Outreach

Activities:

In-person Workshops among Rice, Brown, Northeaster research groups, 2021-2022

  • In the past year, we organized two in-person two-day workshops for the three research groups to update progress and exchange ideas. The first workshop was hosted in July 2021 at Northeastern University, and the second workshop was in April 2022 at Rice University. For both events, there were overall 15+ attendees from Rice, Brown, and Northeastern University. The workshop featured a mixed of tutorials, demos, project presentations, and brainstorming sessions. Most student participants presented, and all attendees actively participate in discussion. The brainstorming and idea exchange stimulated new project directions and collaborations. Students also make connections with each other during the workshop and continue to discuss and collaborate after the workshop.

Student Training – PI Knightly’s team at Rice University and PI Mittleman’s team at Brown University, 2021-2022

  • In Mittleman’s lab, three PhD students and one post-doctoral researcher are involved in aspects of the research described above.
  • At Rice University, we purchased a THz time domain system (TDS) in 2021 and since then we have the capability to conduct experiments in the range of 100 GHz to 1 THz.  Several students were trained for using THz time domain system during the past year, including graduate students Zhambyl Shaikhanov, Fahid Hassan, Bin Zhao, and Burak Bilgin. Many of the experiments feature metasurface design and characterization for new THz threats and functionalities.
  • Senior PhD student Zhambyl Shaikhanov and second year PhD student Fahid Hassan demonstrated a metasurface-in-the-middle eavesdropping attack for THz link using the TDS system, and performed a demo in WiSec 2022 which received the best demo award. Zhambyl and Fahid also help train two first year PhD students, Bin Zhao and Burak Bilgin on THz TDS experiments and metasurface design and fabrication. In addition, a Summer intern Syed Bahrez Nadeem was also trained for TDS experiments and metasurface prototyping.
  • A collaboration on projects have been spearheaded by PhD students in Mittleman’s group and Knightly’s group. One of the projects also involved a collaboration with researchers in Germany. The collaborative effort was coordinated by a senior PhD student, who gained valuable experience in working with remote partners to achieve a common goal.
  • Several students from different research groups have participated in the research. It includes two of PI Knightly’s PhD students who have made several extended visits to Brown in order to be trained on the THz measurement at PI Mittleman’s laboratories and to acquire much of the data that is contained in the publications that appeared in Nature Communications (April 2020), ACM MobiCom (September 2020), and ACM SenSys (November 2020).
  • To extend the previously described 2D path discovery approach for THz networks to a more advanced 3D environment, Miftah, a graduate student at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany, worked closely with PI Knightly during summer 2020. He performed extensive simulation analysis to explore the challenges and opportunities of an extended path discovery platform in 3D space.
  • Fahid Hassan, a first year graduate student from Rice University, has started exploring approaches to employ THz leaky wave antenna as a radar system as a part of this first-year research course in Spring 2021. Through a combination of simulation and experimentation, he has shown promising detection capabilities of the LWA-based radar system. After successfully completing the course, he has joined PI Knightly’s research group to continue his PhD and deep dive into research.
  • Brown’s lead researcher on the Scientific Reports paper, Yasith Amarasinghe is about to finish his PhD and will become a post-doctoral researcher at A-Star in Singapore(still working on THz wireless, which is very good news indeed).

Student training – PI Jornet’s team at Northeastern University, 2021-2022

  • At Northeastern University in 2022, this project has provided support to two PhD students (Ms. Duschia Bodet for the entire year, and Arjun Singh and Sherif Badran for the first and second half of the year, respectively). Mr. Priyangshu Sen (to be graduating this summer), while not directly funded by this project, has played a key role in training Duschia Bodet, Jacob Hall and Sherif Badran on the use of the TeraNova platform. In addition, he has work closely together with the Brown University team on the characterization and experimental testing with real information-bearing signals of the practical implications of leaky wave antennas in medium to long range THz communications.
  • This project has provided support to 1 PhD student (Mr. Arjun Singh, 6 months) and 4 months of support to a postdoctoral fellow, Dr. Viduneth Ariyarathna. In addition, a non-funded student, namely, Ms. Duschia Bodet, has also contributed to the project and will now formally join the PhD program and this project at Northeastern. In addition to their specific research, all these students have:learned the fundamental theory related to THz devices, the THz channel and the THz  physical layer;
  • developed their own analytical skills to implement the aforementioned solutions;
  • become familiar with state-of-the-art laboratory RF equipment;
  • learned how to perform ultra-broadband ultra-high-frequency measurements in a reliable way.

Teaching – PI Jornet, Northeastern University, 2021-2022

  • PI Jornet has delivered four short courses on THz communications at top conferences, including IEEE VTC 2021 and VTC 2022, IEEE PIMRC and IEEE WCNC. He has also delivered a total of 16 keynote speeches, invited lectures and seminars on the same in the last year alone. He is also an IEEE ComSoc Distinguished lecturer.
  • We have incorporated these results to the EECE 7398: Terahertz Communications course (https://unlab.tech/nano_courses/eece-7398-terahertz-communications-for-6g-and-beyond/)

 

Honors and Awards:

  • Edward Knightly was awarded the IEEE INFOCOM Achievement Award for his contributions to the design, implementation and experimental demonstrations of wireless networks, May 2023.
  • Zhambyl Shaikhanov, Sherif Badran, Josep M. Jornet, Daniel M. Mittleman, and Edward Knightly received the Best Demo Award for their demo, “Adversarial Aerieal MetaSurfaces,” in the Proceedings of the 24th International Workshop on Mobile Computing Systems and Applications (HotMobile), February 2023.
  • Zhambyl Shaikhanov, Fahid Hassan, Hichem Guerboukha, Daniel M. Mittleman, and Edward Knightly received a Best Demo Award for their demo, “DEMO: Adversarial Metasurfaces: Metasurface-in-the-Middle Attack,” in Proceedings of the 15th ACM Conference on Security and Privacy in Wireless and Mobile Networks (WiSec 2022), May 2022.
  • Keerthi Dasala, Josep Jornet, and Edward Knightly received a Best Paper Award for their paper, “Uplink Multi-User Beamforming on Single RF Chain mmWave WLANs,” in Proceedings of IEEE INFOCOM 2021, May 2021.
  • Yasaman GhasemPour, advised by PI Knightly, received the Marconi Society Paul Baran Young Scholar Award (2020), ACM SIGMOBILE Doctoral Dissertation Award (2020), and her PhD from Rice University. She joined Princeton University as an assistant professor in January 2021.
  • PI Knightly, named General Chair, ACM MobiCom: The 27th Annual International Conference on Mobile Computing and ACM MobiCom 2021.
  • Ms. Duschia Bodet, advised by PI Jornet, received the MS Leadership Award, College of Engineering, Northeastern University, April 2021.

 

Invited Presentations:

Lead PI Knightly, Rice University, gave the following invited presentations, 2022-2023:

  • Networking: An Agenda for the Next Decade, IEEE INFOCOM 2023, New York, May 2023
  • Wireless Networking: from Technology For All to sub-Terahertz, NSF CISE Distinguished Lecture, February 2023
  • Wireless Networking, Security, and Sensing above 100 GHz, International Telecommunication Union (ITU) webinar, October 2022
  • Wireless Networking, Security, and Sensing above 100 GHz, Technical University of Braunschweig, June 2022.
  • THz Physical Layer Security, 1st International Workshop on Metrology for THz Communications, June 2022.

PI Mittleman, Brown University, gave the following invited presentations, 2022-2023:

  • IEEE Communications Society Radio Communications Committee Special Interest Group on Terahertz Communications, remote seminar series (online, March 2023)
  • 8th International Conference on Antennas and Electromagnetic Systems (Marrakesh Morocco, 2022)
  • Fifth IEEE International Workshop on Terahertz Communications at IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC) (online via Seoul Korea, 2022)
  • Departmental colloquium, University of Notre Dame, 2022
  • Online colloquium, CSIR-National Physical Laboratory India (2022)

PI Jornet, Northeastern University presented the following, 2022-2023:

Keynotes:

  • “Terahertz Communications in 6G: How Much Are We Really Going to See?,” IEEE Wireless Communications and Networking Conference (WCNC), March 26-29, 2023.
  • “Joint Terahertz Waveform and Wavefront Design: The Path to Terabits-per-second in 6G,” 2nd IEEE International Workshop on Terahertz for Integrated Sensing and Communication (THz-ISAC), in conjunction with IEEE PIMRC, September 12, 2022.

Invited Seminars:

  • “Terahertz Communications: How Far Are We? ,” IEEE ComSoC Distinguished Lecture, Innovare Advancement Center, Rome, NY, March 8, 2023.
  • “Joint Terahertz Waveform and Wavefront Design: The Path to Terabits-per-second in 6G,” Seminar, University of Hong Kong, February 2, 2023.
  • “Joint Terahertz Waveform and Wavefront Design: The Path to Terabits-per-second in 6G,” Invited Speaker, Workshop on Terahertz Communications, in conjunction with IEEE International Conference on Advanced Networks and Telecommunications Systems, December 21, 2022.
  • “Spectrum Sharing Challenges for Enabling Large Bandwidth Terahertz Communications and Sensing Above 100 GHz in 6G,” Seminar, IEEE RCC Special Interest Group on Terahertz Communications, November 2, 2022.
  • “The Role of the Terahertz Band in 6G and Beyond: Reality Check,” Invited Speaker, IEEE Communication Theory Workshop, Session on Extreme Bandwidth Communications, October 3, 2022.
  • “Wireless Nano-Bio Communication Networks enabled by Optogenomic Interfaces,” Lecture, IEEE ComSoc Week, University of Houston Clear Lake, September 15, 2022.
  • “Comunicaciones en la banda de los terahercios para 6G: de la teoria a la practica,” IEEE Distinguished Lecture, Argentina Section Chapter, together with IEEE ArgenCon, September 7-9, 2022.
  • “Terahertz Communications for 6G and Beyond: From Waveforms to Wavefronts,” Distinguished Invited Talk, Next G Alliance Technology Working Group, August 5, 2022.
  • “Terahertz Communications for 6G: How Far Are We?,” Seminar, IEEE Radio Communications Technical Committee, July 5, 2022.

Tutorials:

  • “Terahertz Communications for 6G and Beyond: How Far Are We?,” Tutorial, IEEE Global Communications Conference, December 2022.
  • “Terahertz Communications for 6G and Beyond: Challenges, Advances and Future Directions,” Tutorial, IEEE 95th Vehicular Technology Conference: VTC2022-Spring, June 19-22, 2022.

Panels:

  • “Enabling Technologies – Delivering a 6G World,” Panelist, 6G Evolution Summit, December 18, 2022.
  • “Nurturing Younger-generation Electrical and Computer Engineers,” Moderator, 4th Buffalo Wireless Day for 5G and Wireless Internet of Things, November 18, 2022.
  • “Electromagnetics and Communications: Can we Close the Gap?,” Moderator, NYU WIRELESS Workshop, October 27, 2022.
  • “New Spectrum and Sensing Technologies,” Moderator, Brooklyn 6G Summit, NYC, NY, USA, October 26, 2022
  • “Next G Technology – The Air Interface,” Panelist, Fall 2022 6G Symposium, DC, USA, October 11-12, 2022.
  • “Security and Competitiveness of Information and Communication Technology & Services (ICTS),” Panelist, U.S.-EU Trade and Technology Council (TTC), June 23, 2022.

Lead PI Knightly presented the team’s current research in invited or keynote talks at several international conferences including the IEEE Consumer Communications and Networking Conference (CCNC, January 2021) the IEEE Innovations in Information Technology (November 2020), and the 6G Symposium (October 2020) discussing the challenges, opportunities, and potential solutions for wireless communication, sensing, and security above 100 GHz.

  • Lead PI Knightly presented the team’s current research in a keynote talk at MobiCom 2021: Wireless Networking, Security, and Sensing above 100 GHz, ACM MobiCom 2021, New Orleans, LA, March 2022.

PI Mittleman, Brown University, presented invited talks on the aforementioned research topics at the CLEO Pacific Rim conference (Sydney Australia), the 2nd International Workshop on Mobile Terahertz Technologies (Essen Germany), and the 13th UK-Europe-China Workshop on Millimeter-wave and Terahertz Technologies (Tianjin China), all presented virtually online due to the covid pandemic.

PI Jornet, Northeastern University presented the following:

  1. “Terahertz Communication for 6G Systems,” Half-day Course, The 2021 Joint EuCNC & 6G Summit, June 8, 2021.
  2. “Conquering the Spectrum: A Plasmonic Approach,” Panelist in the THz Communication for Beyond5G Networks, at the Optical Networking and Communication Conference & Exhibition (OFC), June 8, 2021.
  3. “Conquering the Terahertz Band for 6G Networks,” Invited Speaker, 39th Annual Microelectronic Engineering Conference at RIT, April 25, 2021.
  4. “Terahertz Communications: Myths, Challenges and Opportunities,” Half-day Course, The 93rd IEEE Vehicular Technology Conference (VTC), April 25, 2021.
  5. “Conquering the Terahertz Band for 6G Systems,” Seminar, ECE, University of Wisconsin-Madison, March 12, 2021.
  6. “6G – Spectrum for 95 GHz and Above,” Panelist, Wireless Communication Alliance (WCA), February 23, 2021.
  7. “Conquering the Terahertz Band for 6G Systems,” Seminar, IEEE Wireless Communications Technical Committee (WTC), February 17, 2021.
  8. “Conquering the Terahertz Band for 6G Systems,” Keynote, Plenary Meeting, CONNECT Center, Ireland, December 9, 2020.
  9. “Conquering the Terahertz Band: From Theory to Practice,” Seminar, KAUST/Frontiers Series, December 1, 2020.
  10. “Nanonetworking in the Terahertz Band (and Beyond): From Nanomaterials to Macrosystems,” Keynote Speech, ACM NanoCoCoa 2020, November 16, 2020.
  11. “Terahertz Communications: From Nanomaterials to Ultrabroadband Networks,” Keynote Speaker at the 45th International Conference on Infrared, Millimeter, and Terahertz Waves (IRMMW-THz), November 13, 2020.
  12. “A National Radio Dynamic Zone for Wireless Research above 100 GHz,” Lightning Talk, NRDZ Partnership – Kick-off Meeting, November 10, 2020.
  13. “Scoring the Terabit/s Goal: Broadband Connectivity in 6G,” 6G Research Vision Webinar Series, 6G Channel, University of Oulu, Finland, November 4, 2020.
  14. “Conquering the Spectrum,” Panel Organizer and Moderator, Inaugural 6G Symposium, October 20-21, 2020.
  15. “Conquering the Terahertz Band for 6G Systems,” IEEE-UAE Distinguished Seminar Series – Fall 2020, October 2020.
  16. “Conquering the Terahertz Band for 6G Systems,” Lecture at Qualcomm, September 21, 2020.
  17. “Opportunities and Challenges above 100 GHz,” Panelist, NSF Workshop on Wireless, Spectrum & Innovation, August 27-28, 2020.
  18. “Exploiting 100 GHz of Bandwidth: Physical and Link Layer Solutions,” Contribution, IEEE 802.15 WPAN Terahertz Interest Group, IEEE 802 LAN/MAN Standards Committee Online Meeting, July 15, 2020.