Title:

Near-field MIMO: An Old Theory Up To New Tricks

Time: Wednesday, May 3rd 2023, 9:30 – 10:30

 

Abstract:

We are in the midst of a tidal transformation in the conditions in which wireless systems operate, with a determined push towards much higher frequencies (today mmWave, tomorrow sub-terahertz), with shrinking transmission ranges, and with much denser antenna arrays. This is stretching, even breaking, time-honored modelling assumptions such as that of planar wavefronts over the arrays. And, once the local curvature of those wavefronts is nonnegligible, a new opportunity arises for spatial multiplexing without any need for scattering or for multipath components. Conveniently, spatial multiplexing can then rely on the line-of-sight propagation path or the strong specular reflections that tend to dominate at those high frequencies and over short ranges. This presentation dwells on the physical underpinnings of this phenomenon, on how it can be harnessed for communication purposes, and on its potential implications for future systems.

 

Biography:

Angel Lozano is a Professor at UPF in Barcelona, Spain. Prof. Lozano received his Ph.D. from Stanford University in 1998. In 1999, he joined Bell Labs (Lucent Technologies, now Nokia) in Holmdel, USA, where he was a member of the Wireless Communications Research Department until 2008. Between 2005 and 2008 he was also an Adjunct Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering at Columbia University, USA. Prof. Lozano is a Fellow of the IEEE since 2014. He served as area editor for the IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications (2017-2022) and as associate editor for the IEEE Transactions on Information Theory (2011-2014), the IEEE Transactions on Communications (1999-2009), the Journal of Communications & Networks (2010-2012), and the ComSoc Technology News (2018-2022). He has guest-edited various journal special issues and is actively involved in committees and conference organization tasks for the IEEE; in particular, he was the Chair of the IEEE Communication Theory Technical Committee (2013-2014) and was elected to the Board of Governors of the IEEE Communications Society (2012-2014). He has further participated in standardization activities for 3GPP, 3GPP2, IEEE 802.20 and the IETF. Prof. Lozano has published extensively, holds 16 patents, and is the coauthor of the textbook “Foundations of MIMO Communication,” released by Cambridge University Press in 2019. His papers have received several awards, including the 2009 Stephen O. Rice prize to the best paper published in the IEEE Transactions on Communications, the 2016 Fred W. Ellersick prize to the best paper published in the IEEE Communications Magazine, and the 2016 Communications Society & Information Theory Society joint paper award. He also received an ERC Advanced Grant for the period 2016-2021. He was a 2017 Highly Cited Researcher and a Distinguished Lecturer of the IEEE for 2023-2024.