IEEE Latin-American Conference on Communications
14-16 November 2018 – Guadalajara, Mexico

Tutorials

IEEE LATINCOM 2018 will host the following tutorials on Wednesday November 14th for all attendees with a registration. Tutorials will be hosted by Universidad de Guadalajara, CUCSH-Belenes.


TUTORIAL 1:

Localization-of-Things

Outline: The availability of real-time high-accuracy location awareness is essential for current and future wireless applications, particularly for the Internet-of-Things and 5G networks, in the new era of Localization-of-Things. Reliable localization and navigation is a critical component for various applications including connected communities, smart environments, vehicle autonomy, home automation, asset tracking, medical services, military systems, and wireless sensor networks. The coming years will see the emergence of network localization and navigation in challenging environments with sub-meter accuracy and minimal infrastructure requirements. We will cover fundamental bounds, cooperative algorithms, operation strategies, and network experimentation. Fundamental bounds serve as performance benchmark, and as a tool for network design. Cooperative algorithms are a way to achieve drastic performance improvements with respect to traditional non-cooperative positioning. To harness these benefits, system designers must develop operation strategies. Network experimentation are essential to compare different cooperative algorithms under common settings. This tutorial aims to provide researchers and practitioners with rigorous, yet concise treatment of network localization and navigation.

LECTURERS:

Moe Win is a Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Prior to joining MIT, he was at AT&T Research Laboratories for five years and at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for seven years. His research encompasses fundamental theories, algorithm design, and network experimentation for a broad range of real-world problems. His current research topics include network localization and navigation, network interference exploitation, and quantum information science. Professor Win has served the IEEE Communications Society as an elected Member-at-Large on the Board of Governors, as elected Chair of the Radio Communications Committee, and as an IEEE Distinguished Lecturer. Over the last two decades, he held various editorial positions for IEEE journals and organized numerous international conferences. Currently, he is serving on the SIAM Diversity Advisory Committee. He was honored with two IEEE Technical Field Awards: the IEEE Kiyo Tomiyasu Award and the IEEE Eric E. Sumner Award. Together with students and colleagues, his papers have received numerous awards. Other recognitions include the IEEE Communications Society Edwin H. Armstrong Achievement Award, the International Prize for Communications Cristoforo Colombo, the Copernicus Fellowship and the Laurea Honoris Causa from the University of Ferrara, and the U.S. Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers. Professor Win is elected Fellow of the AAAS, the IEEE, and the IET. He is an ISI Highly Cited Researcher.

Andrea Conti is an Associate Professor at the University of Ferrara, Italy. Prior to joining the University of Ferrara, he was with the Consorzio Nazionale Interuniversitario per le Telecomunicazioni and with the IEIIT-Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche. In Summer 2001, he was with the Wireless Systems Research Department at AT&T Research Laboratories. Since 2003, he has been a frequent visitor to the Wireless Information and Network Sciences Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he presently holds the Research Affiliate appointment. His research interests involve theory and experimentation of wireless systems and networks including network localization, distributed sensing, adaptive diversity communications, and networksecrecy. He is recipient of the THE Puskás Tivadar Medal and co-recipient of the IEEE Communications Society’s Stephen O. Rice Prize in the Field of Communications Theory and of the IEEE CommunicationsSociety’s Fred W. Ellersick Prize. Dr. Conti has served as editor for IEEE journals, as well as chaired international conferences. He has been elected Chair of the IEEECommunications Society’s Radio Communications Technical Committee. He is a co- founder and elected Secretary of the IEEE Quantum Communications & Information Technology Emerging Technical Subcommittee. He is an elected Fellow of the IET and has been selected as an IEEE Distinguished Lecturer.


TUTORIAL 2:

Recent advances on Visible Light Communications for Internet of Things

Outline: Visible light communications (also known as Li‐Fi in some cases) are becoming an alternative to traditional radio systems for low‐rate, short distance internet of things applications. In the recent years, wireless optical communications have become not only a research area for the academia, but a commercial development issue for companies in Europe, East Asia and America. Scientific organizations and companies are also accomplishing a standardization effort to produce reliable wireless optical networks compatible with preexistent ones, capable of working jointly within a Het‐Net architecture.
This tutorial aims to present the state of the art of the VLC development, the potential capabilities and limitations of this technology, the main application scenarios, the present and coming standards and open research challenges. Special interest will be given to the use of cameras as receivers, opening a new brand of applications in areas as smartphone‐based services or V2V transmission. The concept of illumication (illumination+communication) will be also studied and their related issues (dimming, power efficiency, eye safety) discussed in depth.

LECTURERS:

Rafael Pérez Jiménez, (Madrid, Spain, 1965). Eng. (UPM‐1991) PhD (ULPGC‐1995, Honours), Full Professor at the School of Telecommunications and Electronics Engineering of the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria since 2003, Chairman of IDeTIC (University Research Institute for Technological Development and Innovation in communications) of the ULPGC since its foundation (2010). He participates or has participated in 11 transnational projects (4 running H2020, MSCA and EURIPIDES European projects), 20 official national projects in competitive calls and a score of relevant contracts with companies and administrations.

He has published 4 teaching books, 5 book chapters on his research work in international publishing houses, as well as over 60 articles in indexed journals (4 more in evaluation) and over 140 papers at peer‐reviewed conferences. He is a frequent reviewer in different international magazines and congresses (within the IEEE, IET or OSA, among others) as well as evaluator in various research agencies in several countries. He has directed 9 PhD theses (6 more in progress). His main area of specialization corresponds to the development of optical communication systems, especially for sensor networks and medium/low speed links, including both the vehicular and domestic environment, and the characterization of optical channels in indoor and mobile systems. He is also participating in research projects on applications of sensor networks and internet of things, and his current activity covers the SmartCities development, especially those dedicated to the tourism sector (SmartDestination). He has been awarded with the gold medal of RSEAPGC (2017), the Vodaphone Innovation award (2010) and has been elected as member of the Canarian Studies Institute (IECan

José Martín Luna Rivera received the B.S and M.Eng. in electronics engineering from the Autonomous University of San Luis Potosi (UASLP), Mexico, in 1997 and 1998, respectively. He received the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from the University of Edinburgh, UK, in 2003. He is currently a Vice‐Dean at the College of Science of the Autonomous University of San Luis Potosi, Mexico, since 2016, where he has been an Associate Professor since 2004. He has published 4 book chapters, 37 papers in indexed journals, and more than 60 conference papers. In 2014, he received the “University Award for Technological and Scientific Research” as a Young Researcher from the Autonomous University of San Luis Potosi. Dr. Luna‐Rivera has served as a Guest Editor for the Journals Wireless Communications and Mobile Computing (Special Issue on Channel Modeling and Simulation for Vehicular Communications, 2017), Procedia Technology (Special Issue on Electronics Engineering and Computer Science, 2013) and as Technical Program Committee member for various conferences. Much of his research has focused on signal processing for wireless communication and visible light communications. More recently, he has been conducting research on IoT Applications where he is participating on a long‐term agreement with Sigfox Service Provider in Mexico for the implementation of IoT solutions in Mexico.

José A. Rabadán Borges, (Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain, 1970). Eng. (ULPGC‐1995) PhD (ULPGC‐ 2001, Honours), Professor at the School of Telecommunications and Electronics Engineering of the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria since 2003, Head of the Photonics and Communications Division of IDeTIC (University Research Institute for Technological Development and Innovation in communications) of the ULPGC since 2010. He has participated in more than 15 transnational projects and contracts with international administrations and companies (EU H2020, ESA, and EURIPIDES European projects among others), and several official national and local projects in competitive calls. He has published one teaching book, three book chapters on his research work in international publishing houses, as well as over 20 articles in indexed journals and over 90 papers at peer‐ reviewed conferences. He has directed 3 PhD theses (3 more in progress). Its areas of interest are in the optical wireless communications, starting in the Infrared links at the beginning of its researches, and at present, he is studying the Visible Light Communications characterization and applications. This work includes channel estimation methods, performance and viability analysis of VLC links in different application scenarios (IoT, Smart City, Smart Building, V2X, underwater, etc.), new modulations/codifications specific for VLC technology, system and architectures design and implementation.


TUTORIAL 3:

Next Generation Satellite Networks for 5G and Beyond

Outline: The 5G and beyond networks when deployed, will provide high data rates, lower end-to-end latency, massive device connectivity, reduced cost and consistent user quality of experience provisioning. These networks and enabling technologies are expected to transform the way we live and work. The first segment of this course will provide a Roadmap of 5G, enablers such as Internet of Things (IoT) and machine to machine (M2M) services and the future mobile traffic estimates. Following that, network architectures such as Cloud Radio Access Networks (C-RAN) and technologies like Software Defined Networking (SDN), and Network Function Virtualization (NFV) are discussed. Key Performance Indicators (KPI) with reference to QoS and QoE are briefly described. The presentation also includes the current state of 5G activities, technology forecasts and the research challenges.

The second segment of the course includes a seamless integration of satellite into 5G. The satellite communications plays a significant role as a complementary solution to the terrestrial networks, due to its ubiquitous coverage, broadcast/multicast and emergency/disaster recovery, not only in rural but in urban areas also. 5G satellite concepts are introduced with various system design options e.g. LEO/MEO/GEO, different spectrum bands Ka/Q/V and regenerative vs bent pipe options. The current High Throughput Satellites (HTS) are envisaged satellite traffic of tera bits per second makes these 5G satellite systems realizable. An example of hybrid/integrated (5G satellite-terrestrial network) is discussed. Subsequently, a brief overview of current standardization efforts by organizations e.g. ITU-R, 5GPPP, 3GPPP, IEEE are included. As a part of this course, students are given an opportunity to do an independent research on a selected topic in this area, and present their study results on the last day of the course. The course concludes with a review, future research directions and a class interaction (Q&A).

LECTURER:

Sastri Kota is currently President of SoHum Consultants. He has held several management, technical and Senior Scientist positions at Harris, Loral, Lockheed Martin, SRI International, The MITRE, XEROX and CSC Corporations. He contributed to design and development of satellite communication systems, tactical radio networks; Ka-band satellite networks, two-way IP based DVB-RCS/DVB-S2 platforms, and mobile ad hoc wireless networks for military/commercial applications. He led the network segment of the broadband multimedia services (BMS) Program of Loral space and an ATM/IP based satellite system – Astrolink of Lockheed Martin. He has been extensively active in standardization organizations such as ITU, IETF, ATM Forum and TIA. He was the U.S. chair/head of the US Delegation for the ITU-R Working Party 4B during 1997-2011, involved with the fixed, mobile and broadcast satellite system performance and air interface; and Wireless ATM Chair of the ATM Forum.

Dr. Kota has been an Adjunct Professor at the University of Oulu, Finland since 2006, in advanced communication system design especially for wireless and satellite networks. He also delivered invited lectures and conducted short courses in European Universities and Asian Information Institutes in Aalborg Denmark, Barcelona Spain, Siena Italy, Singapore, Shanghai China and Taiwan; MNIT Jaipur, LNMIT Jaipur, KL University Vijayawada, India on trends in satellite networking, DVB technologies, convergence in mobile and wireless networks, dynamic resource allocation, wireless ATM, ATM Networking and DAMA. He delivered tutorials during MILCOM 2009, 2010 conferences on DVB Networking, technologies and standards. He has authored/co-authored 5 books and 200 papers in conference proceedings and journals. He holds US patents in bandwidth allocation and cross-layer designs.

Dr. Kota served as a guest editor of special issues for IEEE Communications magazine, Wireless Magazine, VTS magazine, Int’l Journal of Satellite Communications and Networking, Space Communications and Int’l Journal of Wireless Information Networks. He is a member of the editorial boards on the Int’l Journal of Satellite Communications and Networking, the Space Communications and Peer-Peer networking. His research areas include 5G satellite, high throughput satellite systems, broadband satellite systems, QoS and cross layer designs, cooperative communications, DVB networks and signal processing. Dr. Kota has been a keynote speaker, invited speaker and panelist at various international conferences.  He served as the Unclassified Technical Program Chair of MILCOM 2007, Technical Committee member of MILCOM2004, 1997, Asst Technical Chair of MILCOM 1990 and organized and chaired sessions in MILCOM since 1986; Satellite Communications symposium chair of IEEE GLOBECOM 2002, 2000, co-chair of Wireless Communications and networking symposium of GLOBECOM2006, and Technical chair of ISWPC2007, WCNC 2008 panel chair, and invited session chair for PIMRC 2006, 2005, 2004. He is the co-chair of Wireless Networking Symposium for GLOBECOM 2009. Dr. Kota holds a Ph.D. in Information Engineering from University of Oulu, Finland; Electrical Engineer’s Degree from Northeastern University, Boston, USA; MSEE from IIT; BSEE from BITS, India. He is Life Senior Member of IEEE and Associate Fellow of AIAA. He is the recipient of Golden Quill awards from Harris Corporation, publication awards from Lockheed Martin and ATM Forum Spotlight Award.


TUTORIAL 4:

The IEEE 802.11ax Amendment: The 6G of WLANs

Outline: The first IEEE 802.11 wireless local area network (WLAN) standard was introduced in 1997 to operate in the 2.4 GHz industrial, scientific, and medical (ISM) band and specifies a maximum physical layer (PHY) data rate of 2 Mbps. In 2016, almost two decades later, the main IEEE 802.11 medium access control (MAC) and PHY amendments to the original IEEE 802.11 spec are the IEEE 802.11n (2009, 540 Mbps), IEEE 802.11ac (2013, 7 Gbps), IEEE 802.11ah (2016, > 100 kbps) and IEEE 802.11af (2014, 568.9 Mbps). There are extraordinary business opportunities in the Wi-Fi market chain due to the Wi-Fi rollouts by telecom operators and the traffic explosion in ultra-dense networks. The demands of consumer and corporative market segments to increase the throughput with quality-of-service (QoS) have increased exponentially the Wi-Fi devices shipments (e.g., according with ABI Research 3B Wi-Fi chipsets were shipped globally in 2017). This motivated the creation of the High Efficiency WLANs (HEW) Study Group (SG) in May 2013 with the following main targets: improve the spectrum efficiency and area throughput of 5-10 times in ultra-dense networks; increase the real-world performance in both indoor and outdoor deployments; boost power efficiency; operate within 2.4 GHz ISM and 5 GHz U-NII bands. The work developed at HEW SG led to the creation of Task Group (TG) 802.11ax in May 2014. At this moment, the TG 802.11ax has been working in the resolutions to improve the Draft 3.0. The approval of the 802.11ax amendments is forecasted to 2019. The main objectives of this tutorial are:

  1. To provide a solid background on the evolution of standards and amendments developed by IEEE 802.11 standardization committee.
  2. To describe the main characteristics of the current 802.11 MAC protocols.
  3. To substantiate a clear understanding of the motivations and usage cases that have been driven the development of the IEEE 802.11ax amendment.
  4. To stablish a deep understanding of the main MAC and PHY layer protocols and technologies that have been researched in the TG IEEE 802.11ax.
  5. To present and discuss research directions on WLANs.

LECTURER:

Roger Pierre Fabris Hoefel is Associate Professor at Department of Electrical Engineering of Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. He received the degree of Doctor in Electrical Engineering by State University of Campinas (UNICAMP), Campinas, São Paulo, Brazil, in 2000; Master in Computer Science by UFRGS in 1994; Post-Graduated in Electronic Instrumentation by Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC), Florianópolis, Santa Catarina, Brazil, in 1991; Bachelor in Electrical Engineering by Pontific Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul (PUC-RS), Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, in 1990. His current research interest includes design, analyzes and optimization of algorithms for physical and medium access control layers of wireless networks.