Please find hereafter the CSIM Newsletter – Spring 2023

Many thanks to all the contributors for their interesting inputs.

Dear CSIM Members,

It is my pleasure to announce that Prof. Ana Garcia Armada was our speaker at CSIM Online Seminars on December 15th 2022 at 14:00 CET .

Please find below content information of this most interesting seminar.

Best regards,

Nizar Zorba,

CSIM chair

Speaker: Prof. Ana Garcia Armada, IEEE ComSoc Vice President of Member and Global Activities | Universidad Carlos III of Madrid

Seminar Title: From Mobile Multimedia Broadcasting to the Tactile Internet

Content (video recording): Please find the seminar recording at https://youtu.be/SqPMpHqA1Mo

Abstract: This talk reviews the convergence of mobile communications and multimedia broadcasting, examines the evolution until the present status and gives some insights into the possible future. The starting point are Multimedia Broadcast/Multicast Services (MBMS) that were first standardized by the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) for release 6, Universal Terrestrial Radio Access Network (UTRAN) and evolved to eMBMS in 3GPP release 14, Long Term Evolution (LTE). The talk will continue presenting the main new features of 5G networks that are producing a substantial leap in the technology, enabling virtual and augmented reality (XR) services. With the example of AMATISTA, a project that is offering immersive music therapy based on virtual reality in a nursing home, the current status of the technology will be presented. The future ahead includes new ways of interaction, adding the haptic dimension, and this will require new capabilities being offered from the mobile networks that need to be enabled in the evolution to 6G. Prototypes to evaluate new waveforms and adaptive arrays of liquid antennas are exemplified as new physical layer techniques that need to be developed.

Bio: Ana García Armada is currently a Professor at Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Spain, where she is leading the Communications Research Group. She has been a visiting scholar at Stanford University, Bell Labs and University of Southampton. Her research has resulted in more than 250 publications in international journals and conferences, as well as five patents. She is an Editor of IEEE Transactions on Communications, Area Editor of IEEE Open Journal of the Communications Society, Editor of the ITU Journal on Future and Evolving Technologies, and is a regular member of the technical program committees of the most relevant international conferences in his field. She has been part of the organizing committee of the IEEE Globecom 2019 and 2021 (General Chair), IEEE Vehicular Technology Conference Spring 2018, 2019 and Fall 2018, IEEE 5G Summit 2017, among others. She is the Vice-chair of the IEEE ComSoc Signal Processing and Computing for Communications Committee. She has been Secretary and Chair of the IEEE ComSoc Women in Communications Engineering Standing Committee. From January 2022 she is the Vice President of Member and Global Activities of IEEE ComSoc. She has held various management positions at Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, including: Deputy Director of the Telecommunications Engineering degree, Deputy Vice Chancellor for International Relations and Director of the Department of Signal Theory and Communications. She has received the Award of Excellence from the Social Council and the Award for Best Teaching Practices from Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, as well as the third place Bell Labs Prize 2014, the Outstanding Service Award 2019 from the SPCE committee of the IEEE Communications Society and the Outstanding Service Award 2020 from the Women in Communications Engineering (WICE) standing committee.

Please find hereafter the CSIM Newsletter – Fall 2022

Many thanks to all the contributors for their interesting inputs.

Dear CSIM Members,

You are invited to attend next CSIM online seminar by Dr. Shahid Mumtaz. Please mark your calendar, and we look forward to seeing you on 20 October 2022, at 13:00 CEST in this interesting seminar.

Best regards,

Nizar Zorba,

CSIM chair

Speaker: Dr. Shahid Mumtaz

IEEE Distinguished Lecturer  | Instituto de Telecomunicações, Portugal.         

Seminar Title: 6G: Vision, Requirements, Technical Challenges, Standardization & Implementations

Meeting link: https://qu.webex.com/qu/j.php?MTID=mff3f69d099834ddaed671388f71a44df  

Content (video recording): Please find the seminar recording at https://youtu.be/hLH13cIlvuE

Abstract: 6G is the next step in the evolution of mobile communication and will be a key component of the Networked Society. In particular, 5G will accelerate the development of the Virtual world. To enable connectivity for a wide range of applications and use cases, the capabilities of 6G wireless access must extend far beyond those of previous generations of mobile communications. Examples of these capabilities include ultra high data rates, ultra low latency, ultra-high reliability, energy efficiency and extreme device densities, and will be realized by the development of 5G in combination with new radio-access technologies. Therefore, this talk explains the different key technology components of 6G and from implementation to standardization.

Bio: Shahid Mumtaz is an IET Fellow, IEEE ComSoc and ACM Distinguished speaker, recipient of IEEE ComSoC Young Researcher Award (2020), IEEE Senior member, founder and EiC of IET “Journal of Quantum communication”, Vice-Chair: Europe/Africa Region- IEEE ComSoc: Green Communications & Computing society and Vice-chair for IEEE standard on P1932.1: Standard for Licensed/Unlicensed Spectrum Interoperability in Wireless Mobile Networks. He has more than 15 years of wireless industry/academic experience. He has received his Master’s and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical & Electronic Engineering from Blekinge Institute of Technology, Sweden, and University of Aveiro, Portugal in 2006 and 2011, respectively. From 2002 to 2003, he worked for Pak Telecom as System Engineer and from 2005 to 2006 for Ericsson and Huawei at Research Labs in Sweden. He has been with Instituto de Telecomunicações since 2011 where he currently holds the position of Auxiliary Researcher and adjunct positions with several universities across the Europe-Asian Region. He is the author of 4 technical books, 12 book chapters, 300+ technical papers (180+ Journal/transaction, 100+ conference, 2 IEEE best paper award- in the area of mobile communications with H-index of 61. He had/has supervised/co-supervising several Ph.D. and Master Students.

Dear CSIM Members,

It is my pleasure to announce that Prof. Lionel C. Briand was our speaker at CSIM Online Seminars on June 10th 2022 at 13:30 EDT .

Please find below content information of this most interesting seminar.

Best regards,

Nizar Zorba,

CSIM chair

Speaker: Lionel C. Briand | IEEE Fellow | ACM Fellow

Professor of software engineering | School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of Ottawa, Canada

Professor of software engineering | The SnT centre for Security, Reliability, and Trust, University of Luxembourg.

Seminar Title: Trustworthy Machine Learning-Enabled Systems

Content (video recording): Please find the seminar recording at https://youtu.be/Z5lbNhxofYs

Content (slides): Please find the seminar slides at https://www.dropbox.com/s/esvuuwr33w5h3sl/Briand-CSIM-2022.pdf?dl=0

Abstract: This talk will provide a personal perspective on the state of art regarding the automated testing and analysis of software systems enabled by machine learning. Such systems typically contain components relying on machine learning, whose behavior is not specified or coded but driven by training data, but which interact with other components in the system and play a critical role. Typical examples include cyber-physical systems that rely on machine learning in their perception (e.g., analyzing camera images) and control (e.g., sending commands to actuators) layers. In my reflections, I will rely both on my analysis of the state of the art and personal experience in research projects carried out with industrial partners in the automotive domain.

Bio: Lionel C. Briand is professor of software engineering and has shared appointments between (1) School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of Ottawa, Canada and (2) The SnT centre for Security, Reliability, and Trust, University of Luxembourg. He is the head of the SVV department at the SnT Centre and a Canada Research Chair in Intelligent Software Dependability and Compliance (Tier 1). He has conducted applied research in collaboration with industry for more than 25 years, including projects in the automotive, aerospace, manufacturing, financial, and energy domains. He is a fellow of the IEEE and ACM. He was also granted the IEEE Computer Society Harlan Mills award (2012), the IEEE Reliability Society Engineer-of-the-year award (2013), and the ACM SIGSOFT Outstanding Research Award for his work on software testing and verification. More details can be found on: http://www.lbriand.info

Please find hereafter the CSIM Newsletter – Spring 2022

Many thanks to all the contributors for their interesting inputs.

Dear CSIM Members,

You are invited to attend the next CSIM online seminar by Dr. Josep M. Jornet. Please mark your calendar, and we look forward to seeing you on 11 April 2022, at 13:00 EDT in this interesting seminar.

Best regards,

Nizar Zorba,

CSIM chair

Speaker: Dr. Josep M. Jornet

Associate Professor & Director of the Ultrabroadband Nanonetworking Laboratory  | Northeastern University, USA.         

Seminar Title: Unleashing the Spectrum above 100 GHz: From Theory to Practice

Meeting link: https://qu.webex.com/qu/j.php?MTID=ma7419cdcfd362e8872683996e2f878f9

Content (Video recording): Please find the seminar recording at: https://youtu.be/TjxRMGqIDNo

Abstract: Terahertz (THz)-band (0.1–10 THz) communication is envisioned as a key wireless technology in 6G and beyond systems. In the last decade, the THz technology gap has been progressively closed through major advancements in electronic, photonic, and plasmonic technologies. In parallel, the propagation of THz signals has been studied through both physics-based and data-driven approaches, debunking some of the myths about the THz channel. Nevertheless, there are several communication and networking roadblocks that need to be overcome to unleash the spectrum above 100 GHz. In this talk, the state of the art and open challenges at the physical, link and network layers of THz communication systems will be presented. Specific topics include novel ultrabroadband waveforms designs that can not only overcome but leverage the distance-dependent bandwidth resulting from molecular absorption; intelligent reflecting surfaces able to engineer wavefronts in ways that in the past were only available to optical systems; new receiver initiated medium access control protocols for ultra-directional links coupled with expedited neighbor discovery strategies’ and cross-layer multi-hop relaying strategies. Moreover, a glimpse at state-of-the-art experimental platforms for THz communication networks will be provided.

Bio: Josep M. Jornet is an Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, the Director of the Ultrabroadband Nanonetworking Laboratory and a faculty member of the Institute for the Wireless Internet of Things and the SMART Center at Northeastern University, in Boston, MA. He received the B.S. in Telecommunication Engineering and the M.Sc. in Information and Communication Technologies from the Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain, in 2008. He received the Ph.D. degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, in 2013. From August 2013 and August 2019, he was a Faculty with the Department of Electrical Engineering at the University at Buffalo, The State University of New York. His research interests are in Terahertz-band communication networks, Wireless Nano-bio-communication Networks and the Internet of Nano-Things. In these areas, he has co-authored more than 180 peer-reviewed scientific publications, 1 book, and has also been granted 4 US patents, which accumulate over 11,700 citations (h-index of 48) as of March 2022. He is serving as the lead PI on multiple grants from U.S. federal agencies including the National Science Foundation, the Air Force Office of Scientific Research and the Air Force Research Laboratory. He is the Editor-in-Chief of Elsevier Nano Communication Networks Journal, and serves in the Steering Committee of the ACM Conference Series on Nanoscale Computing and Communications. He is a recipient of the National Science Foundation CAREER Award and of several other awards from IEEE, ACM, UB and NU. He is a member of the ACM and a senior member of the IEEE. He is an IEEE Communications Society Distinguished Lecturer, Class of 2022-2023.

Dear CSIM Members,

It is my pleasure to announce that Dr. Ahmed Alkhateeb was our speaker at CSIM Online Seminars on March 21st 2022, at 13:30 EDT.

Please find below content information of this most interesting seminar.

Best regards,

Nizar Zorba,

CSIM chair

Speaker: Dr. Ahmed Alkhateeb

Assistant Professor | Arizona State University, USA.

Seminar Title: Machine Learning Aided 6G: Leveraging Sensory Data for Highly-Mobile and Reliable Communication Systems

Content (Video recording): Please find the seminar recording at https://youtu.be/hUpnNmZnSDI

Brief Abstract: Millimeter-wave (mmWave) and terahertz (THz) MIMO are key enabling technologies for 5G, 6G, and beyond. The communication over these frequency bands, however, is subject to critical challenges, such as the large training overhead associated with adjusting the narrow beams and the high sensitivity to blockages. These challenges make it difficult for mmWave/THz MIMO systems to support applications like virtual/augmented reality and vehicular communications that have high mobility and strict reliability constraints. In this talk, I will first motivate the use of sensory data and machine learning to address these challenges. Then, I will present DeepSense 6G, a large-scale real-world multi-modal sensing and communication dataset that enables the research in a wide range of sensing and communication applications. After that, I will go over a few machine learning tasks enabled by the dataset such as camera, radar, LiDAR, and position aided beam and blockage prediction. Finally, I will discuss some future research directions in this interesting topic of sensing-aided wireless communication.

Short biography: Ahmed Alkhateeb received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in Electrical Engineering from Cairo University, Egypt, in 2008 and 2012, and his Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from The University of Texas at Austin, USA, in 2016. After the Ph.D., he spent some time as a Wireless Communications Researcher at the Connectivity Lab, Facebook, before joining Arizona State University (ASU) in Spring 2018, where he is currently an Assistant Professor in the School of Electrical, Computer, and Energy Engineering. His research interests are in the broad areas of wireless communications, signal processing, machine learning, and applied math. Dr. Alkhateeb is the recipient of the 2012 MCD Fellowship from The University of Texas at Austin, the 2016 IEEE Signal Processing Society Young Author Best Paper Award for his work on hybrid precoding and channel estimation in millimeter-wave communication systems, and the NSF CAREER Award 2021 to support his research on leveraging machine learning for large-scale MIMO systems.

Dear CSIM Members,

You are invited to attend next CSIM online seminar by Dr. Giovanni Geraci. Please mark your calendar, and we look forward to seeing you on 25 January 2022, at 10:00 CET in this interesting seminar.

Please find below content information of this most interesting seminar.

Speaker: Dr. Giovanni Geraci

Assistant Professor | University Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain.

Seminar Title: Non-terrestrial networks: Connecting the Dots between Ground, Air, and Space

Meeting link: https://qu.webex.com/qu/j.php?MTID=mcb1bb2da37a3a87ba8aad24674fa0bab

YouTube Link: https://youtu.be/UgKiJrRO6bo

Brief Abstract: Barely seen in action movies until a decade ago, the progressive blending of UAVs into our daily lives will greatly impact labor and leisure activities alike. Most stakeholders regard reliable connectivity as a must-have for the UAV ecosystem to thrive, and the wireless research community has been rolling up its sleeves to drive a native and long-lasting support for UAVs in 5G and beyond. Moving up, the recent introduction of more affordable insertions into low Earth orbit is luring new players to the space race, making a marriage between the satellite and cellular industries more likely than ever. This talk will connect the dots between ground, aerial, and spaceborne communications, navigate from 5G to 6G use cases, requirements, and enablers involving non-terrestrial networks, and also act as a catalyst for much-needed new research.

Short biography: Giovanni Geraci is an Assistant Professor at University Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona and the coordinator of the Telecommunications Engineering program. He was previously a Research Scientist with Nokia Bell Labs and holds a Ph.D. from the UNSW Sydney. He serves as Distinguished Lecturer of IEEE ComSoc and IEEE VTS and Editor for IEEE TWC and IEEE COMML. He is a co-Editor of the book “UAV Communications for 5G and Beyond” by Wiley—IEEE Press and received the IEEE ComSoc Outstanding Young Researcher Award for Europe, Middle East, and Africa.

Please find hereafter the CSIM Newsletter – Fall 2021

Many thanks to all the contributors for their interesting inputs.