February Luncheon Meeting (Goleta) 02/14/18
Wireless Challenges for RF, Millimeter-wave, and Photonic Technologies
Higher wireless data rates are demanding increased sophistication. Future networks (often called 5G) will need to meet demands on throughput, latency, and low-power requirements. Our speaker will discuss challenges confronting the currently-allocated RF spectrum and the potential for full-duplex communication (simultaneous transmit and receive) to increase spectral efficiency. He will present recent work at UCSB to realize full-duplex through the use of signal processing at the antenna.
Congestion in the RF bands is leading to commercial interest in millimeter-wave bands. To compete with RF bands, energy efficiency for short-range millimeter-wave links is needed. Significant advancements have been made in phased array and multiple-input/multi-output systems to support complex waveforms such as QAM and multiple simultaneous beams. Dr. Buckwalter will discuss the costs and benefits of such approaches and his lab's research into millimeter-wave systems.
Finally, he will present future plans to use photonic technologies to alleviate issues associated with millimeter-wave wireless networks.
Dr. James F. Buckwalter, Professor UCSB Electrical
Dr. Buckwalter received a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Caltech in 2006. He is currently a Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at UCSB. Prior to his position at UCSB, he was an Associate Professor at UC San Diego. He has also conducted research at Telcordia Technologies at the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center. Dr. Buckwalter has received numerous awards, including a 2004 IBM Ph.D. Fellowship, a 2007 Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Young Faculty Award, a 2011 NSF CAREER Award, and a 2015 IEEE MTT-S Young Engineer Award.