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WNCG faculty are collaboratively exploring some of the emerging applications for wireless technologies, ranging from sensor networking, to home networks, to ad hoc networks used in emergency relief, and other applications supported over wireless Internet infrastructure. Video surveillance

WNCG has multiple experts actively working on the fundamental underpinnings of networks and communication systems. In WNCG, researchers from different theoretical disciplines come together in a collaborative environment to address challenges posed by next generation wireless systems. The group's aim is to use theory to inspire practice; translating theoretical innovation into system design, development and deployment by partnering with our affiliates. Network Capacity Limits/ Multi-terminal Information Theory

System design, Implementation, and Experimentation WNCG research has a significant focus on the design and implementation of novel advanced wireless systems. This focus is complemented by experimental and prototype work both on these new systems and on systems that are already deployed. This includes work in Millimeter wave communications. Millimeter wave radio research is directed to lowering costs for 60 GHz multi gigabit/sec communications radio chips.

WNCG has considerable expertise in art of advanced radio design. Often referred to as 'The Physical Layer', these digital communication techniques now in many cases span from the very front end of the radio into the software domain, and form the fundamental building blocks of state-of-the-art wireless systems. Antennas and Propagation A solid understanding of radio wave propagation is critical for proper design and analysis of any new wireless technology.

The IEEE Vehicular Technology Society has provided a $50,000 grant for Prof. Ted Rappaport and his students to create a prototype semantic web portal for potential use by IEEE members worldwide. The concept of the Semantic Web is a linked data-structure that enables machines to understand the semantics, or meaning, of information on the World Wide Web. Semantic tools are being used in big-science projects in the fields of astronomy, genetics, and molecular research, but have been slow to come to the wireless communications and propagation community.

In December, Prof. Robert W. Heath Jr. visited the Norwegian University of Science and Technology and served as the first opponent on a Ph.D. defense. The second opponent was Dr. Nadia Khaled from EPFL. The student, who passed with flying colors was Mariam Kaynia, advised by Prof. Geir Oien, who is also Faculty Dean of NTNU's Faculty of Information Technology, Mathematics, and Electrical Engineering. The dissertation topic was an Analysis and Improvement of Wireless ad hoc Network Performance Through MAC and PHY Layer Design. The structure of the Ph.D.

The January 2011 WNCG Open House featured a large turnout of affiliate members and spectacular weather. Poster presentations and breakout sessions allowed students to engage with affiliate representatives, which ensures appropriate placements in summer internships and/or other employment. These interactions make possible a deeper understanding of WNCG activities, as well as present an opportunity to meet with faculty and students on campus. Blues skies and warm weather made it possible to enjoy lunch out of doors on a beautiful spring day.

Professor Constantine Caramanis was awarded an NSF CAREER award, for his work at the intersection of robust optimization, networks and machine learning. The award will support his work on 'High Dimensional Statistics - Adaptive Networks, Structure and Robustness,' with the goal of developing a new methodological framework to understand high dimensional complex phenomena from potentially corrupted and incomplete data. This research has the potential to significantly impact our abilities to discover important structure in complex problems, from bioinformatics to social networks.

Al bovik Named IST/SPIE Imaging Scientist of the Year' UT ECE Prof. Alan Bovik was named Imaging Scientist of the Year the highest technical honor collaboratively given by the Society for Imaging Science and Technology (IST), two of the largest academic and industrial societies in the world. In presenting the award, the organizations cited Bovik's 'seminal contributions to the computational aspects of biological visual perception, specifically in the areas of image and video quality. 'Dr.

Dr. Rahul Vaze and Professor Robert W. Heath Jr. received the EURASIP 2011 Journal on Wireless Communications and Networking Best Paper Award for their paper: 'End-to-End Joint Antenna Selection Strategy and Distributed Compress and Forward Strategy for Relay Channels' They will receive the award at the end of August in Barcelona, Spain at the EUSIPCO 2011 conference. In this paper, the authors show how a small amount of feedback could be used to configure a multi-hop relay channel to achieve good reliability and high throughput, achieving the optimum diversity-multiplexing tradeoff.