As part of the series of conferences organized by LCIS, a special ScattererID ERC event was organized on Tuesday, 5 February 2019 at the laboratory.

First of all, four demonstration sessions of the Starlab equipment that was recently acquired were carried out by Etienne Perret and Sergio Lopez Soriano.

Open to all the LCIS and ESISAR engineering school staff, the sessions brought together more than 30 participants, who were able to discover how Starlab actually works. This cutting-edge tool, which will be used for the ScattererID project, is able to measure all types of antennas, to perform ultra-fast tests and extremely precise measurements thanks to its patented probe array technology.

Another highlight of the afternoon was the lecture given by Professor Nuno Borges Carvalho, from the University of Aveiro in Portugal, about « Energy Efficient Future Wireless Communications”.

Prof. Nuno Borges Carvalho is an IEEE Fellow and distinguished lecturer of IEEE Microwave Technology & Techniques (IEEE MTT), internationally recognized for his research in RF energy recovery.

For the occasion, many researchers, Ph.D. students, post-docs and interns were present to listen to him with great interest. The workshop attracted more than 30 participants.

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“Energy efficient future wireless communications” by Pr. Nuno Borges Carvalho

The energy needs for wireless systems is limiting the evolution of most of the Internet of Things (IoT) and 5G future solutions. In this talk an overview of the energy problem in wireless communication systems will be presented, either from a mobile network point of view, but also from a IoT point of view. The main objective is to discuss future wireless paradigms that will be changing soon with 5G and beyond, those include the spread of a distributed mobile network by using Cloud Radio Access Networks, with its associated Software Defined Radio approaches, but also the issue of battery-less wireless devices, combining wireless power transmission and backscatter communications. The talk starts first with a general overview of the energy needs for a future XG networks, and then presents in an integrated way both approaches of C-RAN and IoT wireless design. The presentation will cover topics like the hardware part of the SDR and design of battery-less wireless sensors networks. Issues like characterization of mixed-signal devices, designing of C-RAN SDR approaches, design of passive backscatter sensors will be discussed, according to the audience.