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Seminar Title: The Power of NASA Science

�ٲ��ٱ�:��3 October 2025

Abstract: Dr. Mark Clampin, Acting Deputy Associate Administrator (DAA), NASA’s Science Mission Directorate (SMD) will provide an overview of SMD’s portfolio and discuss its priorities, including its Moon to Mars objectives. He will highlight research and recent results in the fields of Earth Science, Astrophysics, Heliophysics, Planetary Science, Biology and Fundamental Physics, and identify key technologies that enable these missions and their research objective. He will also discuss in broad terms NASA's growing interest in emerging quantum technologies.

Biography: Dr. Mark Clampin is the Acting Deputy Associate Administrator in the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington, DC, where he provides executive leadership, overall planning, direction, and management of NASA’s science portfolio focused on the scientific exploration of Earth, the Sun, solar system, universe, and biological and physical sciences. 

Dr. Mark Clampin previously held the position of the Astrophysics Division Director in the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington, DC. He was the Director of the Sciences and Exploration Directorate (SED) at the Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), where he led the Astrophysics, Solar System, Heliophysics and Earth Science Divisions, together with the high-performance computing office. 

He served as the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) Observatory Project Scientist for 14 years and was responsible for the development and oversight of Webb’s scientific performance. Prior to joining GSFC, Dr Clampin he worked on Hubble Space Telescope (HST) Servicing Missions SM1 to SM3B, and was a Co-Investigator on HST’s Advanced Camera for Surveys.

Dr. Clampin was the founding Editor of SPIE’s peer-reviewed Journal of Astronomical Telescopes, Instruments and Systems (JATIS), and served as Chief Editor for 7 years.

Dr. Clampin graduated from the University of London with a BS in Physics and from the University of Saint Andrews in Scotland, with PhD in Astronomy. Dr. Clampin is the recipient of the Meritorious Presidential Rank Award, NASA’s Exceptional Achievement Medal for his work on the Webb Telescope, NASA’s Scientific Achievement Medal and the AAAS Newcomb-Cleveland Prize. He is a Fellow of SPIE and the Royal Astronomical Society.

Seminar Title: Coverage Analysis for 3D Indoor Terahertz Communication System Over Multi-Cluster Fluctuating Two-Ray Fading Channels

�ٲ��ٱ�:��2 October 2025

Abstract: We develop a novel analytical framework for three-dimensional (3D) indoor terahertz (THz) communication systems. The proposed model integrates accurate wall blockage characterization via Manhattan line processes and precise THz fading representation through a multicluster fluctuating two-ray (MFTR) channel model. It further incorporates key THz-specific features, including molecular absorption loss, user blockages, and 3D directional antenna beams. Access point (AP) locations are modeled using a Poisson point process, with user equipment (UE) associating to the nearest line-of-sight AP. Due to the high penetration loss caused by wall blockages, we adopt a rectangular area model where the UE, its serving AP, and interfering APs are assumed to be in the same rectangular area, i.e., a room. Based on this model, we examine how the UE’s location influences its distance to the associated AP and derive a tractable expression for coverage probability by analyzing interference and MFTR fading. Simulation results validate our analysis and highlight that UE’s location has a pronounced impact on its coverage probability. Moreover, we show that the optimal AP density is jointly determined by the UE’s location and room size, offering valuable insights for the deployment of future THz communication systems.

Biography: Zhifeng Tang (GS’19–M’24) received the B.S. degree from the Electronic Engineering Department, Tsinghua University, China, in 2016, the M.S. degree in digital systems and telecommunications in 2019, and the Ph.D. degree in 2024, from the Australian National University, Australia. He is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow with the School of Engineering, the Australian National University. His current research interests include terahertz communications, cyber-physical security, non-terrestrial networks, and ultra-reliable low latency communications.

Seminar Title: Terahertz Wireless Communications: An Old Problem Revisited and Research Directions for the Next Decade

�ٲ��ٱ�:��2 October 2025

Abstract: Terahertz (THz) communications is envisioned as a highly promising wireless technology for the sixth generation (6G) and beyond wireless networks. In particular, the ultra-wide THz band ranging from 0.1 to 10 THz offers enormous potential to alleviate the spectrum scarcity and break the capacity limitation of emerging wireless systems. This will undoubtedly support the epoch-making wireless applications that demand ultra-high quality of service requirements and multi-terabits per second data transmission in the 6G and beyond era, such as metaverse and extended reality, terabit-per-second backhaul systems, and wireless high-bandwidth satellite communications. This talk will provide a comprehensive look at cutting-edge THz communications. From channel to communication and sensing, this talk will identify and discuss the outstanding barriers that future wireless system designers must tackle to reap the full benefits of THz communications in the 6G and beyond era.

Biography: Dr. Chong Han received Ph.D. degree from Georgia Institute of Technology, USA in 2016. He is currently a John Wu & Jane Sun Endowed Associate Professor with Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China, and director of the Terahertz Wireless Communications (TWC) Laboratory. He is a co-founder and vice-chair of IEEE ComSoc Special Interest Group (SIG) on Terahertz Communications, since 2021. He is the recipient of 2024 IEEE ComSoc Radio Communications Committee (RCC) Early Achievement Award, for contributions to Terahertz channels and communications, as well as 2024 Bessel Research Award from Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in Germany, 2023 IEEE ComSoc Asia-Pacific Outstanding Young Researcher Award, among others. He is a (guest) editor with IEEE Trans. Wireless Communications, IEEE JSAC, etc.

Seminar Title: Modeling Human Mental Behaviors through Speech: Ambiguity, Subjectivity, and Temporal Dynamics

�ٲ��ٱ�:��1 October 2025

Abstract: Human-centered AI must grapple with the fact that human data is inherently ambiguous, subjective, and changing over time. In emotion recognition, for instance, the same vocal cue may be perceived as ‘anger’ by one listener and ‘frustration’ by another - introduce disagreement into annotations and uncertainty into model training. In mental health detection, the same set of symptoms may lead to different diagnoses or risk assessments for different patients. Moreover, human emotion and mental states are temporal dependent, unfolding and shifting over time rather than existing as static labels—capturing this temporal trajectory is critical for understanding phenomena such as mood fluctuations or depression severity progression.

In this talk, I will present my work on ML/AI modeling for human mental behaviors, with a focus on three complementary dimensions: ambiguity, subjectivity, and temporal dynamics. I will introduce computational frameworks that explicitly incorporate these dimensions into affective computing, highlighting applications in emotion recognition and mental health (e.g., depression) detections. By integrating speech and multimodal signals (e.g., video, physiological), and by rethinking the entire ML/AL pipeline—representation, modeling, training, and evaluation—this research advances AI systems that are both robust and interpretable, paving the way for more trustworthy deployment in natural human machine interactions and mental health support.

Seminar Title: Emerging Technologies on Modelling and Design of Modern Electric Machines

�ٲ��ٱ�:��28 August 2025

�������ٰ�������:��Electric machines are the key enabling device for energy conversion, which have been widely used in many fields including wind turbines, robots, electric vehicles, more electric aircrafts, etc. This presentation will focus on the current research developments on modeling and design of modern electric machines. Emerging technologies will be introduced, e.g., computationally-efficient optimization, brushless electrically-excited synchronous machines, two-degree-of-freedom electric machines. The key elements to achieve high performance of electric machines by using the aforementioned techniques, will be demonstrated. Worked examples will be given to illustrate the development of these technologies.

Biography: A/Prof Hao Chen received the B.Sc. degree in electrical engineering from the School of Electrical Engineering, Beijing Jiaotong University, Beijing, China, in 2012, and the Ph.D. degree in control science and engineering from the School of Automation, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing, China, in 2019. 

From 2016 to 2018, he was with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI, USA, as a Joint Ph.D. Student. From 2019 to 2021, he was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow with the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. From 2022 to 2023, he was a Researcher with the Department of Electrical Engineering, Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden. He is currently an Associate Professor (Pre-Tenure) with the College of Electrical Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China. His research interests include the design and optimization of electric machines, power electronic drives, and motor control.

Seminar Title: Digital Camera Signal Processing - History, Recent Advances, Challenges, and Opportunities

�ٲ��ٱ�:��22 August 2025

�������ٰ�������:��In a relatively short period of time, the digital camera has become ubiquitous in our daily lives. The pace at which innovations are being made in this area is remarkable. The exciting aspect is that there is much more to come. In this talk, we review the evolution of digital cameras from camera obscura to film to digital to mobile. Along the way, we identify events that precipitated the change to a digital photography ecosystem. We briefly discuss practices and assumptions that are prevalent in the scientific community and look at a few signal processing solutions that we have developed over the years for problems in digital photography. Using these examples we demonstrate the multidisciplinary nature of digital camera image processing. We present recent results to show the progress that has been achieved in computational photography on mobile cameras and conclude with challenges and opportunities.

Biography: Farhan Baqai earned a M.S. and a Ph.D. degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Purdue University. Before that, he received the Master of Engineering Science degree from the University of Melbourne, Australia and the B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Engineering and Technology, Lahore, Pakistan. After his PhD, he worked on halftoning algorithms for inkJet printers at Xerox Corporation and on digital camera image processing at the Sony US Research Center. Currently he is a Senior Research Manager at Apple Inc. where he leads a research group focused on the development of state of the art algorithms for digital photography.

Dr. Baqai’s research and product contributions span digital camera image processing, machine learning, computer vision, stereoscopic image processing, statistical signal processing, digital printing, and radar imaging. He has been the driving force behind several key technologies for Apple and Sony. His algorithms have been implemented in hardware, firmware, and software. Dr. Baqai’s innovations have shipped in more than a billion devices which are being used to capture trillions of images every year.

Dr. Baqai is a Fellow of the IEEE. He is a Deputy Editor in Chief (2023-present) of IEEE Transactions on Image Processing. Dr. Baqai sits on the IEEE Fellow Committee (2024-present) and on IEEE SPS Image, Video, and Multidimensional Signal Processing Technical Committee (2020-present).From 2016 to 2018, he was with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI, USA, as a Joint Ph.D. Student. From 2019 to 2021, he was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow with the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. From 2022 to 2023, he was a Researcher with the Department of Electrical Engineering, Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden. He is currently an Associate Professor (Pre-Tenure) with the College of Electrical Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China. His research interests include the design and optimization of electric machines, power electronic drives, and motor control.

Seminar Title: Efficient and Fast Ray Tracing Method for Antenna Performance Simulation

�ٲ��ٱ�:��20 August 2025

�������ٰ�������:��In recent times, we have become familiar with the use of commercial software for designing our antennas and microwave devices. This is very common since it is easy to find high-performance desktop computers at affordable prices in our daily lives. The use of general-purpose commercial software is widespread because it allows for the simulation of any arbitrary configuration. However, many of us have experienced, given the ease of using commercial software, trying to simulate electrically large electromagnetic devices which take days or, in some cases, cannot be completed at all. While it is true that we now have very powerful simulation tools, by making a few simple assumptions, we can significantly reduce computational time without sacrificing accuracy [1]. In this talk, I will introduce a simple ray-tracing technique that can be used, in combination with physical optics, to calculate the radiation pattern of antennas, as well as directivity, gain, mutual coupling, and even early-time response in complex configurations [2-4]. The results are not only faster than those produced by conventional commercial software, but also more accurate, as they avoid many of the numerical errors that typically arise when computing electrically large structures.

Biography: Oscar Quevedo-Teruel received his Telecommunication Engineering and Ph.D. degrees from Carlos III University of Madrid, Spain, in 2005 and 2010. From 2010-2011, he joined the Department of Theoretical Physics of Condensed Matter at Universidad Autonoma de Madrid as a research fellow and went on to continue his postdoctoral research at Queen Mary University of London from 2011-2013. In 2014, he joined KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden, where he is a Professor in the Division of Electromagnetic Engineering and Fusion Science and Director of the Master Programme in Electromagnetics Fusion and Space Engineering. He has been an Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation from 2018-2022 and Track Editor since 2022. He has been a member of the European Association on Antennas and Propagation (EurAAP) Board of Directors since January 2021. Since January 2022, he has been the vice-chair of EurAAP. He was a distinguished lecturer of the IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society for the period 2019-2021. He is an IEEE Fellow for contributions to glide symmetry based metasurfaces and lens antennas. He has made scientific contributions to periodic structures, higher symmetries, transformation optics, lens antennas, physical optics, and high-impedance surfaces. He is the co-author of more than 160 papers in international journals and 250 papers at international conferences.

Seminar Title: Additive Manufacturing: Emerging Opportunities for Microwave Components

�ٲ��ٱ�:��19 August 2025

�������ٰ�������:��The Additive Manufacturing (AM) technology, also known as 3D-printing technology, offers several interesting and attractive features, including fast prototyping, geometry flexibility, easily customizable products, and low cost (in some cases). However, using such technologies for microwave devices is not straightforward as AM has not been specifically developed for microwave components, and in most cases, some adaptation and post-processing is necessary. Furthermore, there are many AM technologies available, and it is important to understand their characteristics before selecting one.

In the presentation, an overview of the different AM technologies available will be provided. Additionally, an analysis of some of the most common AM technologies used for the manufacturing of microwave components will be conducted in more detail, with the help of several examples. Several microwave components manufactured with some of the most popular AM technologies will be shown, along with a detailed description of the manufacturing process, post-processing, and all actions necessary to make the component perform well. Furthermore, it will be shown how the flexibility of this technology allows the development of new classes of components with non-conventional geometries that can be exploited to obtain high-performing components in terms of compactness, weight, losses, etc.

Biography: Cristiano Tomassoni received his Ph.D. in Electronics Engineering from the University of Perugia, Perugia, Italy, in 1999. In the same year, he joined the Lehrstuhl für Hochfrequenztechnik, Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany as a Visiting Scientist, where he worked on the modeling of waveguide structures and devices using the generalized scattering matrix technique. In 2001, he was a Guest Professor at the Fakultät für Elektrotechnik und Informationstechnik, Otto-von-Guericke University, Magdeburg, Germany. In the early stages of his career, he contributed to the enhancement of several analytical and numerical methods for electromagnetic component simulation, including the finite-element method, mode-matching technique, generalized multipole technique, method of moments, transmission-line matrix, and mode matching applied to spherical waves. In 2001, he joined the University of Perugia, where he is currently an Associate Professor and teaches the 'Electromagnetic Fields' course and the 'Advanced Design of Microwave and RF Systems' course. His main research interests include modeling and designing of waveguide components and antennas, miniaturized filters, reconfigurable filters, dielectric filters, and substrate integrated waveguide filters. He is currently studying the use of Additive Manufacturing (AM) technology for the fabrication of microwave components, considering various technologies such as Stereolithography (SLA), Lithography-based Ceramic Manufacturing (LCM), Selective Laser Melting (SLM), Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM), and PolyJet technology.

Prof. Tomassoni is IEEE Fellow, serves as the Chair of the IEEE Microwave Theory and Techniques Society Filters Technical Committee. From 2018 to 2022, he served as an Associate Editor for the IEEE MTT-S. and is also the recipient of the Microwave Prize awarded by MTT-S in 2012.

Seminar Title: EM/Nonlinear Co-Design of Battery-Less Wireless Systems for Wireless Power Transfer and Energy Harvesting

�ٲ��ٱ�:��19 August 2025

Abstract: In this talk, the design and characterization of rectennas and battery-less RF systems are discussed, with applications in precise localization and sensing, for maintenance-free operations in energy-denied environments. An efficient combination of full-wave simulation, of the radiative part, with rigorous nonlinear simulation of the active part of the system is described which demonstrates accurate predictability of EM energy availability and of the RF-to-DC energy conversion performance. To maximize energy efficiency, subsystems are co-designed based on actual (non-ideal) terminations minimizing size and losses by reducing intersystem matching networks and accounting for complex terminations. This integrated approach is essential for compact, low-cost, low-power RF microsystems like RFID and wireless sensor networks, which require localization, identification, and sensing. Examples of passively-generated UWB excitations demonstrate the method's benefits for energy-autonomous systems like UWB-RFID tags. 3-D implementation and fabrication on low-cost materials of practical battery-less systems are presented making flexible and wearable implementation possible, as required in IoT scenarios.

Biography: Alessandra Costanzo is full Professor at the University of Bologna, Italy. She is IEEE Fellow, class 2022, for contribution to “nonlinear electromagnetic co-design of RF and microwave circuits”. Her current research activities are dedicated to the design of entire wireless power transmission systems, for several power levels and operating frequencies. She has developed efficient design procedures based on the combination of electromagnetic and nonlinear numerical techniques, adopting both far-field and near-field solutions, thus creating the bridge between system-level and circuit-level analysis techniques of RF/microwave wireless links. She has accomplished this goal by means of a general-purpose approach combining electromagnetic (EM) theory, EM simulation inside the nonlinear circuit analysis, based on the Harmonic Balance Technique. She is currently the principal investigator of many research and industrial international projects at microwave and millimeter wave dedicated to Industrial IoT, and smart mobility. She has authored more than 300 scientific publications on peer reviewed international journals and conferences and several chapter books. She owns four international patents. She is past associate editor of the IEEE Transaction on MTT, of the Cambridge Journals IJMWT and JWPT. She is past Vice-President for publication of the IEEE CRFID and conference chair of EuMC2022 and of IEEE WiSEE 2023. She has been TPC chair of IEEE WPTCE 2025. She is past chair of the Steering Committee of the IEEE WPTCE. She is independent member of the Board of Directors of Rai Way S.p.A. since 2023 and of the EuMA BoD since 2025.

Seminar Title: Generative AI for Future Wireless Communications

�ٲ��ٱ�:��6 August 2025

Abstract: The recent wave of progress in generative artificial intelligence (AI) has stimulated numerous novel concepts and achieved phenomenal success in modern applications, including ChatGPT. Beyond its critical role in content generation for computer vision and natural language processing, generative AI presents profound opportunities and unlimited potential in wireless communications and networking. In this talk, we systematically address the tremendous potential and opportunities presented by the emergence and integration of generative AI in high-efficiency and contextual communication networks. We present a transformative design of a future go-oriented contextual communication framework enabled by generative models of stable diffusion. Specifically, we deliver clear design and implementation steps, analyze properties and performances, and expand on potential future extensions.

Biography: Dr. Zhi Ding holds the position of distinguished professor in Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of California, Davis. He received his Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from Cornell University in 1990. From 1990 to 2000, he was a faculty member of Auburn University and later, University of Iowa. Prof. Ding joined the College of Engineering at UC Davis in 2000. His major research interests and expertise cover the areas of wireless networking, communications, signal processing, multimedia, and learning. He was also an IEEE Distinguished Lecturer (Circuits and Systems Society, 2004-06, Communications Society, 2008-09). He served on as IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications Steering Committee Member (2007-2009) and its Chair (2009-2010). Dr. Ding is a coauthor of the textbook: Modern Digital and Analog Communication Systems, 5th edition, Oxford University Press, 2019. Prof. Ding received the IEEE Communication Society’s WTC Award in 2012 and the IEEE Communication Society’s Education Award in 2020.

Seminar Title: ‘RESOURCE ALLOCATION AND LEARNING FOR WIRELESS NETWORKS: UNDERWATER AND RADIO FREQUENCY USE CASES’

Date: April 2024

�����Dz���������:��Prof Urbashi Mitra is Gordon S. Marshall Professor in Engineering at the University of Southern California (USC) with appointments in Electrical & Computer Engineering and Computer Science.

She has won a number of awards, is an IEEE Fellow, and has held numerous IEEE posts including inaugural Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Transactions on Molecular, Biological and Multi-scale Communications.

Her research interests are in wireless communications, structured statistical methods, communication and sensor networks, biological communication systems, detection and estimation and the interface of communication, sensing and control.

Seminar Title: 'QUANTUM NEXUS FOR SENSING, COMMUNICATION, CONTROL, AND COMPUTING’

Date: April 2024

�����Dz���������:��Prof Moe Z. Win is the Robert R. Taylor Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the founding director of the Wireless Information and Network Sciences Laboratory.

He is an IEEE Fellow, and has won two IEEE Technical Field awards, numerous other awards and served in a number of IEEE positions.

His research interests include: Network Localization and Navigation; Quantum Information Science; Ultra-Wideband Communications; Adaptive Diversity Communications; and Interference Engineering.

Seminar Title: ''Beyond Transmitting Bits: Semantic and Pragmatic Communications’

Date: August 2024

�����Dz���������:��Deniz Gündüz received the B.S. degree in electrical and electronics engineering from METU, Turkey in 2002, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from NYU Tandon School of Engineering in 2004 and 2007, respectively. In 2012, he joined the Electrical and Electronic Engineering Department at Imperial College London, UK, where he is currently a Professor of Information Processing, and serves as the deputy head of the Intelligent Systems and Networks Group. Dr. Gündüz is a Fellow of the IEEE, and serves as an area editor for the IEEE Transactions on Information Theory and IEEE Transactions on Communications. He is the recipient of the IEEE Communications Society - Communication Theory Technical Committee (CTTC) Early Achievement Award in 2017, Starting (2016), Consolidator (2022) and Proof-of-Concept (2023) Grants of the European Research Council (ERC), and has co-authored several award-winning papers, including the IEEE Communications Society - Young Author Best Paper Award (2022), and the IEEE International Conference on Communications Best Paper Award (2023). He received the Imperial College London - President's Award for Excellence in Research Supervision in 2023.

Abstract: With the widespread adoption of machine learning (ML) technologies, most of the communication traffic in the near future will be among intelligent machines. While human communications focus on content delivery (text, audio, and increasingly video),  machines (for now) are not interested in watching a movie or listening to a song, but instead make inferences or take actions based on received signals. Currently, ML algorithms to achieve such goals are designed either for centralised implementation at cloud servers, or assume delay- and error-free communication links among distributed agents. In this talk, I will show that this conventional approach of separating communication system design from ML algorithm design can be highly suboptimal for emerging edge intelligence applications, and a joint ML and communication system design taking into account the “semantics” of the underlying data and the final “goal” at the receiver are essential. I will provide examples of how semantic and goal-oriented design can push the boundaries of edge intelligence for future communication systems.

Seminar Title: ‘Learning and Control in Power Distribution Grids’

Date: February 2024

�����Dz���������:��Steven Low is the F. J. Gilloon Professor of the Department of Computing & Mathematical Sciences and the Department of Electrical Engineering at Caltech. Before that, he was with AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, NJ, and the University of Melbourne, Australia. He has held honorary/chaired professorship in Australia, China and Taiwan. He was a co-recipient of IEEE best paper awards, an awardee of the IEEE INFOCOM Achievement Award and the ACM SIGMETRICS Test of Time Award, and is a Fellow of IEEE, ACM, and CSEE. He was well-known for work on Internet congestion control and semidefinite relaxation of optimal power flow problems in smart grid. His research on networks has been accelerating more than 1TB of Internet traffic every second since 2014. His research on smart grid is providing large-scale cost effective electric vehicle charging to workplaces. He received his B.S. from Cornell and PhD from Berkeley, both in EE.

�������ٰ�������:��The power distribution system, where most smart grid innovations will happen, is not well modeled, with the topology and line parameters poorly documented, inaccurate or missing. This makes maintaining voltage stability challenging as renewable generation continues to proliferate. We present three results to address this challenge. The first result is a method to exactly identify the topology and line admittances of a radial network from voltage and current measurements even when measurements are available only at a subset of the nodes, provided every hidden node has a degree at least 3. The second result is a learning-augmented feedback controller that can leverage real-time measurements to stabilize voltages without explicit knowledge of the network model. We provide convergence guarantee for the proposed method. Finally we describe the design and deployment of a large-scale EV charging system and an open-source research facility built upon it.

Seminar Title: ‘So, You Want to Stat a Space Technology Company?’

Date: Feburary 2024

�����Dz���������:��Joel Sercel is a proven space technology pioneer and team leader whose technical expertise spans space mission design, space propulsion, satellite design, architectural design, and systems engineering. As founding President and founding CEO of TransAstra, he runs an agile company where young engineers are inspired and empowered to build, test, break, and bust through technical limits and mature innovations at breakneck speed. He is a seven-time winner of the prestigious NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program, including the first ever Phase 3 NIAC contract, and has more than a dozen patents issued and more than a dozen more pending in the areas of space resources and in-space transportation technology. TransAstra has been more successful with NIAC than any other organization in translating the technology to private space ventures and advancing the TRL of the tech to readiness and use. His expertise and leadership have been sought out by world class organizations including NASA, Blue Origin, Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, the US intelligence community, and the US Air Force. Joel’s PhD is from Caltech in plasma physics and space propulsion. He spent 14 years at NASA JPL where he served in nearly all the technical roles and conceived the first ion propulsion system used in deep space missions (Dawn) to a comet and asteroids Ceres and Vesta. Joel was a member of the FAST for the Asteroid Redirect Mission and was the chief engineer for the Air Force on a 22$ Billion project. Sercel served as the founding CTO of Momentus Space before returning to TransAstra to fulfill his lifelong dream of working to establish a thriving in-space economy that will offer unbound potential for future generations.

Seminar Title: ‘Terahertz Technology: from Devices and Systems towards Sensing and Communications’

Date: Feburary 2024

Biography: Withawat Withayachumnankul earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in electronic engineering from King Mongkut’s Institute of Technology Ladkrabang (KMITL), Thailand, in 2001 and 2003, respectively. He later obtained a doctorate degree in electrical engineering from the University of Adelaide, Australia, in 2010. Following the completion of his doctoral study, Dr. Withayachumnankul was honoured with a prestigious 3-year Australian Research Council (ARC) Postdoctoral Fellowship in 2010. In 2015, he further expanded his global research experience as a Research Fellow of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) at Tokyo Institute of Technology.

Currently serving as a Professor at the University of Adelaide, Dr. Withayachumnankul is also the Leader of the Terahertz Engineering Laboratory. Additionally, he has held the position of Visiting Researcher at Osaka University since 2017. Actively contributing to the academic community, he serves as a member of the Australian Research Council (ARC) College of Experts and holds the role of Track Editor for the IEEE Transactions on Terahertz Science and Technology. During the period of 2017-2018, Dr. Withayachumnankul served as the Chair of the IEEE South Australia Joint Chapter on Microwave Theory and Techniques (MTT) & Antennas and Propagation (AP). His scholarly contributions are reflected in over 110 journal publications. In recent years, he has taken the lead in four ARC Discovery Projects, securing funding exceeding AUD 2 million. Dr. Withayachumnankul's research interests span a diverse range, encompassing terahertz integration, metasurfaces, antennas, radar, communications, and non-destructive evaluation. Notably, he received the IRMMW-THz Society Young Scientist Award in 2020 and holds the distinction of being an Optica Fellow 2024 Class.

Abstract: Recent advancement in terahertz technology has spurred an ongoing paradigm shift in the field from physics to engineering. Consequently, the field inches closer towards practical applications in sensing and communications. Soon, we can envisage deployment of terahertz systems for in-situ non-destructive evaluation, stand-off security screening, and 6G+ communications with terabit-per-second data rates. Here in this talk, I will provide an overview of latest research activities in my group, spanning broadly from devices and systems towards sensing and communications. We will delve into metasurfaces that break the limitations of natural materials in this frequency range. We will explore unorthodox antennas and our own proprietary integrated platform, specifically designed for terahertz waves. We will understand how terahertz waves can offer new sensing capabilities in security, defence, food, and agriculture. Our recent breakthroughs in communications over 300 GHz carriers will be discussed. Owing to the unique location of terahertz waves on the electromagnetic spectrum, techniques and tools from both the microwave and photonic domains have been adapted and enhanced by novel materials, fabrication, and design approaches. A forward-looking dimension will accompany all these research activities.

Seminar Title: ‘Aerial Access Networks for 6G: From UAV, HAP, to Satellite Communication Networks’

Date: June 2024

�����Dz���������:��Prof Zhu Han received the B.S. degree in electronic engineering from Tsinghua University, in 1997, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Maryland, College Park, in 1999 and 2003, respectively. From 2000 to 2002, he was an R&D Engineer at JDSU, Germantown, Maryland. From 2003 to 2006, he was a Research Associate at the University of Maryland. From 2006 to 2008, he was an assistant professor at Boise State University, Idaho. Currently, he is a John and Rebecca Moores Professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department as well as the Computer Science Department at the University of Houston, Texas. Dr. Han is an NSF CAREER award recipient of 2010, and the winner of the 2021 IEEE Kiyo Tomiyasu Award. He has been an IEEE fellow since 2014, an AAAS fellow since 2020, ACM Fellow since 2024, an IEEE Distinguished Lecturer from 2015 to 2018, and an ACM Distinguished Speaker from 2022-2025. Dr. Han has also been a 1% highly cited researcher since 2017.

�������ٰ�������:��Providing “connectivity from the sky” is one new innovative trend in wireless communications for beyond 5G or coming 6G communication systems. Satellites, high and low-altitude platforms, drones, aircraft, and airships are being considered as candidates for deploying wireless communications complementing the terrestrial communication infrastructure. Utilizing modern information network technologies and interconnecting space, air, and ground network segments, the aerial access network (AAN) has attracted much attention from both academia and industry and has been recognized as a potential solution for the 6G systems. AANs are subject to heterogeneous networks that are engineered to utilize satellites, high-altitude platforms (HAPs), and low-altitude platforms (LAPs) to build network access platforms. Compared to terrestrial wireless networks, AANs are characterized by frequently changed network topologies and more vulnerable communication connections. Furthermore, AANs have the demand for the seamless integration of heterogeneous networks such that the network quality-of-service (QoS) can be improved. Thus, designing mechanisms and protocols for AANs poses many challenges. To solve these challenges, extensive research has been conducted. Notice that AANs are not intended to replace the above existing technologies, but instead to work with them in a complementary and integrated fashion. However, design, analysis, and optimization of AANs require multidisciplinary knowledge, namely, knowledge of wireless communications and networking, signal processing, artificial intelligence (e.g., for learning), decision theory, optimization, and economic theory. Therefore, this talk first provides a general introduction to AANs integrated networks based on physical, MAC, and networking layer requirements, followed by some state-of-the-art AANs along with possible applications.

Seminar Title: ‘Brillouin Optomechanics in Scalable Photonic Integrated Platforms’

Date: July 2024

�����Dz���������:��David Marpaung is a full professor and the chairholder of the . He is a fellow of Optica (formerly OSA). 

David received his Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from the University of Twente, the Netherlands in 2009. From 2009 to 2012 he was a postdoctoral researcher in the University of Twente, working on microwave photonic system integration for optical beamforming. He joined CUDOS University of Sydney, Australia in August 2012 as a research fellow. From 2015 to 2017 he was a senior research fellow leading the nonlinear integrated microwave photonics research activities in CUDOS University of Sydney.

David was the recipient of the 2015 Discovery Early Career Research Award (DECRA) from the Australian Research Council and the 2017 Vidi award and the 2018 START UP grant from the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO). In 2022 he received the ERC Consolidator grant. 

His research interests include RF photonics, photonic integration, nonlinear optics, and phononics. 

Seminar Title: ‘GNSS As Signals-of-Opportunity for Ionosphere, Atmosphere, Earth Surface Remote Sensing and Navigation’

Date: Feburary 2024

�����Dz���������:��Dr. Jade Morton is Helen and Hubert Croft Professor in the Ann and H.J. Smead Aerospace Engineering Sciences Department at the University of Colorado Boulder. Her research expertise lies at the intersection of satellite navigation technologies and remote sensing of the ionosphere, troposphere, and Earth surface. She received her PhD in Electrical Engineering from Penn State. Dr. Morton is a fellow of the IEEE, the Institute of Navigation, and UK’s Royal Institute of Navigation.

Abstract: GPS/GNSS has impacted nearly every aspect of our modern society. Yet, it relies on extremely low power signals traversing a vast space to reach the Earth surface. Numerous factors interfere with the signals along their propagation path, including ionosphere plasma, moisture in the lower troposphere, multipath reflections from Earth surface, and intentional and unintentional radio frequency sources. These nuisance factors enable satellite navigation signals to function as signals-of-opportunity for low cost, distributed, passive sensing of the signal propagation environments. This presentation will discuss the latest research work in the Satellite Navigation and Sensing Lab at the University of Colorado Boulder in applying satellite navigation signals for space weather monitoring, atmospheric profiling, ocean wind retrieval, precision altimetry measurements, radio frequency interference mapping, ionospheric effects on signals transmitted from LEO satellites. GNSS receiver signal processing techniques to mitigate the various effects will also be highlighted.

Seminar Title: ‘Federated Learning in Resource Limited Wireless Networks’

Date: May 2024

�����Dz���������:��Arumugam Nallanathan is a Professor of Wireless Communications and the founding head of the   Communication Systems Research (CSR) group in the School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science at Queen Mary University of London since September 2017. He was with the Department of Informatics at King’s College London from December 2007 to August 2017, where he was Professor of Wireless Communications from April 2013 to August 2017. He was an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, National University of Singapore, from August 2000 to December 2007. His research interests include 6G Wireless Networks and the Internet of Things (IoT). He published more than 700 technical papers in scientific journals and international conferences. He is a co-recipient of the Best Paper Awards presented at the IEEE International Conference on Communications 2016 (ICC’2016), IEEE Global Communications Conference 2017 (GLOBECOM’2017), and IEEE Vehicular Technology Conference 2017 (VTC’2017). He is a co-recipient of the IEEE Communications Society Leonard G. Abraham Prize, 2022.

�������ٰ�������:��Federated learning (FL) is an efficient and privacy-preserving distributed learning paradigm that enables massive edge devices to train machine learning models collaboratively. Although various communication schemes and algorithm designs have been proposed to expedite the FL process in resource-limited wireless networks, the unreliable nature of wireless channels, device heterogeneity, and data heterogeneity are still less explored. In this talk, a number of solutions will be discussed for addressing the above practical challenges in wireless FL. Firstly, to tackle the unreliable wireless channels, a novel FL framework, namely FL with gradient recycling (FL-GR), which recycles the historical gradients of unscheduled and transmission-failure devices to improve the learning performance of FL, will be discussed. Secondly, to solve the heterogeneity issues, partial model aggregation, knowledge-aided learning and adaptive model pruning-based FL framework will be explained. Based on our research experience, some open problems of wireless FL will be provided.

Seminar Title: ‘Near-field Terahertz Networking’

Date: August 2024

�����Dz���������:��Dr. Mittleman received his B.S. in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1988, and his M.S. in 1990 and Ph.D. in 1994, both in physics from the University of California, Berkeley. He then joined AT&T Bell Laboratories as a post-doctoral member of the technical staff, where he built one of the early terahertz time-domain spectrometers for material spectroscopy and imaging. Dr. Mittleman joined the ECE Department at Rice University in September 1996. In 2015, he moved to the School of Engineering at Brown University. His research interests involve the science and technology of terahertz radiation. He is a Fellow of the OSA, the APS, and the IEEE, and a Humboldt Research Award winner, and in 2023 he is a Mercator Fellow of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. He has recently completed a three-year term as Chair of the International Society for Infrared Millimeter and Terahertz Waves.

�������ٰ�������:��The recent dramatic growth in interest in the use of high-frequency (millimeter-wave and terahertz) carrier waves for wireless communications has spurred a great deal of research activity. In some cases, such as fixed point-to-point backhaul, systems operating above 100 GHz are already in or nearing commercial deployment. On the other hand, significant research challenges remain for the deployment of local area networks, which must manage factors such as user mobility and line-of-sight blockage of directional beams. Interestingly, such networks may often be able to operate in a regime in which most or all of the broadcast sector is located in the near field of the transmitter. This possibility opens up a host of new ideas for wave front engineering, in particular wave fronts that can only exist in the electromagnetic near field. Here, we discuss a few examples, focusing on the class of wave fronts that can be engineered to curve around an intervening obstacle, delivering data to a user located in the shadow of the obstacle. This near-field effect presents an intriguing alternative to the popular notion of intelligent reflecting surfaces for blockage mitigation.

Seminar Title: ‘Orthogonal Time-Frequency-Space (OTFS) Modulation for Underwater Acoustic Communications’

Date: September 2024

�����Dz���������:��Prof Yahong Rosa Zheng received a Ph.D. degree from Carleton University, Ottawa, ONT, Canada, in 2002. She was an NSERC Postdoctoral Fellow for two years with the University of Missouri-Columbia. Then, she was on the faculty of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Missouri University of Science and Technology for 13 years. Since Aug. 2018, she has been a professor in the ECE department at Lehigh University. Her research interests include underwater and underground IoT, wireless communications, wireless sensor networks, compressive sensing, machine learning and robotics. She has served as a Technical Program Committee (TPC) member for many IEEE international conferences. She served as Associate Editor for three IEEE journals and a senior editor for IEEE Vehicular Technology Magazine. She is currently an Associate Editor for the IEEE Journal of Oceanic Engineering. She is the recipient of an NSF faculty CAREER award in 2009. She has been an IEEE fellow and a Distinguished Lecturer of the IEEE Vehicular Technology Society since 2015. She has also served on the IEEE Fellow evaluation committee for the IEEE Oceanic Engineering Society since 2018.

�������ٰ�������:��This talk first introduces the channel characteristics of underwater acoustic communication channels, then discusses the Single Carrier Coherent Modulation (SCCM), Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM), and Orthogonal Time-Frequency Space (OTFS) modulation schemes and their application to acoustic communications. Field experiments demonstrate the pros and cons of OTFS in comparison to SCCM and OTFS.