Technical Lectures

CMOS radios continue to evolve so as to satisfy the demands of new applications. Below 7 GHz, cellular and WiFi standards have been pushing the performance to support increasingly higher data rates while consuming less power. Such endeavors require novel architectures that also lend themselves to efficient circuit design. In addition, new radios have emerged around 30 GHz for 5G, around 60 GHz for WiGig, around 140 GHz for 6G, and around 300 GHz for sub-terahertz communications. Each of these frequency bands presents interesting and unique challenges, but a unifying principle among them is the need for beamforming.<br />
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This presentation deals with recent developments in receiver design for this broad range of applications. We examine the shortcomings of standard direct-conversion architectures and draw concepts from the state of the art to improve their performance. We also contend that heterodyne reception may outperform direct conversion in some cases. We then study beamforming techniques with emphasis on solutions that draw minimal power.

There is growing interest in the potential of digital engineering, and more specifically Model Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) and digital twins, to shorten product development lifecycles and reduce costs. A primary benefit of such an approach is a SHIFT LEFT, such that many end-end system-level performance, interoperability, and security issues may be investigated earlier in the product development lifecycle than is typically the case using the traditional V-based design model.
Digital Twins (DT) leverage high-fidelity software models of physical systems to support design, test, and lifecycle management of complex systems in an efficient and comprehensive manner. A DT uses simulation and emulation but differs from them in that the DT continuously learns and updates itself from multiple sources to represent the near real-time status and operating conditions of the corresponding real-world system. A Network Digital Twin (NDT) is a digital twin of a communications network which uses real-time data to enable understanding, learning, and reasoning across its lifecycle.
We use integrated digital twins (IDT) to mean a digital twin that consist of three primary layers:
• a software or services twin that represents the middleware and services that must directly satisfy the application-level Service Level Agreements or SLAs
• a network digital twin that models the dynamic end-end communication path over a potentially heterogeneous network incorporating the protocols at the transport, network, link, and physical layers, and
• an RF digital twin that captures the behavior of the transceiver devices, antennas, and the signal propagation among communicating neighbors
By constructing the IDT in the early stages of system design, perhaps by leveraging MBSE tools and methodologies, system designers and developers can also maintain a trace of the requirement flow from the initial system specification to the final deployed system.
In this technical lecture, we will present the concept and primary components of an IDT. We will also demonstrate the application of an IDT to design complex systems using a 5G Non-Terrestrial Network (NTN) as an example case study. NTN design and architectures are being standardized by the 3GPP as an integral part of the 5G infrastructure. Broadly speaking, an NTN refers to a 5G network that includes a segment spanning non-terrestrial objects (e.g., High Altitude Platforms, or HAPS, and satellites) which may optionally host a base station. Various attributes of an NTN like the long communication delays, ground-air/space propagation links, and handoff among space-based platforms, make them an interesting case study for an IDT. Using this case study, we will both present an overall methodology for how the IDT can be applied to look at end-end performance of an NTN from the purview of applications like streaming videos, and describe the composabiity of models from the RF, network, and services domains. The case study will also illustrate how IDTs can support the Shift Left approach to early investigations of end-end system-level performance, interoperability, and security issues.
Towards the end of the talk, we consider areas for ongoing research including multi-fidelity models, model composition, automated model generation, and model scalability.

Spaceborne RF high power amplifiers (HPAs) are key building blocks used in telecommunication, navigation, remote sensing, science and human spaceflight applications. Due to their limited efficiency, they often play a central role in the electrical, thermal and mechanical design of complete instrument and payloads onboard the spacecraft.
The aim of this technical lecture is to provide, through a real-case scenario, a comprehensive insight of solid-state power amplifiers including key semiconductor technologies and trade-offs, basic principles of HPA operating modes, traditional architectures used in space systems, step-by-step design and integration aspects, validation activities as well as development challenges brought by the different application domains.
The technical lecture aims at being an entertaining and interactive forum where participants will have the opportunity to exchange throughout the lecture.

This lecture will enable audience to design and analyze modern portable radar systems for healthcare and IoT applications. It will develop understanding of the fundamentals of smart radar systems. The audience will be exposed to various radar systems including Doppler, ultra-wideband, frequency shift keying, and frequency-modulated continuous-wave radars. Furthermore, the audience will be exposed to the fundamentals of synthetic-aperture radar, inverse synthetic-aperture radar, and pulse compression radar. A few examples based on interferometry, Doppler, and FMCW modes at 5.8 GHz, 24 GHz, and 120 GHz will be discussed. Then, the mechanism and applications of nonlinear radar sensing technologies will be illustrated. Case studies at this exciting human-microwave frontier will be given on physiological signal sensing, non-contact human-computer interface, driving behavior recognition, human tracking, and anomaly detection.