Public defence in Radio Engineering, M.Sc.(Tech.) Usman Virk

The title of the thesis: Characterizing Multipath Radio Environments for 5G Wireless Systems and Beyond

Doctoral student: Usman Virk
Opponent: Prof. Luis M. Correia, IST, University of Lisbon, Portugal
Custos: Prof. Katsuyuki Haneda, Aalto University School of Electrical Engineering, Department of Electronics and Nanoengineering

Fifth generation (5G) technology is currently the centerpiece of the wireless communication industry, which is striving hard to unlock its true potential. 5G is expected to enable a fully connected smart society where billions of devices are linked together and share information in real time, completely transforming the traditional view of wireless networks. The 5G wireless systems operating in centimeter (cm) and millimeter (mm) wave parts of the frequency spectrum must deal with all sorts of radio wave propagation conditions imposed by a radio channel. This entails a thorough characterization of radio channels across the desired frequency range for efficient system design and performance. The primary focus of this thesis is (1) to model the interaction of radio waves with material objects in radio environments and (2) to characterize multipath radio channels at cmWave and mmWave frequencies. The research studies reported in this doctoral thesis address some unique challenges associated with characterizing and modeling cmWave and mmWave radio channels, including the estimation of the dielectric properties of built-in composite materials in radio environments, characterizing human blockage, modeling propagation effects for ray-based point cloud simulations, feasibility of the full-wave numerical methods for radio wave propagation, and qualitative comparison of cmWave and mmWave radio channels. The scientific results disseminated in the publications of this thesis are recognized by the scientific community through three international best paper awards, which manifests the quality, significance, timeliness, and impact of the research.

Thesis available for public display 10 days prior to the defence at: https://aaltodoc.aalto.fi/doc_public/eonly/riiputus/

Contact information:

Doctoral theses in the School of Electrical Engineering: https://aaltodoc.aalto.fi/handle/123456789/53

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