Virtual – Zoom

On Monday, June 28, 2021, come listen to Dr. Shiwen Mao present the IEEE ComSoc VDL: Machine Learning for Wireless Communications and Networking: Motivations, Case Studies, and Open Problems. ZOOM link will be provided to attendees. Contact: IEEE Denver ComSoc Abstract: While 5G deployment is being carried out in many places of the world, there has been great interest in the prospects of 5G beyond and the next generation. Among the various visions, a common theme is that artificial intelligence will play a key role, as evidenced by the great interest and advances in machine learning enabled wireless communications and networking. In this talk, we will discuss the motivation, potential, and challenges of incorporating machine learning in wireless communications and networking for 5G and beyond systems. We will start with two motivating examples, i.e., channel estimation and mobile edge computing, to show why machine learning could be helpful. We will share our experience of several case studies, including (i) a hybrid approach to the classical energy efficiency maximization problem, where traditional models could be used to train a deep learning model; (ii) data augmentation for convolutional neural network (CNN) based automatic modulation classification (AMC), where a conditional generative adversarial network (CGAN) is utilized to generate synthesized training data; and (iii) and an adaptive model for RFID-based 3D human skeleton tracking, which utilizes meta-learning and few-shot fine-tuning to achieve high adaptability to new environments. We will conclude this talk with a discussion of challenges and open problems. Speaker(s): Dr. Shiwen Mao Biography: Shiwen Mao received his Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Polytechnic University, Brooklyn, NY in 2004. He was a postdoc at Virginia Tech from 2004 to 2006, and joined Auburn University, Auburn, AL as an assistant professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering in 2006. He held the McWane Endowed Professorship from 2012 to 2015 and the Samuel Ginn Endowed Professorship from 2015 to 2020. Currently, he is a professor and Earle C. Williams Eminent Scholar Chair, and Director of the Wireless Engineering Research and Education Center at Auburn University. His research interest includes wireless networks, multimedia communications, and smart grid. He is on the editorial board of several IEEE and ACM journals. He is a Distinguished Lecturer of IEEE Communications Society and IEEE Council of RFID, and a Distinguished Speaker of IEEE Vehicular Technology Society. He received the IEEE ComSoc TC-CSR Distinguished Technical Achievement Award in 2019 and NSF CAREER Award in 2010. He is a co-recipient of the 2021 IEEE Communications Society Outstanding Paper Award and the IEEE Vehicular Technology Society 2020 Jack Neubauer Memorial Award. Agenda: 6pm (MT) - Introductions 6:10-7:15 - VDL Presentation 7:15-7:30 - Q&A

Join us on Thursday, June 24, 2021 for the IEEE VDL: Learning to Learn to Communicate, presented by Prof. Osvaldo Simeone. Contact: IEEE Kingston ComSoc Abstract: The application of supervised learning techniques for the design of the physical layer of a communication link is often impaired by the limited amount of pilot data available for each device; while the use of unsupervised learning is typically limited by the need to carry out a large number of training iterations. In this talk, meta-learning, or learning-to-learn, is introduced as a tool to alleviate these problems. The talk will consider an Internet-of-Things (IoT) scenario in which devices transmit sporadically using short packets with few pilot symbols over a fading channel. The number of pilots is generally insufficient to obtain an accurate estimate of the end-to-end channel, which includes the effects of fading and of the transmission-side distortion. To tackle this problem, pilots from previous IoT transmissions are used as meta-training data in order to train a demodulator that is able to quickly adapt to new end-to-end channel conditions from few pilots. Various state-of-the-art meta-learning schemes are adapted to the problem at hand and evaluated, including MAML, FOMAML, REPTILE, and CAVIA. Both offline and online solutions are developed. Speaker(s): Prof. Osvaldo Simeone Biography: Osvaldo Simeone is a Professor of Information Engineering with the Centre for Telecommunications Research at the Department of Engineering of King's College London, where he directs the King's Communications, Learning and Information Processing lab. He received an M.Sc. degree (with honors) and a Ph.D. degree in information engineering from Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy, in 2001 and 2005, respectively. From 2006 to 2017, he was a faculty member of the Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) Department at New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT), where he was affiliated with the Center for Wireless Information Processing (CWiP). His research interests include information theory, machine learning, wireless communications, and neuromorphic computing. Dr Simeone is a co-recipient of the 2019 IEEE Communication Society Best Tutorial Paper Award, the 2018 IEEE Signal Processing Best Paper Award, the 2017 JCN Best Paper Award, the 2015 IEEE Communication Society Best Tutorial Paper Award and of the Best Paper Awards of IEEE SPAWC 2007 and IEEE WRECOM 2007. He was awarded a Consolidator grant by the European Research Council (ERC) in 2016. His research has been supported by the U.S. NSF, the ERC, the Vienna Science and Technology Fund, as well as by a number of industrial collaborations. He currently serves in the editorial board of the IEEE Signal Processing Magazine and is the vice-chair of the Signal Processing for Communications and Networking Technical Committee of the IEEE Signal Processing Society. He was a Distinguished Lecturer of the IEEE Information Theory Society in 2017 and 2018. Dr Simeone is a co-author of two monographs, two edited books published by Cambridge University Press, and more than one hundred research journal papers. He is a Fellow of the IET and of the IEEE.

Join the IEEE Kingston ComSoc and IEEE Toronto ComSoc for the Virtual Distinguished Lecture "Intelligent Reflected Surfaces for Future Wireless Systems", presented by Dr. Shahid Mumtaz. Contact: IEEE Kingston ComSoc Abstract: As we have finalized the research for 5G, now there is a race for technologies that will conquer 6G. The 6G  technologies will achieve much better latency and computation efficiency as compared to 5G. From 1G to 5G, almost all research and standardization randomly model the wireless channel between transmitter and receiver. There is no control of humans over a wireless medium, as it is given by nature. In 6G, we will break this assumption and go from random wireless channels to controllable wireless. Thanks to Intelligent Reflected Surfaces for Future Wireless System(IRS). This talk will explain in detail the physics of metasurface and the progress of IRS till today. This talk will also present different use case, study cases, signal processing and communication techniques for IRS, standardization, Prototype and testbed, and the open research challenges. Speaker(s): Dr. Shahid Mumtaz Biography: Shahid Mumtaz is an IET Fellow, IEEE ComSoc and ACM Distinguished speaker, recipient of IEEE ComSoC Young Researcher Award (2020), IEEE Senior member, founder and EiC of IET “Journal of Quantum communication”, Vice-Chair: Europe/Africa Region- IEEE ComSoc: Green Communications & Computing society and Vice-chair for IEEE standard on P1932.1: Standard for Licensed/Unlicensed Spectrum Interoperability in Wireless Mobile Networks. He has more than 15 years of wireless industry/academic experience. He has received his Master's and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical & Electronic Engineering from Blekinge Institute of Technology, Sweden, and University of Aveiro, Portugal in 2006 and 2011, respectively. From 2002 to 2003, he worked for Pak Telecom as System Engineer and from 2005 to 2006 for Ericsson and Huawei at Research Labs in Sweden. He has been with Instituto de Telecomunicações since 2011 where he currently holds the position of Auxiliary Researcher and adjunct positions with several universities across the Europe-Asian Region. He is the author of 4 technical books, 12 book chapters, 250+ technical papers (170+ Journal/transaction, 90+ conference, 2 IEEE best paper award- in the area of mobile communications. He had/has supervised/co-supervising several Ph.D. and Master Students. He uses mathematical and system-level tools to model and analyze emerging wireless communication architectures, leading to innovative theoretically optimal new communication techniques. He is working closely with leading R&D groups in the industry to transition these ideas to practice. He secures the funding of around 2M Euro.

Join the IEEE Kingston Communications Society Chapter for the Virtual Distinguished Lecture: Localization in Drone Assisted and Vehicular Networks, presented by Shahrokh Valaee. Contact: IEEE Kingston ComSoc Abstract: The next generation of wireless systems will employ networking equipment mounted on mobile platforms, unmanned air vehicles (UAV), and low orbit satellites. As a result, the topology of 6G wireless technology will extend to 3D vertical networking. With its extended service, 6G will also give rise to new challenges which include, the introduction of intelligent reflective surfaces (IRS), the mmWave spectrum, the employment of massive MIMO systems, and the agility of networks. Along with the advancement in networking technology, user devices are also evolving rapidly, with the emergence of highly capable cellphones, smart IoT equipment, and wearable devices. One of the key elements of 6G technology is the need for accurate positioning information. The accuracy of today’s positioning systems is not acceptable for many applications of future, especially in smart environments. In this talk, we will discuss how positioning can be a key enabler of 6G, and what challenges the next generation of localization technology will face when integrated within the new wireless networks. Speaker(s): Shahrokh Valaee Biography: Shahrokh Valaee is a Professor with the Edward S. Rogers Sr. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Toronto, and the holder of Nortel Chair of Network Architectures and Services. He is the Founder and the Director of the Wireless and Internet Research Laboratory (WIRLab) at the University of Toronto. Professor Valaee was the TPC Co-Chair and the Local Organization Chair of the IEEE Personal Mobile Indoor Radio Communication (PIMRC) Symposium 2011. He was the TCP Chair of PIMRC2017, the Track Co-Chair of WCNC 2014, the TPC Co-Chair of ICT 2015. He has been the guest editor for various journals. He was a Track Co-chair for PIMRC 2020 and VTC Fall 2020. From December 2010 to December 2012, he was the Associate Editor of the IEEE Signal Processing Letters. From 2010 to 2015, he served as an Editor of IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications. Currently, he is an Editor of Journal of Computer and System Science. Professor Valaee is a Fellow of the Engineering Institute of Canada, and a Fellow of IEEE.

There have been rapid and exciting developments in recent years in satellite networks, in particular, in LEO mega-constellations such as SpaceX's Starlink. Although less visible, exciting developments have also been taking place in a certain type of aerial networks known as the high-altitude platform station (HAPS) systems, such as the formation of HAPS Alliance which brings together the connectivity and aerospace industries. It is worth noting that the satellite and aerial networks discussions have been occurring exclusively in the context of remote and rural connectivity. A major concern in this context is the rather questionable business case; there is limited revenue in rural and remote regions. In this talk, a novel vision will be presented for an integrated terrestrial-aerial-satellite networks architecture as a key enabler for the super smart cities of 2030s and beyond Speaker: Dr. Halim Yanikomeroglu Biography: Dr. Halim Yanikomeroglu is a Professor at Carleton University, Canada. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Toronto in 1998. He contributed to 4G/5G technologies and standards; his research focus in recent years has been on 6G and non-terrestrial networks (NTN). His extensive collaboration with industry resulted in 37 granted patents. He supervised or hosted in his lab around 140 postgraduate researchers. He co-authored IEEE papers with faculty members in 80+ universities in 25 countries. He is a Fellow of IEEE, Engineering Institute of Canada, and Canadian Academy of Engineering, and an IEEE Distinguished Speaker for Communications Society (ComSoc) and Vehicular Technology Society (VTS). He is currently chairing the IEEE WCNC (Wireless Communications and Networking Conference) Steering Committee; he is also a member of PIMRC Steering Committee and ComSoc Emerging Technologies Committee. He served as the General Chair of two VTCs and Technical Program Chair/Co-Chair of three WCNCs. He chaired ComSoc Technical Committee on Personal Communications. He received several awards for his research, teaching, and service including IEEE ComSoc Fred W. Ellersick Prize (2021), IEEE VTS Stuart Meyer Memorial Award (2020), and IEEE ComSoc Wireless Communications Technical Committee Recognition Award (2018).