Industrial – IEEE Sweden VT/COM/IT Chapter

IEEE Distinguished Lecture by Prof. Henry Pfister

On Friday September 16th Prof. Henry Pfister from Duke University had a DLT lecture at the Department of Electrical and Information Technology, Lund University. The topic of the lecture was “Graphical Models and Inference: Insights from Spatial Coupling”.

The slides of the lecture can be found here.

Abstract

This talk focuses on recent theoretical and practical advances in coding, compressed sensing, and multiple-access communication based on spatially-coupled graphical models. The goal is to introduce the key ideas and insights using concrete examples. First, we introduce factor graphs and belief propagation (BP) as tools for understanding large systems of dependent random variables. Then, we describe how these techniques are applied to problems in signal processing and communications. Next, we use the example of low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes on the binary erasure channel to introduce the idea of density-evolution analysis. A key result is that BP decoding algorithms have a noise threshold below which recovery succeeds with high probability. Finally, we discuss how extrinsic-information transfer (EXIT) functions can be used to compare the performance between BP and optimal decoding.

Biography

Henry D. Pfister received his Ph.D. in electrical engineering in 2003 from the University of California, San Diego and he is currently an associate professor in the electrical and computer engineering department of Duke University. Prior to that, he was a professor at Texas A&M University (2006-2014), a post-doctoral fellow at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (2005-2006), and a senior engineer at Qualcomm Corporate R&D in San Diego (2003-2004).
He received the NSF Career Award in 2008, the Texas A&M ECE Department Outstanding Professor Award in 2010, the IEEE COMSOC best paper in Signal Processing and Coding for Data Storage in 2007, and a 2016 STOC Best Paper Award. He is currently an associate editor in coding theory for the IEEE Transactions on Information Theory (2013-2016) and a Distinguished Lecturer of the IEEE Information Theory Society (2015-2016).
His current research interests include information theory, communications, probabilistic graphical models, and machine learning.

IEEE Technical Seminar, Chalmers – Wireless Connectivity through Lighting

On Thursday, 20th of March, an IEEE Technical Seminar will be held by Professor Maïté Brandt-Pearce, University of Virginia and Chalmers Jubilee Professor. The seminar is organized by the Department of Signals and Systems, Chalmers University of Technology.

The lecture will be held as follows.

Time: Thursday 20th of March at 15.00

Location: Room EB, Hörsalsvägen 11, Campus Johanneberg, Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg

Title: Wireless Connectivity through Lighting: Techniques and Applications of Visible Light Communications

Abstract:

LED lamps have recently become the technology of choice for lighting in many environments, from indoor office spaces to outdoor vehicular use. These LED lamps can be modulated at relatively high speeds, opening up the possibility to use them to provide simultaneously illumination and data transmission, so-called visible light communications (VLC). One of the most compelling applications for VLC is in large unobstructed indoor spaces where many users desire concurrent high-speed connectivity, such as conference centers and classrooms; Wi-Fi fails here because of its limited spectrum re-use. Other promising applications include vehicle-to-anything (V2x) communications, indoor positioning, and transmission inside airplane cabins. Yet VLC systems suffer from the limited bandwidth of inexpensive LEDs as well as from intersymbol interference (ISI) imposed by channel multipath. In this talk we introduce transmission schemes to increase the data throughput of single-user VLC systems, as well as adaptive networking techniques that can provide mobile network access for many simultaneous users.

Biography:

Dr. Maïté Brandt-Pearce received her Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Rice University in 1993. She then joined the Charles L. Brown Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Virginia, where she is currently a full Professor. Her research interests include nonlinear effects in fiber-optics, free-space optical communications, optical networks subject to physical layer degradations, body area networks, and radar signal processing. Dr. Brandt-Pearce is the recipient of an NSF CAREER Award and an NSF RIA. She is a co-recipient of Best Paper Awards at ICC 2006 and GLOBECOM 2012. She serves on the editorial board of IEEE Communications Letters, IEEE/OSA Journal of Optical Communications and Networks, and Springer Photonic Network Communications. She is co-editor of a book entitled Cross-Layer Design in Optical Networks, Springer Optical Networks Series, 2013. Dr. Brandt-Pearce has over a hundred and fifty major journal and conference publications.