Keynote Speaker

TITLE

Cognitive Radio: A Way of the Future for Wireless Communications

ABSTRACT

In this lecture I will cover the following topics:

• The drivers that are pushing the development of cognitive radio.
• Present applications of cognitive radio.
• Fundamental Issues in cognitive radio.
• Research challenges in the development of cognitive radio.

BIOGRAPHY

Simon Haykin received his B.Sc. (First-class Honours), Ph.D., and D.Sc., all in Electrical Engineering from the University of Birmingham, England. He is the author of numerous books, including the most widely used books: Communication Systems (4th edition, Wiley), Adaptive Filter Theory (4th edition, Prentice-Hall), Neural Networks: A Comprehensive Foundation (2nd edition, Prentice-Hall) and the newly published book on Adaptive Radar Signal Processing (Wiley), as well as numerous refereed journal papers. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, recipient of the Honourary Degree of Doctor of Technical Sciences from ETH, Zurich, Switzerland, and the Henry Booker Gold Medal from URSI, as well as other prizes and awards. Currently, he holds the title "Distinguished University Professor" in the ECE Department at McMaster University, Canada.

TITLE

Cognitive Radio (CR) Technology - Applications and Business Aspects

ABSTRACT

Cognitive Radio techniques are destined to be an integral part of every communications and networking solution. Especially considering several orders of magnitude projected increase in user density and data rates, being a good RF citizen through establishing a solid discipline for radio etiquette will be necessary. Equal rights for fair access to spectrum while maintaining priorities for security and health related situations will have to be guaranteed. Some of these techniques have already been implemented in WiFi and Bluetooth (BT) solutions as transmit power control, dynamic frequency selection and adoptive hopping.

Taking the pressure and trends for speed and user density into account, unused licensed spectrum, or "white spaces" will keep being a focal point of further discussions. FCC's NPRM for opening the vacant UHF TV bands to license-free usage, after the analog to digital switch-over in February 2009, has been a significant milestone for the standardization of the commercial applications of CRs for the first time. FCC's Report and Order (R&O) released in October 2006 has allowed the fixed wireless access applications (high power section of the NPRM) of the cognitive radio technology, and IEEE 802.22 WRAN Working Group(WG) is on its way to defining the standard for this class of applications. However; the industry has not gotten together to promote this standard yet. There has been a meeting in May to set up a special interest group for supporting the emerging standard, and the effort is at a very early stage. Under the current conditions, it is not practical and easy to build a business case because of lack of market awareness and related forecasts.

The regulatory rules for the personal/portable section of the NPRM have not been released yet, and there is an ongoing debate on whether this mode of operation will be allowed for the "low power" applications. A group of leading companies have established a coalition to campaign for the release of favorable rules for the low power operation. Comments and reply comments have been filed with the FCC. The opposing side consists mainly of broadcasters and wireless microphone manufacturers, and they have responded with their own comments and reply comments. FCC is scheduled to release the final R&O in October this year.

There are many potential applications of the low power cognitive radios operating over TV bands, and it is easier to build business cases for them by using market forecasts for enhancing the capabilities of the existing applications with the superior propagation characteristics of the signals in the UHF spectrum. These include properties like better wall penetration and limited shadowing effect. ISM and NII bands that have been allocated to the license free use of spectrum by the consumers and scientific community have been crowding fast due to limited bandwidth and suffer from coverage problems due to their relatively higher frequencies. Opening the UHF bands to the low power license free use would benefit the industry and consumers significantly by enabling applications with longer ranges and improved wall penetration properties. This may have the potential to create another multi billion dollar industry and market, very similar to the one created by ISM and NII band applications such as WiFi and BT.

BIOGRAPHY

Kursat Kimyacioglu is responsible for strategy and business development for Philips Research ¨C North America. Mr. Kimyacioglu brings over 30 years of business and engineering experience from the wired and wireless connectivity industry to his current position at Philips Research.

Previously, Mr. Kimyacioglu established and managed Product Line Wireless Connectivity for Philips Semiconductors. In this role, Mr. Kimyacioglu was responsible for marketing, engineering and managing of Philips WLAN and WPAN semiconductor products.

Prior to joining Philips, Mr. Kimyacioglu established and managed the Telecom Engineering Department at Exar Corporation, mainly focusing on the creation of advanced IC products for data transmission in the Synchronous Digital Hierarchy and various network interfaces.

Mr. Kimyacioglu has participated in numerous industry initiatives and special interest groups with the founding capacity. He is a founding member of UWB MultiBand OFDM Alliance (MBOA), OFDM Forum and WiMedia Alliance. He served as VP of OFDM Forum and Wi-Media Alliance and is a member of IEEE.

His current interest areas, in addition to the UWB field,?are mmWave (60 GHz) and Cognitive Radio (CR) technologies.

Mr. Kimyacioglu holds a BSEE and an MSEE degree from Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey.