The University of Delaware Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering will hold the third and final lecture in its 2016-17 Distinguished Lecture Series on Wednesday, April 19, from 3:30-4:30 pm in Mitchell Hall Auditorium. A reception will follow in the DuPont Hall Lobby.

Robert Heath, Cullen Trust for Higher Education Endowed Professor at the University of Texas at Austin, will deliver a talk, “Millimeter Wave Communication Using Out-of-Band Information.”

For more information, contact Karen DiStefano by email at kdistef@udel.edu or by phone at 302-831-6699.

Abstract of Heath’s talk

The overhead associated with establishing and operating the link is a major source of inefficiency in millimeter wave communication systems. One significant source of overhead is the time spent training the transmit and receive beams, which occurs during estimation, feedback and channel tracking.

Fortunately, there is side information available through sensing or communication available in bands outside the millimeter wave communication band. This talk explains why beam configuration in millimeter wave systems is a major source of overhead. It then shows how out-of-band information can be used to reduce that overhead. Different types of out-of-band data are described including position, channel state information derived from another communication band, and sensing in the form of radar and video.

Examples of the application of out-of-band information are shown including leveraging inverse finger printing and weighted compressed beam training.

About the speaker

Robert W. Heath Jr. received his doctorate in electrical engineering from Stanford University. He is a Cullen Trust for Higher Education Endowed Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin and a member of the wireless networking and communications group. He is also president and CEO of MIMO Wireless Inc. and chief innovation officer at Kuma Signals LLC.

Heath has received several best paper awards including the 2016 IEEE Communications Society Fred W. Ellersick Prize and the 2016 IEEE Communications Society and Information Theory Society Joint Paper Award.

He authored Introduction to Wireless Digital Communication (Prentice Hall, 2017), co-authored Millimeter Wave Wireless Communications (Prentice Hall, 2014), and authored Digital Wireless Communication: Physical Layer Exploration Lab Using the NI USRP (National Technology and Science Press, 2012).

He is a licensed amateur radio operator, a registered professional engineer in Texas, and a fellow of IEEE.