Who’s talking, who’s listening? Tackling the wireless design challenges

News - 13 May 2019 - Communication

Cicero Vaucher and Earl McCune will give their inaugural address on Friday, 17 May. The two part-time professors at the Microelectronics department will be presenting their vision on the RF/mm-wave field of research. RF/mm-wave concerns frequencies in the radio spectrum between 30 and 300 Gigahertz. “It's an area that's full of challenges,” says Brazilian-born Vaucher, looking ahead to the inaugural address. “Now that more and more frequencies are being used for wireless communication, there's a growing need for transmitters and receivers that can work in a flexible way on various frequencies. Yes, this is a really multidisciplinary problem. In fact, RF/mm-wave is mixed up in everything.”

Multidisciplinary

“Frequencies from 30 GHz (10mm wavelength) to 300 GHz (1mm wavelength) belong to ‘microwaves’,” Vaucher goes on to explain. “These microwaves act, for instance, as an ‘enabler’ for the next generation of high-performance car radars: radars which are set to considerably improve traffic safety. Microwaves also play a really important role in the development of autonomous vehicles. The evolution of microwave radar sensors for cars is unbelievably multidisciplinary; this is why it's so very good to be able to work on this problem here - at TU Delft's Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science. Everything comes together at Delft.”

Challenges

His colleague, McCune, will not only look to the future during the inaugural address, but will also hark back to the past. I have over 35 years of experience in the RF/wireless design world and accompanying technological advances and so have seen lots of what works and what doesn't. Even more importantly, I understand how cost is proportional to communication performance. All the experience I've acquired in setting up two start-ups which work around this subject means my contribution goes further than just elucidating technical issues. The title of my speech – Sustainable Wireless Systems – implies that there is a problem here. And this is indeed the case. In fact, various problems. I'll try to present possible solutions during my address in the hope that this will encourage the development of solution-orientated approaches.” 

Symposium

It is good practice at TU Delft for new professors to use their inaugural addresses to inform the academic community about their field and proposed activities. It is also not at all unusual for other academics to illuminate the topic concerned. In the case of Vaucher & McCune, this will take place at a symposium (Who’s talking, who’s listening? – It is all about (RF/mm-wave) Communication & Sensing!) organised by the Microelectronics department. The symposium is being held on Friday 17 May from 09:30 to 14:00 (Ampère lecture theatre) and the academics speaking will include: Patrick Reynaert (KU Leuven), Yao-Hong Liu (Imec), Leo de Vreede (TU Delft), Peter Baltus (TU Eindhoven) en Bram Nauta (University of Twente). If you want to find out precisely what they will be talking about, you can read about it here

Further information

17 May 2019, beginning at15:00, Aula TU Delft

Inaugural address of Prof. E.W. McCune and Prof. C.S. Vaucher (EEMCS): wireless electronics

TU Delft Science Communication Adviser Roy Meijer, r.e.t.meijer@tudelft.nl, +31 (0)15 278 1751