Buon Kiong Lau
Universitetslektor, TeknD

Personlig

Latest News (updated May 2013)

• 30 May 2013 - Crafoord Foundation has awarded the group a 300 kSEK project grant on the topic "Design of Multi-antennas for High Performance Mobile Terminals". The grant supplements our existing research funding on the design of MIMO antennas for mobile handsets, by partially supporting a postdoctoral researcher with strong competence in the area. The focus of the project is to design efficient MIMO handset antennas, where each antenna should radiate independently of other antenna(s) in the handset. Since the design is intended for frequency bands under 1 gigahertz and typical handset form factors are electrically small at these frequencies, achieving independent radiation from the multi-antennas is particularly challenging. We are proposing and actively developing a promising solution that can be implemented in real terminals without significant design changes.

 

• 8 May 2013 - Three members of my group have successfully obtained travel grants from Ericsson Research Foundation to attend the 2013 IEEE AP-S/URSI-USNC Symposium, July 7- 13, 2013 in Orlando, Florida (100% success rate!). So we expect a strong presence there. Apart from three oral presentations, the group is also involved in other activities, including organization of the Student Design Contest and participation at several committee meetings.

 

• 5-8 Feb. 2013 - The COST IC1004 Management Committee Meeting in Malaga, Spain was a welcoming change for some members of my group in the midst of cold winter in Sweden. Ivaylo Vasilev, Hui Li and I participated with two presentations. Apart from chair my Subworking Group 1.1, I also organized a tutorial on SAR (Specific Absorption Rate) entitled "Biological Effect of Electromagnetic Radiation", which was given by Dr. Kamya Yekeh Yazdandoost from NICT, Japan (see photos below). The tutorial was part of the effort to promote more antenna-related research in the area of electromagnetic exposure in wireless communication systems. A joint session between SWG1.1 and the Topic Working Group on Body Area Networks was also organized in the same spirit. 

           

 

• 7 Nov. 2012 - My PhD student Ivaylo Vasilev and I attended the annual meeting for the VINNOVA Program "Smarter, Faster and Convergent Solutions for Future Communications". Apart from giving a short presentation, we also brought along three posters showing the results obtained within our project on Antenna-Channel Harmonization for Throughput Enhancement in Advanced Mobile Terminals. A photo of us with two of our posters is given below.

        

 

• 28 Oct-4 Nov. 2012 - I attended the17th International Symposium on Antennas and Propagation (ISAP) in Nagoya. This was my first time attending an ISAP. Apart from serving as an international advisory committee member, I also co-convened an oral session with Assoc. Prof. Kentaro Nishimori of Niigata University, Japan and presented an oral paper. Nagoya is like other Japanese cities that I have been to so far - everything just works well! I tried some local delicacies as well, including Miso-katsu (chicken), Hitsumabushi (eel) and Kishimen (noodle). You can find pictures of these here. I caught up with many old friends at the conference, including Prof. Keizo Cho (more affectionately known as "Cho-san") of Chiba Institute of Technology, shown in the photo below (the guy in the middle) together with the Technical Program Committee (TPC) Chair Prof. Hiroyuki Arai of Yokohama National University. A photo of the entertainers at the conference dinner is also shown below.

            

 

• 1 July-30 Sep. 2012 - My group hosted a visiting PhD student Ms Di Su from Prof. Chenyang Yang's group at Beihang University, China. The collaboration is on the topic of very large MIMO systems (also called massive MIMO). See below for a photo from a small farewell held in honor of both Di Su and Ehsan Foroozanfard. Ehsan will soon leave Lund University for PhD study!

        

   

• 24-26 Sep. 2012 - I presented two temporary documents (TDs) at the 5th Management Committee Meeting and Scientific Symposium of COST IC1004. I also chaired Subworking Group 1.1, where a total of 7 TDs were presented and discussed. Moreover, it was a real privilege for me to be able to invite Prof. Zhisheng Niu (see photo below) from Tsinghua University, China, to give a plenary talk on Green ICT. Prof. Niu, an IEEE Fellow, is well known for his work in Green ICT and leads the first national fundamental research program ("973 Project") on Green communications in China.

            

         

• 19-20 Sep. 2012 - I am invited to give a talk at the 2nd COST VISTA (IC1102) Workshop in Istanbul, Turkey on the topic of "Advances and Opportunities in Compact MIMO Antenna Research". 

 

• 17 Sep. 2012 - The group warmly welcomes a new member, Zachary Miers, who arrives from USA to begin his PhD study! Mr Miers graduated from the MSc program at the University of Colorado at Boulder in 2010 has 6 years of work experience prior to coming here.

 

• 31 Aug. 2012 - My Master's student Mr. Ehsan Foroozanfard presented his thesis!

        

 

• July 2012 - I attended the 2012 IEEE International Symposium on Antennas and Propagation and USNC-URSI National Radio Science Meeting in Chicago and caught up with many colleagues in the field. Apart from presenting two papers from my group, I also assisted in the organization of the 2012 IEEE AP-S (Antennas and Propagation Society) Student Design Competition (see photos below for the public demo component). Next year, it will be my turn to coordinate the event and the flyer for the 2013 edition is available here. The topic for 2013 is Reconfigurable Antennas and we hope that more teams will participate from all over the world!

          

 

Older News 

• 30 May 2012 - The group had a nice BBQ at my place - we grilled burgers that was made with a secret recipe from Vanja! A photo with some of those who were present is shown below. We also try to keep up with some sporting activities - some of us are now well-trained in badminton!

          

 

• 26 Apr. 2012 - My group successfully hosted the 2012 Swedish Antenna Measurement Society (SAMS) annual meeting in the E-building. There were about 80 attendees (limited only by the capacity of the seminar room) and 12 exhibitors, including Rohde & Schwarz, Agilent Technologies, Bluetest, SATIMO, etc. Moreover, thanks to the generous financial sponsorship from LU Communication Technology Portal, participants could attend the meeting at no registration cost. Technical visits were organized for 1) the antenna measurement facilities at Sony Mobile Communications AB and 2) the new laboratory of Department of Electrical and Information Technology, Lund University. Some photos from the Lund meeting are shown below. The host for next year's SAMS meeting will be FOI (Swedish Defence Research Agency) in Linköping.

           

 

• 26-30 Mar 2012 - Ruiyuan and I attended the 2012 European Conference on Antennas and Propagation (EuCAP) in Prague, Czech Republic. Ruiyuan presented two papers from the group and I was busy attending several European Association on Antennas and Propagation (EurAAP) meetings. A picture from the Gala Dinner (taken with some colleagues in the field) is given below.

         

 

• Mar. 2012 - The first newsletter of COST IC1004 has just been released! As a national delegate of Sweden, it is part of my task to help in the dissemination of the results and achievements of IC1004.

 

• Feb. 2012 - I have been elected as the Regional Delegate of the European Association on Antennas and Propagation (EurAAP, http://www.euraap.org/) for Region 6 (Iceland, Norway, Sweden). In addition, my group has produced three papers in the Special Issue on MIMO Technology in the IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation published this month!

 

• 29 Nov 2011 - My PhD student Ruiyuan Tian has successfully defended his thesis on "Design and Evaluation of Compact Multi-antennas for Efficient MIMO Communications". Ruiyuan is shown in the photo to the left, together with Professor Gerhard Kristensson, who was the chairperson of the thesis defense. The faculty opponent was Professor Daniel D. Stancil of North Carolina State University, USA and the three thesis committee members were: Assoc. Professor Marco D. Migliore of the University of Cassino, Italy, Dr. Mattias (Wennström) Frenne of Ericsson AB, Sweden and Professor Gert F. Pedersen of Aalborg University, Denmark (they are shown in this order in the photo to the right). I am proud of Ruiyuan's achievements!

            

 

• 19-21 Oct 2011 - I attend the 2nd Management Committee Meeting of COST IC1004 on "Cooperative Radio Communications for Green Smart Environments" held in Lisbon, Portugal. During the meeting, responsible persons for different working groups were elected, and I was given the chair of Subworking Group1.1, which focuses on antenna system aspects of green communications. The Gala Dinner was held as a river cruise, which was quite an experience!

• 13-20 Aug 2011 - I attended the XXX URSI General Assembly and Scientific Symposium, Istanbul, Turkey.  There, I convened and chaired a session on "Antenna-Channel Interactions for Future Wirelesss Communications" together with Prof. Koichi Ogawa of Toyama University, Japan (see photo). Our session was well attended with up to 35 attendees. I also presented a paper on a new concept to design multiple antennas with good isolation for compact terminals, when there is chassis excitation. I also caught with many old friends and collaborators (see photo), including Prof. J. Bach Andersen of Aalborg University, Denmark.

           

• 18-22 July 2011 - Riding on the success of VINNOVA-MOST Sino-Swedish Cooperative Research Program, I visited Tsinghua University and Beihang University to discuss research collaborations, mainly on the topic of CoMP. My hosts were Prof. Zhisheng Niu (Tsinghua) and Prof. Chenyang Yang (Beihang). Photos from our discussions are shown below. 

           

• 3-8 July 2011 - My PhD student Ruiyuan Tian and I attended the 2011 IEEE International Symposium on Antennas and Propagation and USNC/URSI National Radio Science Meeting in Spokane, Washington, USA, between 3-8 July 2011. We presented a paper each, as well as participate in other events during the conference. 

• 20-21 June 2011 - My group (especially Ruiyuan Tian, Ivaylo Vasilev, Vanja Plicanic and myself) together with Assoc. Professor Fredrik Tufvesson hosted the 1st Scientific Meeting of COST Action IC1004 on "Cooperative Radio Communications for Green Smart Environments" at Lund University. It was hailed as a great success by the COST IC1004 Chairperson Prof. Narcis Cardona, as well as by the feedback we received from many attendees. Many thanks to all who have contributed, and special thanks to the event sponsors (Sony Ericsson, Ericsson, HSWC and LU Communication Technology Portal), as well as Pia Bruhn and Elisabeth Nordström, who have worked very hard for the local organization! Photos from the Walking Tour of Lund City and Gala Dinner at Grand Hotel are shown below.

           

• June 2011 - My group's first doctoral student Vanja Plicanic had her thesis defense on 14 June 2011. The PhD project was performed in cooperation with Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications AB. A photo of her dissertation party is shown below (From left to right; Myself, Ruiyuan, Vanja and Ivaylo). Congrats, Vanja!!!

         

• May 2011 - It is indeed our privilege to announce that Lund University has been chosen to host the 1st Scientific Meeting of COST Action IC1004 on "Cooperative Radio Communications for Green Smart Environments", which will be held between 20-21 Jun 2011. The Local Organizing Committee are led by myself and Assoc. Professor Fredrik Tufvesson. More details are available in the official meeting website (http://ic1004.eit.lth.se).

• During 10-15 Apr 2011, my PhD student Vanja Plicanic and I attended the 2011 European Conference on Antennas and Propagation in Rome, Italy. We participated with a total of four invited papers in convened sessions and I co-chaired a session with Professor Michael A. Jensen of Brigham Young University. I also was involved in teaching a short course called "The ABC of Small Antennas", which was organized by Professor Matthias Hein of Ilmenau University, Germany, on behalf of the Small Antenna Working Group within the European Association of Antennas and Propagation (EurAAP).

• I attended the 2011 IEEE International Workshop on Antenna Technology (IWAT'2011) in Hong Kong between 7-9 Mar 2011 and presented a keynote paper on "Antenna design challenges and solutions for compact MIMO terminals". I also co-chair the convened session "Multiple and Diversity Antennas" together with Zhinong Ying, Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications, Sweden at the same conference.

• During Jan 2011, I paid a week-long visit to Wireless Communications Center @ Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), as a Visiting Professor. UTM is among the top 5 universities in Malaysia and has a growing research profile. Apart from presenting a 2-hour seminar and having discussions on closer contacts, I spent a lot of time meeting the PhD/Master students there.

            

 

• A journal paper published by my group (first author: Ms Vanja Plicanic) has received a CST University Publication Award.

        

• Five members of my group attended the COST2100 12th Management Committee Meeting in Bologna between 23-25 Nov 2010. Here is a photo of some of us taken at the Marconi Museum:

         

• My book chapter has just been published in Nov 2010: B. K. Lau, "Multiple antenna terminals," in MIMO: From Theory to Implementation, C. Oestges, A. Sibille, and A. Zanella, Eds. Academic Press, 2011.

 

• I was awarded the Senior Researcher ("rådforskare") Position Grant by Vetenskapsrådet (Swedish Science Council) for the topic "Novel Antenna System Design Paradigm for High Performance Mobile Communications", within the specialization of "Optimization of Antenna Systems" in Sep 2010, salary support for 3 years (plus a possible 3 years extension). There is a total of 7 Senior Researcher positions offered by Vetenskapsrådet in 2010 over all areas of science.

• I was invited as a guest lecturer on the topic "Practical MIMO Antenna Design and OTA Standardization Overview" (27 Oct. 2010) for the "Reverberation Chamber Course" organized by Professor Per-Simon Kildal, Department of Signals and Systems, Chalmers University.

 

• I am a convener of the oral session in 2011 International Workshop on Antenna Technology (iWAT'2011 Hong Kong) on "Multiple and Diversity Antennas" together with Zhinong Ying, Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications, Sweden.

• I am a co-convener of the oral session in 2011 European Conference on Antennas and Propagation (EuCAP'2011 Rome) on "Recent Advances in MIMO Systems: Channel Characterization and Antenna-Channel Interactions" together with Professor Michael A. Jensen, Brigham Young University, Utah, USA.