EECS Distinguished Speaker: 5G New Deployment Scenarios - Opportunities and Challenges

Abstract: The insatiable demand for media rich content and the increasing availability of advanced devices such as smart phones, tablets, etc., has forced the mobile communications eco system to start in earnest to consider the next generation of solutions to address these needs. Some of the options being mentioned as ingredients for such 5th Generation mobile radio systems include small cells, HetNets, carrier aggregation, machine-to-machine, internet-of-things, relays, device-to-device and operation in the millimeter wave spectrum range, among others. In this talk, I will review some of the background trends driving the evolution of broadband wireless access that will impact the technology choices beyond 2020. Then, I will consider in detail some of the most intriguing options service providers may consider.

Bio: Reinaldo Valenzuela received a bachelor's degree from the University of Chile, and his doctorate from the Imperial College of Science and Technology, University of London, U.K. At Bell Laboratories, he studied indoor microwave propagation and modeling, packet reservation multiple access for wireless systems and optical WDM networks. He became manager of the Voice Research Department with Motorola Codex, where he was involved in the implementation of integrated voice and data packet systems. On returning to Bell Laboratories, he led a multidisciplinary team to create a software tool for wireless system engineering, now in widespread use with Lucent Technologies. He received the Distinguished Member of the Technical Staff Award and is Director of the Wireless Communications Research Department. He has published more than 80 papers and holds 12 patents. He is interested in microwave propagation measurements and models, intelligent antennas, 5G wireless systems and space-time systems achieving high capacities using transmit and receiving antenna arrays. He is an IEEE Fellow, Bell Labs Fellow, recipient of the IEEE Eric E. Sumner award and a member of the National Academy of Engineering.