Speaker
Professor Steve Hranilovic
Topic
Optical Wireless Communications-Fundamental Results and Experiments
Abstract
Due to the increasing scarcity of RF spectrum and growing interference due to multiple users, deploying next generation high-speed wireless networks is becoming increasingly difficult. The use of unlicensed optical bands for wireless communications has been heralded as an exciting development for future broadband access. This talk provides an overview of the research into optical wireless systems taking place at the Free-space Optical Communication Algorithms Laboratory (FOCAL) at McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada. The main thrusts of the group will be highlighted by emphasizing three recent contributions. Firstly, some details of a 2 km free-space optical test bench facility will be presented along with experimental results in radio-over-FSO transmission of DVB-T signals. Secondly, some fundamental results on the capacity-achieving distributions of discrete-time Poisson channels under both peak and average amplitude constraints will be given as well as a practical coding scheme to approach capacity. Such channels model long range inter-satellite laser communication links operating over many thousands of kilometres. Finally, details of communications and localization systems based on visible light communication systems will be presented. The talk will conclude with a brief overview of other ongoing research directions.
Speaker's biography
Steve Hranilovic received the B.A.Sc. degree with honours in electrical engineering from the University of Waterloo, Canada in 1997 and M.A.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Toronto, Canada in 1999 and 2003 respectively.
He is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, McMaster University (Hamilton, Ontario, Canada) where he also serves as the Associate Chair for Undergraduate Studies. During 2010-2011 he spent his research leave as Senior Member, Technical Staff in Advanced Technology for Research in Motion, Waterloo, Canada. His research interests are in the areas of free-space and optical wireless communications, digital communication algorithms, and electronic and photonic implementation of coding and communication algorithms. He is the author of the book Wireless Optical Communication Systems (NewYork:Springer,2004).
Dr. Hranilovic is a licensed Professional Engineer in the Province of Ontario and was awarded the Government of Ontario Early Researcher Award in 2006. He currently serves as an Editor for the IEEE Transactions on Communications in the area of Optical Wireless Communications and is a founder and current Chair of the annual IEEE Workshop on Optical Wireless Communications.
Invited by Professor Amir Khandani