About the Speaker : Prof. Surendra Prasad is the Former Director, Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. He received his B.Tech degree in Electrical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur in 1969, and the M.S. and Ph.D degrees in Electrical Engineering from IIT Delhi in 1971 and 1974 respectively. Dr. Prasad held many prestigious positions in his illustrious career. He was the Deputy Director, Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi and Dean, Undergraduate Studies, Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. He was a Visiting Professor to the Department of Electrical Engineering, Lausanne, Switzerland and The Pennsylvania State University, USA. Teaching and Research Guidance has been the main thrust of his work for the last 34 years. The most significant part of the work comprises the development of new techniques and algorithms for signal processing, with contributions to the field covering the design of optimum signals and receivers; array pattern synthesis and optimal array processing; optimum MTI filters; adaptive signal processing; high resolution spectrum and direction estimation; deconvolution algorithms; higher order spectrum estimation; digital and wireless communications; and speech coding. As a teacher, he has been actively involved in manpower development programmes, first in the area of Sonar and Underwater Systems and more recently in Telematics and Communications. He has published more than 75 research papers in international journals of repute, and about 40 in prestigious international conferences. He has also written a large number of review articles and research reports and has edited three books. He undertook a large number of research and consultancy projects at IIT Delhi, some of which have resulted in key products or technologies for defence and industry. Dr. Prasad has received numerous awards and honors during his career viz. the Vikram Sarabhai Research Award in 1987 and the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Engineering Sciences in 1988. He is a Fellow, Indian National Sciences Academy of Engineering; Fellow, Indian National Science Academy, and Fellow, Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore.
Abstract: Wired Access Technologies of Future: Turning Copper to Gold
About the Speaker : Prof. John J. Soraghan received the BEng (first class honors) and the MEngSc. degrees in 1978 and 1982, respectively, both from University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland, and the PhD degree in electronic engineering from the University of Southampton, UK, in 1989. His PhD work on Synthetic Aperture Radar Processing was carried out in collaboration with the Royal Aircraft Establishment, Farnborough, U.K. From 1979 to 1980 he joined Westinghouse Electric Corporation, USA as an electronic engineer working on their TPS43 and TPS64 radar systems. In 1986, he joined the Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK, as a Lecturer in the Signal Processing Division. He became a Senior Lecturer in 1999, a Reader in 2001, and a Professor in 2003. From 1989 to 1991, he was Manager of the Scottish Transputer Centre, and from 1991 to 1995, he was Manager of the DTI Centre for Parallel Signal Processing. Since 1996, he has been Manager of the Texas Instruments’ DSP Elite Centre in the University. He was Head of the Institute for Communications and Signal Processing from 2005-2007. He currently holds the Texas Instruments Chair in Signal Processing in the Centre of Excellence in Signal and Image Processing (CeSIP) University of Strathclyde. His main research interests include advanced linear and non-linear signal processing theory and algorithms with applications to telecommunications; biomedical; multimedia systems; remote sensing and defence. He has been organiser and Technical Chair for the biannual European DSP in Education and Research Symposium (EDERS) since 2004. He has supervised twenty-eight PhD students to graduation, holds three patents, and has published over 230 technical papers.
Abstract: The Road to a World of Applied Researchers
Research Affiliate, Massachusetts Inst. of Tech.(MIT), USA
About the Speaker : Andrea Conti received the Laurea degree (summa cum laude) in telecommunications engineering and the Ph.D. degree in electronic engineering and computer science from the University of Bologna, Italy, in 1997 and 2001, respectively.
In 2005, he joined the University of Ferrara, Italy, where he is an Assistant Professor. He was Researcher with Consorzio Nazionale Interuniversitario per le Telecomunicazioni (CNIT) from 1999 to 2002 and with Istituto di Elettronica e di Ingegneria dell’Informazione e delle Telecomunicazioni, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (IEIIT/CNR) from 2002 to 2005 at the Research Unit of Bologna. 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 Communication and Network Sciences Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he presently holds the Research Affiliate appointment. He is a coauthor of Wireless Sensor and Actuator Networks: Enabling Technologies, Information Processing and Protocol Design (Elsevier, 2008). His research interests involve theory and experimentation of wireless systems and networks including network localization, adaptive diversity communications, cooperative relaying techniques, interference management, and sensor networks.
Dr. Conti is currently an Editor for the IEEE COMMUNICATIONS LETTERS. He served as an Editor for the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS from 2003 to 2009 and Guest-Editor for the EURASIP Journal on Advances in Signal Processing (Special Issue on Wireless Cooperative Networks) in 2008. He is the Technical Program Chair for the IEEE International Conference on Ultra-Wideband 2011; Technical Program Co-Chair for the IEEE Vehicular Technology Conference 2011-Spring and the Wireless Communications Symposium of IEEE Global Communications Conference 2010; and Technical Program Vice-Chair for the IEEE Wireless Communications and Networking Conference 2009. He served as reviewer for IEEE and IET journals and as Technical Program Committee Member for numerous IEEE conferences. He is elected Vice-Chair and Secretary of the IEEE Communications Society’s Radio Communications Technical Committee for the terms 2011–2012 and 2009–2010, respectively.
Abstract: Network Localization
About the Speaker : Prof. Rajendar Bahl has a B.Tech (Honours) in Electronics and Electrical Communication Engineering from IIT Kharagpur (1974) and PhD (EE) from IIT Delhi 1982. He joined this Institute as a Senior Research Assistant in 1974 and worked as Senior Scientific Officer, Principal Scientific Officer, finally becoming a Professor in 1995. He has been a past Head of the Centre during 1996-99. He has participated in various national bodies of the Department of Electronics, Ministry of Information Technology, and the Defence Research & Development Organization. He was jointly awarded the 1982 Invention Award of the National Research & Development Corporation for the indigenous development of a Digital Control System. He won a Senior Fellowship award of the US National Research Council during 1989-90 at the Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey. He has also visited as research fellow at the University of Tokyo during 1999.His major expertise is in sonar design and he has implemented a number of projects in this area.