Keynote Speakers

Vincent LAU1Vincent Lau obtained B.Eng (Distinction 1st Hons) from the University of Hong Kong (1989-1992) and Ph.D. from the Cambridge University (1995-1997). He joined Bell Labs from 1997-2004 and the Department of ECE, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) in 2004. He is currently a Professor and the Founding Director of Huawei-HKUST Joint Innovation Lab at HKUST. He is also elected as IEEE Fellow, HKIE Fellow, Croucher Senior Research Fellow and Changjiang Chair Professor. His current research focus includes robust cross layer optimization for MIMO/OFDM wireless systems, interference mitigation techniques for wireless networks, delay-optimal cross layer optimizations as well as multi-timescale stochastic network optimization.

Talk Title:  Delay-Aware D2D Networking

Abstract:  Taking advantage of the physical proximity of communication devices, D2D techniques enable direct communications between devices without passing through the base station and this results in high data rates and low power consumptions. In this talk, we give a brief overview of the motivation and technical challenges of supporting delay-aware D2D systems. We also present a case study where we derive a low complexity closed form power control solutions for delay-aware D2D networking. Extensions and generalization of the techniques will also be addressed.

Arslan ImageHuseyin Arslan has received his PhD. degree in 1998 from Southern Methodist University (SMU), Dallas, Tx. From January 1998 to August 2002, he was with the research group of Ericsson Inc., NC, USA, where he was involved with several project related to 2G and 3G wireless cellular communication systems. Since August 2002, he has been with the Electrical Engineering Dept. of University of South Florida. Recently, he joined Istanbul Medipol University as a professor and dean of the College of Engineering and Natural Sciences. Dr. Arslan has worked as part time consultant for various companies and institutions including Anritsu Company, The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey- TUBITAK, Lecroy, and XG technologies. Dr. Arslan’s research interests are related to advanced signal processing techniques at the physical layer, with cross-layer design for networking adaptivity and Quality of Service (QoS) control. He is interested in many forms of wireless technologies including cellular, wireless PAN/LAN/MANs, fixed wireless access, and specialized wireless data networks like wireless sensors networks and wireless telemetry. The current research interests are on UWB, OFDM based wireless technologies with emphasis on WIMAX and IMT-Advanced, and cognitive and software defined radio. He has served as technical program committee chair, technical program committee member, session and symposium organizer, and workshop chair in several IEEE conferences. He is a member of the editorial board for “IEEE Transactions on Communications”, “Wireless Communication and Mobile Computing Journal”, and “Journal of Electrical and Computer Engineering” by Hindawi Publishing Corporation. Dr. Arslan is a senior member of IEEE.

Talk Title:  Communications when most needed: Wireless in Emergency and Disaster Situations

Abstract:  The role of wireless communication in emergency, safety, security, and rescue operations is very crucial. One of the major challenges in today’s wireless world is the ability to deploy a secure and reliable communications network in disaster and emergency scenarios. Past experiences (September 11, Hurricane Katrina, and many others) have shown that today’s commercial wireless communication networks fail when they are most needed. It is well documented that the wireless systems became overloaded, as certain infrastructure was destroyed and other infrastructures were overwhelmed. During these events it was clearly seen that the ability to exploit a multitude of communication networks, both private and public, the interoperability between the available networks, the flexibility of the wireless devices to operate across different networks with adaptive radio capabilities, the capability of the networks to operate in both centralized and distributed manner are some of the important issues that the wireless communications community still has long way to go. In this presentation, we will discuss the role of wireless communications in safety, security, and rescue, and discuss some of the challenges for these applications.

PetarPopovskifotoPetar Popovski received Dipl.-Ing. in electrical engineering (1997) and Magister Ing. in communication engineering (2000) from Sts. Cyril and Methodius University, Skopje, Macedonia, and Ph.D. from Aalborg University, Denmark, in 2004. He is currently a Professor at Aalborg University. He has more than 160 publications in journals, conference proceedings and books and has more than 25 patents and patent applications. He has received the Young Elite Researcher award and the SAPERE AUDE career grant from the Danish Council for Independent Research. He has received six best paper awards, including three from IEEE. Dr. Popovski serves on the editorial board of several journals, including IEEE Communications Letters (Senior Editor), IEEE JSAC Cognitive Radio Series, and IEEE Transactions on Communications. He is a Steering Committee member for the upcoming IEEE Transactions on Internet of Things and Chair of the ComSoc subcommittee on Smart Grid Communications. His research interests are in the broad area of wireless communication and networking, information theory and protocol design.

Talk Title: What is in it for D2D in 5G wireless and Support of Underlay Low-Rate M2M links?

Abstract: The research work on 5G wireless systems is gaining momentum and, in that context, Device-to-Device (D2D) communication has the potential to introduce new applications and use cases, beyond the current focus on D2D in relation to public safety. In the first part of the talk, D2D communication will be discussed in terms of its uses and challenges within the 5G scenarios pursued in METIS, a large European research effort on 5G wireless technologies. Those uses of D2D include, for example, machine-to-machine (M2M) communication in smart grids and vehicular environments. The second part of the talk will explore the opportunity opened by D2D links for supporting underlay low-rate M2M links. Specifically, we consider an on-body M2M device connected to a mobile phone that acts as a relay towards the Base Station (BS). The low-rate requirement for this D2D connection allows underlay operation with Successive Interference Cancellation (SIC) during the cellular downlink transmissions. We investigate the tradeoff between, on one hand, the achieved rate for the downlink cellular users and, on the other hand, the outage probability for the MTC link. The results show that SIC is an important enabler of low-power underlay D2D transmission for low-rate machine-type traffic.