Class10

In this talk, we will provide a chronicle of the development of the layered space-time architecture, an appealing approach to communication over MIMO wireless channels. Motivated by fundamental information-theoretical results on the capacity of MIMO channels, the layered architecture was proposed in the mid-1990s by G. J. Foschini and popularized under the name BLAST (Bell-labs Layered Space-Time). Its experimental validation resulted in unprecedented spectral efficiencies, which fueled the interest in MIMO communication. During the last decade, successive refinements to the original idea have addressed some of its shortcomings. We will elaborate on some of these refinements, with emphasis on the notion of PARC (Per-Antenna Rate Control). A MIMO proposal based on PARC has recently been approved for the next release of the UMTS third-generation standard. We will describe this proposal and, also, briefly touch on some other communication systems where MIMO-PARC is being applied/considered. Lastly, with some figures of actual MIMO chipsets performing very close to the theoretical predictions, we will close the loop between fundamentals and practice.

Angel Lozano (S’90, M’99, SM’02) was born in Manresa, Spain, in 1968. He received the Engineer degree in telecommunications from the Polytechnical University of Catalonia, Barcelona, Spain, in 1992 and the Master of Science and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University, Stanford, CA, in 1994 and 1998 respectively. Between 1996 and 1998 he worked for Pacific Communication Sciences Inc. and for Conexant Systems in San Diego, CA. Since January 1999 he has been with Bell Laboratories (Lucent Technologies)  in Holmdel, NJ. He has authored over 50 papers and 3 book chapters and holds 8 patents. Dr. Lozano is a senior member of the IEEE and, since October 1999, he has served as associate editor for IEEE Transactions on Communications. He is currently an Adjunct Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering at Columbia University, New York, NY.

Host: Professor Masoud Sharif
Student Host: James Kang