Speakers: Majid Moradikia and Seyed (Reza) Zekavat, Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI)
Title: An Introduction to Digital Twins for Meta-Surface Empowered Wireless Networks
Abstract:
To support the stringent requirements of the emerging applications, such as augmented reality and brain-computer interface, wireless-based digital twin technology has been emerged recently. Digital twining creates a virtual representation of a wireless network at Edge devices. Edge-enhanced digital twining at wireless networks supports the creation of Intelligent Radios that facilitate real-time intelligent radio resource management. This talk aims to introduce the potentials of reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) technology equipped with digital twining for ultra-reliable low-latency communication (URLLC).
RIS technology have become a focal point of research due to their advantages to enhance the physical layer security, reliability, energy-efficiency, and coverage by smart reconfiguration of the wireless environment that is enabled by Digital Twin concept. The RIS panels have two-dimensional (2D) structure that are nearly passive and composed of metamaterial with macroscopic programmable physical characteristics. In this talk, we present a comprehensive review over the state-of-the-art on RIS families, with emphasis on their operating principles from the viewpoints of both physics and communications, their passive beamformer design, and, ML-enabled RIS wireless networks. We will also discuss the compatibility of reinforcement learning (RL) with RISs to constantly control the dynamic nature of wireless propagation while reaching a seamless integrated framework for Communication, sensing, and computation. Last but not the least, we will discuss the research opportunities of amalgam of RISs with other emerging technologies such as edge computing and Quantum machine learning (QML) to satisfy the ambitious goals of WDT.
Bio:
Majid Moradikia is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI). He received his Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from the Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Shiraz University of Technology, Shiraz. Prior to joining WPI, he had Research Scholar position at the Department of Electrical Engineering, Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, and a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Houston (UH). In UH, Dr. Moradikia contributed in a team that won the first place of the 4th Annual Beyond 5G Software Defined Radio University Challenge held by Airforce Research Laboratory (AFRL). His research interests include wireless communications, security and privacy, Machine Learning, and Radar and Communications Signal Processing.
Seyed A. (Reza) Zekavat is a professor of Physics and a professor of Data Sciences at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI). Before joining WPI, and till 2019, he was a professor of the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department of Michigan Technological University, where he founded the Wireless Positioning Lab of Michigan Tech ECE department. Zekavat received his Ph.D. from Colorado State University in 2002. He is the author of more than 170 peer-reviewed articles. He has authored the textbook “Electrical Engineering: Concepts and Applications” published by Pearson, and the editor of the book “Handbook of Position Location: Theory, Practice, and Advances,” published by Wiley/IEEE. He holds a patent on an active Wireless Remote Positioning System. Zekavat has also co-authored two books “Multi-Carrier Technologies for Wireless Communications,” published by Kluwer, and “High Dimensional Data Analysis,” published by VDM Verlag; and ten books chapters in the areas of adaptive antennas, localization, and spectrum sharing. Zekavat’s research interests are in wireless communications, positioning systems, software-defined radio design, dynamic and intelligent spectrum allocation, Radar theory, blind signal separation, and MIMO and beamforming techniques, feature extraction, and neural networking. Recently, he founded and chaired two Workshops on New Paradigms in Intelligent Spectrum Management and Regulations. He has also served as the Editorial Board of Springer Nature Special Issue on New Paradigms in Intelligent Spectrum Management and Regulations. Moreover, he has served on the editorial board of many Journals including IET Communications, IET Wireless Sensor System, Springer International Journal on Wireless Networks, and GSTF Journal on Mobile Comm. Zekavat is the founder of the Space Solar Power Workshop that is held @ the IEEE WiSEE conference. He has served as a steering committee and general chair of a large number of IEEE conferences and workshops. He is active on the technical program committees for several IEEE international conferences, serving as a committee chair or member.
