Team: Wireless communications

Group Leader: Elhocine Boutellaa

About CSF

The existence of Wireless Communications Group (CSF) is fully justified, first within the Telecom division at CDTA, and then in the modern digitalized society, in which wirelessly acquiring information, communicating it, then smartly processing it is a main concern. Future wireless networks will allow people to communicate, on the fly, while moving, with anyone, anywhere and anytime, by having recourse to a range of high-performance multimedia services. Wireless video transmission, for instance, will support applications, such as enhanced social networking, learning and remote medicine. Wireless sensor networks will enable not only a new class of smart electronics to be incorporated  at home, in intelligent buildings and in highways, but also the deployment of networks on/within the human body, with the objective of analyzing and processing medical data among others.

However, many technological challenges are still impeding the transformation of such a vision into a reality. These challenges span all the aspects of wireless communication networks and its associated signal processing including, the design of the entire architecture encompassing the hardware and the communication links, the wireless network connectivity, the distributed detection, the communication and cross-layer design, etc. Furthermore, interactions between the hardware, the link, and the network design must be established and exploited such that to meet the requirements of the future communication systems, thereby creating a competitive, compact and efficient solution.

CSF Interests and Research Axes

• Wireless personal communications and networks
• Cellular and non-cellular mobile radio communication systems
• Radio propagation and channel modeling
• Communication systems architectures (massive MIMO, cooperative networks, …)
• Wireless communication protocol (LTE, 5G and beyond, WIMAX, …)
• Architectures and electronics for low power signal processing
• Internet of Things and Device-to-Device Communications (D2D)
• Flexible cells, relaying systems, and UAV
• Spread spectrum systems
• Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs)
• Communication theory
• Sensors and wireless data acquisition (physiological, inertial, ambient, …)
• Signal processing for communications
• Machine learning, artificial intelligence and their applications to medical and sports problems
• Hardware implementation of solutions

Research projects

Current projects

Project 1: Proposition of Architectural Solutions for 5G and Beyond, and Study of the Performance of these Systems

Project 2: Theoretical and Experimental Study of Radio channels and Communications for Body-based Medical and Sports Purposes

Finalized/Closed FNR Projects:

• 2016-2018, Body-centralized Conception and implementation for diverse applications such as the biomedical
• 2012-2015, Characterization, modeling of the body networks (BANs) and the design of a wireless biomedical system
• 2012- 2015, Design of a multiple access ultra-wideband hybrid system for communication and localization
• 2012-2015, Software and hardware implementation of LTE standard incorporating intercell interference mitigation functionality

Collaboration

• LRTCS Laboratory, University of Quebec in Abitibi Témiscamingue (UQAT), Canada
• Friedrich Alexander Universitat, Germany
• INRS, Canada
• University of UWS, Glasgow, United Kingdom