magnitude above current 3G cellular networks. There is a general agreement in the engineering community that such requirements cannot be attained, in an economically sustainable way, by simply scaling up existing architectures because they would become very inefficient. Indeed, the development of more flexible, robust and efficient wireless network configurations seems possible only if radically new schemes, such as those based on the idea of cooperative communication, are devised. Thus, we are moving towards a new paradigm for wireless networking in which the relationship among nodes will be inherently collaborative, adaptive, and aimed at optimizing the flow of information. This ambitious goal demands establishing and thoroughly understanding the theoretical foundations and methodological tools involved.
Sensor Networks. It is critical to develop the fundamental theory behind wireless sensor networks. Wireless sensor networks are demanded to sense the environment, detect and react to events, predict physical phenomena, self-heal, organize, and isolate faulting nodes. However, the fundamental theory needed to both understand and optimally build these systems is still far from developed. There is an imperative need to advance the theoretical characterization of sensor networks, and this can only be attained via a continued cross-fertilization among several disciplines that have traditionally been studied separately. This includes networking, information theory, and statistical learning, all of them combined with proper algorithmic development and implementation assessments in order to impact important practical applications of both societal and scientific interest.