POSTDOCTORAL RESEARCH FELLOW (November 2013-November 2016)
FUND: FONDECYT POSTDOC 3140045 –http://www.conicyt.cl/fondecyt/files/2013/03/Postdoctorado-2014_Listado-proyectos-aprobados.pdf
At Informatics and Telecommunications School – Universidad Diego Portales
My research tasks have been focused on channel modelling at the ISM 60 GHz mm-wave band, taking into account different installation setups typical of IEEE 802.11ad and 5G cellular communications. Statistics channel models for fixed wireless transmission technologies operating at this frequency band are needed in order to understand the channel behaviour under those installation setups, such as communications between the user terminal and the base station or between user terminals. The effect of the pedestrian blockage/movement have been seen significant and crucial for the future operation at this extremelly high frequency-power drops the order of tens of dBs in few ms are dramatic when a human body crosses the link. Since the 60 GHz channel is clustered (the main components are the LOS (Line of Sight) and first and second order reflections) there are other directions than the LOS which can be dominant. As a result, specially under movement of pedestrians in the vicinity of the link, steering strategies, and other multi-antenna techniques can be useful. Bemforming is still a doubt for the operation of future 5G mmwave 60 GHz communications (the mobility is a key aspect to consider for beamforming techniques). Three ISI publications from the obtained results are on the way.
PhD STUDENT IN R&D WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS FOCUSED ON WSN-BASED INDUSTRIAL APPLICATIONS (March 2010-February 2013)
FUND: AGAUR TEM-DGR 2009, TEM00070
My research activities at WorldSensing S.L., a company specializing on state-of-the-art low power wireless sensing solutions (www.worldsensing.com) were focused on RF and wireless communications issues, mainly antennas and wireless propagation for application in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN). I combined my research activities at the University with more than two years of implementing industrial applications at Worldsensing, providing a mutual feedback between the research and industrial worlds. As my research was mainly experimental, I performed different analyses and numerous measurement campaigns in order to develop wireless outcomes with huge potential (and currently working in some Worldsensing products).
An ISI journal paper called “A generic empirical channel model for low power lossy networks at the 868 MHz band for smart cities” was published at IET Transactions on Antennas and Propagation.
A 2nd ISI journal paper called “On the suitability of the the 433 MHz band for M2M wireless communications: propagation aspects” was also accepted in JCR.
FastPrk (March 2010- February 2013)
Worldsensing‘s FastPrk provides a complete ICT platform to improve urban mobility and reduce its impact on the environment, based on real-time high-accuracy information of available parking spaces and traffic in the streets. FastPrk is a novel solution that delivers real-time information of available parking spots to citizens by means of mobile phone app’s and/or panels on the street. Any smart parking application consists of ground nodes (the parking spot nodes) and repeaters. The communication distance in this kind of complex applications, is limited when a metal sheet (under a car) is presented above the tx/rx antenna. As stated above my PhD thesis consisted to find ways to increase the communications distance as much as possible taking into account some already defined tradeoffs (i.e. packet size and data rate).
For more information about FastPrk, I invite you to see: WorldSensing’s Smart Parking Solution.
OUTSMART (February 2012-March 2013)
The goal of OUTSMART is to contribute to the Future Internet (FI) by aiming at the development of five innovation ecosystems: Waste management, Water and Sewage, Sustainable transport, Street Lighting and Water as a Resouce.
http://www.fi-ppp-outsmart.eu/en-uk/about-project/Pages/default.aspx
XALOC (November 2009-June 2010)
The objective of XALOC was focused to develop a system to locate unoccupied car spaces on the street and guide users to the nearest available parking spot. The system was named XALOC and it combined the signals from the parking spot sensors to offer a new positioning technology allowing for more precision in urban areas where GPS signals are weak or unavailable. My Master’s thesis was based on this project. For more information see this Paper.
InterRural-Internet Rural for Itinerant and Heterogeneous Networks (September 2007-July 2008)
The aim of this research project was to develop a fixed WiMAX network . WiMAX base station configuration to allow real time multimedia services such as videoconference. In addition, throughput and QoS comparison between WiMAX 802.15.16-2004 and WiFI 802.11a was realized.
With the developed work a congress paper called “InterRural: Internet Rural mediante Redes Heterogeneas e Itinerantes ” was sent to the XXIII Simposium Nacional de la Unión Científica Internacional de Radio.
Dr.Albert Anglès Vázquez 