The University of Texas at Austin recently formed a new research program aimed at creating fundamental knowledge and improving understanding for future wireless communications networks. The Wireless Networking and Communications Group, has state-of-the art wireless hardware equipment and software capabilities for the analysis, design, research, and development of wireless networks, systems, and components from baseband to 60 GHz.
The group will focus on six key thrust areas fundamental to wireless networks:
1) propagation and antennas; 2) signal processing techniques and implementation;
3) modulation and coding; 4) network architectures, software, and protocol performance;
5) sensor and ad-hoc networks; and 6) network security.
UT Austin committed significant resources to this new research initiative, including seven new electrical and computer engineering faculty positions in wireless communications and networking, an entire floor of the Engineering Science building on the university’s downtown campus, a fully functional antenna range, anechoic chamber, and test facilities for RF/Antenna/Microstrip design, development and wireless network system testing at UT Austin’s J.J. Pickle Research Campus.
UT Austin’s Wireless Networking and Communications Group will engage faculty and students in a cross-disciplinary research culture, and will reach out to other areas of expertise within UT Austin to analyze, design, deploy, and fabricate futuristic wireless devices, systems, sub-systems, and networks.
Dr. Ted Rappaport, holder of UT Austin’s William and Bettye Nowlin Chair in Engineering and a leading researcher in wireless communications, was recently recruited to lead the Wireless Networking and Communications Group. Dr. Rappaport developed one of the world’s first academic research centers in the fields of antennas/propagation, communications, and signal processing at Virginia Tech in the 1990s. In September he brought his research to UT Austin to continue work in communications and networking.
Also joining the Wireless Networking and Communications Group this year are three new assistant professors in the wireless networking and communications area. In January, Robert Heath, an expert in multi-antenna systems, joined UT Austin's faculty from Stanford University. Within the past few weeks, two additional faculty, Jeff Andrews, a researcher in CDMA from Stanford University, and Sanjay Shakkottai, with expertise in wireless networking from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, have joined the Wireless Networking and Communications Group.
All faculty are actively involved in creating a unified curriculum and will teach new or existing courses to build UT’s communications area. The group will create a state-of-the art undergraduate and graduate curriculum while focusing on pre-competitive research fundamental to the telecommunications, semiconductor and software industries.
The UT Austin faculty involved with the formation of the Wireless Networking and Communications Group, and their areas of expertise, include:
Dr. Jeff Andrews: CDMA communications and multiple access techniques; Dr. William Bard: security, software, network design, and implementation;
Dr. Al Bovik: image and video processing and communication;
Dr. Gustavo de Veciana: analysis, design and performance evaluation of communication and sensor networks;
Dr. Brian Evans: real-time DSP algorithms and transceiver design;
Dr. Robert Heath: Smart Antennas, DSP, and Multiple-Input Multiple
Output systems;
Dr. Dean Neikirk: microwave devices, fabrication, and sensors
Dr. Scott Nettles: Active Network architecture, design, and
Implementation;
Dr. Hao Ling: antennas, propagation and RF design;
Dr. Ted Rappaport: RF propagation, system design, and data networks;
Dr. Sanjay Shakkottai: wireless network modeling, control, and scheduling; Dr. Edward Powers: communication systems, propagation and DSP.
To provide close ties with R&D experts at companies and government agencies, the Wireless Networking and Communications Group launched an Industrial Affiliates program. The program provides sponsor companies with direct access to student recruiting, early exposure to research results and technology expertise, access to UT Austin research facilities, and direct contact with researchers across campus.
Motorola, SBC, Texas Instruments, and Metrowerks joined the Wireless Networking and Communications Group Industrial Affiliates Program as founding members, and faculty are in discussions with other leading technology companies and leading government research agencies to consider membership as well.
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