News archive, 2019

Andreia Cathelin ny hedersdoktor vid LTH

Published: 2019-12-20

Andreia Cathelin Technology R&D Fellow vid företaget STMicroelectronics utnämns till hedersdoktor vid LTH.
Andreia Cathelin är Technology R&D Fellow vid företaget STMicroelectronics i Frankrike där hon arbetar med utveckling och design av kretsar för radiokommunikation och system med extremt låg energiförbrukning. Hon har vetenskaplig excellens inom ett för LTH relevant område, enligt Ove Edfors, professor i radiosystem vid institutionen för elektro- och informationsteknik. ? Andreia har under många år varit engagerad i institutionens forskning och utbildning i sin roll som styrelsemedlem i vårt Industrial Excellence Center in System Design on Silicon (SoS). Hon har också verkat som en förebild och hennes stora internationella kontaktnät har öppnat dörrar för nya forskningssamarbeten. Hon har även bidragit till unika möjligheter för forskare vid LTH att tillverka avancerade integrerade kretsar. Läs mer på lu.se

Link to the article Andreia Cathelin ny hedersdoktor vid LTH

WASP programme grows with an additional SEK 1.3 billion

Published: 2019-12-18

The Wallenberg AI, Autonomous Systems and Software Program (WASP), Sweden?s largest individual research programme, has been extended by three years and will receive a further research grant of nearly SEK 1.3 billion. The decision to extend WASP...

The decision to extend WASP has been recently taken by the board of the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation, and means that the programme, which started in 2014, will continue until 2029 with a total budget of SEK 5.5 billion. The Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation (KAW) will provide SEK 4.2 billion, and the remainder will be provided, as previously, mainly from the five partner universities and industry.

Currently WASP funds 35 PhD students, 16 industrial PhD students, 7 postdocs, 1 full professor, 2 associate professors, 1 assistant professor, 7 professor equivalents for PhD supervision and research, and 1.5 professor for program management and execution at Lund University. An additional 4 PhD students are currently affiliated with WASP.

"The extension and expansion of WASP allow researchers at Lund University to apply for projects and recruitment packages from WASP for three more years up until the end of 2029. A plan for how the expansion will be used is currently under development by the new WASP leadership consisting of Sara Mazur - chair of the WASP board from 1 January 2020 - and Anders Ynnerman - program director for WASP from 1 July 2020", says Karl-Erik Årzén, Chair of the WASP Program Management Group (PMG) that is responsible for WASP-AS - the Autonomous Systems and Software parts of WASP and also University representative for Lund University in WASP.

Read more about the extension and expansion of WASP at: https://wasp-sweden.org/

Link to the article WASP programme grows with an additional SEK 1.3 billion

Unik teknologi gör gestkontroll mer exakt

Published: 2019-11-13

Att kontrollera mobiltelefonen med en enkel handrörelse är den senaste tekniknyheten för mobilanvändare. Men för att ta konceptet med rörelsestyrd teknik från en rolig gimmick till verkligt användbara funktioner krävs mer exakta radarsensorer. Nu...

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EU-samarbete sporrar till bättre forskningsresultat

Published: 2019-11-07

Visst innebär det mycket arbete att koordinera ett stort EU-projekt med många partners, delrapporter och utvärderingar. Men det är värt det, tycker både Margareta Johansson och Lars Erik Wernersson som koordinerar var sitt projekt. ? Det har lyft...

Link to the article EU-samarbete sporrar till bättre forskningsresultat

Compensating for the users interaction with their cell phones

Published: 2019-10-30

All cell phone users know that you sometimes get a better connection by turning in another direction or by keeping the phone a bit from the body. This ?shadowing? is one of the challenges that Jonas Lindstrand addressed in his PhD thesis. Another...

The title of Jonas Lindstrand?s thesis is ?Integrated Transmitters for Cellular User Equipment?Wideband CMOS Power Amplifiers and Antenna Impedance Tuners?. The main scope of the thesis project has been to reduce the power consumption of the radio electronics in cell phones in two different areas.

?The primary target has been the energy consumption of the power amplifier in the transmitter, but we have also investigated why and how the performance of the transmission degrades due to how the user handles their cell phone?, Jonas Lindstrand says.

To reduce the performance degrading effects caused by the cell phone user, a component called an impedance tuner can be used. The impedance tuner reduces the impedance mismatch caused by the physical presence of the user.

?This helps the electronics inside the cell phone to work as intended ? and this without any costly re-design of all the electronics, Jonas Lindstrand says.

Regarding the other objective Jonas explains that in the transmitter the power amplifier is the main power consumer and one of the hardest circuits to design, and also the most expensive component in cell phone radio. During his thesis project Jonas has designed, implemented, and verified low cost power amplifier solutions in CMOS*, with reduced cost as result.

The need for low cost, and for wideband circuits, has increased in the last few years, mainly due to new frequency bands in what is called the Sub-6 GHz frequencies. This means that more components with higher performance is required. Consequently, the cost of the cell phone has increased and will continue to increase with the upcoming releases of the full 5G solution.

?So by reducing the number of components in the cell phone, especially the expensive ones, this yields lower overall cost and less fabricated components, which also effects environmental impact in a positive manner?, Jonas continues.

What made you want to pursue a PhD?
?I have always loved science and these days it has mainly been the science of electronics. What really made me make this choice, a PhD in engineering is a way to maximize your chance, to live anywhere you desire and you also have a great potential to keep working with something you really love. As a PhD-student, I could do research that is very rare in the industry and it also helped me in my development as a person, which I think is the most important?, Jonas Lindstrand says.

What have you found most interesting with your subject?
?The challenge, how hard it actually was to get some of the circuits to work as intended, and also the complexity of the circuits and their theory. The most interesting to me is the future. We are more or less in one of the forks in the road for wireless communication so far, and it is mainly the release of 5G and together with new higher frequency bands in the mm-wave spectrum. In academia, mm-wave circuits for consumer products have been researched for the last 15-20 years. Now finally a commercialization has started to happen.

What results from your research do you believe will be applied in practice?
?I think that some of the measurement practices I used for impedance tuner is used today, I must add that they might have been used long before I used them, but to my knowledge, I had not seen them before we published them?, Jonas Lindstrand says.

?I also believe mostly bits and pieces will be used at first, the best chance is for the wideband matching network and only because it is relatively simple with low degradation of circuit performance and it also has low cost in terms of added components. The main power amplifier circuit might be useful in the next 5-10 years, but requires more research and more theoretical understanding. I think this circuit can be improved to further increase efficiency and also take fully integrated power amplifiers in CMOS to the next level, regarding efficiency and power consumption?, Jonas Lindstrand continues.

What are your plans?
?I will continue to work for a Lund start-up called BeammWave AB, the company mainly works with integrated mm-wave circuits for 5G consumer products, and as a matter of fact, I will dedicate all my office hours with them after the defence of this thesis?, Jonas Lindstrand says.

The thesis for download!

* Complementary metal?oxide?semiconductor (CMOS)

Link to the article Compensating for the users interaction with their cell phones

Workshop in Lund on Connected Systems and Circuit Design

Published: 2019-09-18

On September 19-20, the annual Lund Connected Systems and Circuit Design Workshop 2019 will be held in Lund. More than 150 participants gather at Grand Hotell and at Campus LTH in Lund to listen to invited speakers and fresh research results in...

New for this year is a greater focus on connectivity.

?This event is certainly a highlight for researchers and industry in active in silicon and wireless connectivity. Participants from global industrial players, start-ups, and international researchers will gather for two days in Lund, being the silicon hotspot in Scandinavia?, says the Co-director Joachim Rodrigues, from EIT and one of the organisers.

Link to the programme. The registration is closed

Link to the article Workshop in Lund on Connected Systems and Circuit Design

LUFOSS-priset 2019 belönar källkod i undervisning

Published: 2019-09-06

LUFOSS-priset för 2019 går till 5 doktorander som främjar öppen källkod i undervisningen. Under torsdagen den 5 september delades årets pris från Lunds universitets fond för öppen källkod ut till 5 glada doktorander som får dela på 10 tusen kronor.

Sara Gunnarsson, Peter Larsson, Sara Månsson, Erik Mårtensson och Jonathan Sönnerup har som doktorander vid LTH arbetat aktivt med att främja öppen källkod som ett pedagogiskt verktyg. De har bland annat gjort en intressant undersökning av hur studenters engagemang kan ökas genom öppen källkod och kollektivt ägande av kursmaterial. Arbetet är förmedlat till en bredare publik genom en läsvärd artikel publicerad vid LTH:s pedagogiska inspirationskonferens, som laddats ner flitigt och även citerats i Proceedings of the 50th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education.

Länk till artikeln: https://portal.research.lu.se/ws/files/27854342/group1_github_final.pdf Läs mer om LUFOSS - Lunds universitets fond för öppen källkod på: http://www.lth.se/lufoss/

Link to the article LUFOSS-priset 2019 belönar källkod i undervisning

Så blir vardagen trådlös med 5G

Published: 2019-08-05

5G handlar inte bara om snabbare surf. En minst lika stor ?game changer? är att 5G gör mer kommunikation trådlös än idag. Forskaren Emma Fitzgerald listar prylarna som kan kopplas upp - och de tekniska utmaningar som först måste lösas för att...

Link to the article Så blir vardagen trådlös med 5G

Massive MIMO ? from prototype to processor

Published: 2019-06-19

Massive MIMO* as antenna technology is by now an implemented part of 5G, the fifth generation for mobile communications. The technology allows to use available spectrum much more efficient as any previous technologies. Steffen Malkowsky?s thesis...

?We took the concept for the massive MIMO technology and developed the first real-time prototype worldwide in cooperation with National Instruments and Bristol University. Due to the increased number of antennas, processing complexity scales significantly as compared to previous generations. Moreover, the data have to be shuffled around in the system between the many antennas and the centralised processing blocks?, Steffen Malkowsky explains.

The challenges of complexity and data shuffling were tackled by cleverly distributing the processing within the system. With the designed LuMaMi testbed, they could show that many of the theoretically promised features of massive MIMO did carry over to practice.

?This is important, as many theoretical results are based on idealistic and simplified models to keep them computable and thus do not capture all the environmental influences in reality. Additionally, performing the first publicly reported test in mobile environments, we showed that even though more challenging, it also works when users do move, for example walking or sitting in a car?, he continues.

?In the end of my project, we used the experience gained during the testbed design in order to develop a processor optimised for this technology to integrate it into a bigger system.

This is important, as a prototype system is specifically designed to provide reconfigurability without having strict requirements on efficiency. However, for actual deployment, metrics such as power and area efficiency are crucial in order to reduce cost and power consumption?, Steffen Malkowsky says.

What made you want to pursue a PhD?
?I did my master?s thesis at the Department for Electrical and Information Technology at LTH, Lund University. I liked the environment, the colleagues and the challenges. Doing research provides freedom to incorporate your own ideas and does not force you to stay completely within one small or well-defined area. When I started I did not really know much about wireless communications, but knowing that Sweden and specifically Lund had a strong presence in the field motivated me even more to get myself into this area.?

What is the most fascinating or interesting with your thesis work?
?Most fascinating with the thesis work has been the collaboration within several different groups and industry we had while designing, building and implementing the testbed and performing the measurement campaigns. It provided an environment allowing much more insight into other fields and areas as well as getting inspiration. Another highlight has been to research on a technology that is already standardized now that my PhD came to an end. I think there is not many researchers that can see things they are working on so fast being realized in practice.?

What aspects of your research do you think will be applied in practice eventually?
?The code base developed during testbed design was the basis for the NI MIMO Framework**, a software platform marketed and distributed by National Instruments and used by many researchers over the world.?

What are your plans?
?For now my plan is to stay at the university continuing to do research, and especially working more on our processor design. However, I also want to get involved in some new areas such as real-time processing for machine learning and robotics. What will be afterwards, I cannot tell for now?, Dr Steffen Malkowsky concludes.

* MIMO = Multiple (antennas) In, Multiple (antennas) Out. Massive MIMO ? very many antennas? **Read more about the NI MIMO Framework here: https://www.ni.com/sv-se/innovations/white-papers/16/mimo-application-framework-white-paper.html The Thesis Massive MIMO: Prototyping, Proof-of-Concept & Implementation for download: https://portal.research.lu.se/portal/files/63091253/Thesis.pdf

Link to the article Massive MIMO ? from prototype to processor

Så blir vardagen trådlös med 5G

Published: 2019-06-18

Link to the article Så blir vardagen trådlös med 5G

lu.se: Framtidens transistorer ? nyckelkomponent i modern elektronik

Published: 2019-05-28

Vad händer om vi inte får snabbare datorer? Förr eller senare kommer vi att komma dit om vi inte skapar processer som är mer effektiva och förbrukar mindre energi. Transistorer som fungerar vid högre frekvenser behövs för att möta den snabba...

Link to the article lu.se: Framtidens transistorer ? nyckelkomponent i modern elektronik

Martin Hell hos P3 Din Gata: Du hittar dom sjukaste grejerna på Dark Web

Published: 2019-04-05

Martin Hell som berättar om vad som händer bakom the Dark Web, där man tydligen kan köpa helt sjuka grejer...

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Sydsvenskan/HD: Smart askkopp ska få rökare att fimpa rätt

Published: 2019-02-25

På Campus Helsingborg tar man nu krafttag mot fimparna. Med hjälp av ett tickande räkneverk på en internetuppkopplad askkopp ska cigarettstumparna hållas borta från gatorna.

Link to the article Sydsvenskan/HD: Smart askkopp ska få rökare att fimpa rätt

Muris Sarajlic?s PhD thesis: Reducing energy consumption in 5G systems

Published: 2019-02-14

Smaller, cheaper wireless units that don?t waste energy and money would definitely make both users and service providers happier ? and be good for the environment. Muris Sarajli? PhD thesis deals with strategies for reducing energy consumption on...

Phones ?dying? because the battery is drained is a common nuisance for all mobile phone users. There are many things that can be done to extend battery life. One of them is to make the modem ? a piece of hardware that handles the signals in the phone ? adaptive to signal quality, so that it always delivers a good enough performance without wasting energy. In addition to phones, the energy waste of base stations is also of importance, due to environmental but also economic reasons. One way to deal with this problem is choosing the hardware that will deliver the right performance with minimal energy consumption. Hardware limitations on the operation of wireless systems can sometimes be fundamental and no flexible solution is available. In this case, the system needs to be designed ?around? the limitation. Muris Sarajli??s PhD thesis analyses both the systems using flexible hardware ? and how much can be gained by being flexible ? and finds efficient workarounds for situations when hardware generates a fundamental limitation to system operation.

What made you want to pursue a PhD?
? After my Master studies, I felt that I only scratched the surface of the big and exciting field that is wireless communications, and I wanted to learn more. Doing a PhD offered a chance of learning more, in a structured way, says Muris Sarajli?.

? The idea of making my own original contribution that would improve the way wireless systems are built also appealed to me. And the PhD was the way to make this come true. In particular, it was the practical aspects of making my own contribution that were attractive: the PhD would give me a chance to come up with a method or a design that would maybe one day be used by many people, and make their user experience much better, he continues.

Why wireless communication?
? When it comes to wireless communications in general, what?s most fascinating is the transfer of information over distances without any need for physical connection. Wireless enabled us to get photos of distant worlds on the edge of the Solar system. It also enables us to read news, chat and talk with our friends who might be on the other side of the world, while taking the bus to work. We take all of this for granted, but it?s truly amazing, says Muris Sarajli?.

? When it comes to what I researched in particular, it?s the potential for improved user experience and improved system efficiency that is the most exciting aspect of it. Smaller, cheaper wireless units that don?t waste energy and money would definitely make both users and service providers happier. And on top of everything, it?s good for the environment.

Will your solutions be implemented in the real world?
? I truly believe it, and I hope they will! All of the things I did have a strong practical side and are meant as solutions to real-life problems. I would say that pretty much everything I did, if some additional testing in real-life use-cases is done, is readily implementable, either as algorithms or system design solutions. And my solutions go well together, or are explicitly part of, other proposed technologies for 5G, so maybe I will not wait long to see some of it actually implemented.

What are your plans?
? Since everything I did during the PhD had a pronounced practical side, a natural next step for me was to continue with wireless research but in an industrial setting. I will be joining Ericsson Research in Lund in April. I am really excited about continuing to develop and learn in this environment that will be new for me, Muris Sarajli? concludes.

Muris Sarajli? will defend his thesis ?Hardware-Conscious Wireless Communication System Design? the 25 February 9.15 in E:1406, Ole Römers Väg 3, Lund University, Faculty of Engineering, LTH. Download the thesis here.

Link to the article Muris Sarajlic?s PhD thesis: Reducing energy consumption in 5G systems

Tiny savings, big results ? on energy-efficient electronics

Published: 2019-02-11

Small sensors do a big job. Increasing numbers of things can now be controlled and measured, detected and regulated via small sensors on machines, in nature or in and on our bodies. These sensors gather and transmit large amounts of information via...

Link to the article Tiny savings, big results ? on energy-efficient electronics

Om bilar kunde tala

Published: 2019-02-05

Säkrare trafik, färre bilköer och minskade utsläpp. Det är målet när nästa generations självkörande bilar börjar samarbeta.
En vanlig dag på jobbet? Den handlar om massiv mimoteknik, millimetervågssystem och radiobaserad positionering. Därutöver arbetar Fredrik Tufvesson, professor i radiosystem vid LTH, med bilkommunikation, alltså hur bilar i framtiden ska stå i kontakt med varandra, direkt eller via molnet. Den forskningen är högintressant för industrin, eftersom det i framtiden inte räcker med att en självkörande bil vet att väja för en människa eller ett annat fordon. ? Vad som också måste fungera är samarbetet många fordon emellan. Om alla fordon kan kommunicera och komma överens går det att optimera trafikflöden, så att köer och utsläpp kan minska. I en sådan situation behöver vi inte egentligen trafikljus och stopp i trafiken, säger Fredrik Tufvesson. Enligt honom kommer många av dem som idag är medelålders att vara med om detta tekniska språng.

Känner Fredrik Tufvesson inte sviktande självförtroende emellanåt inför forskningen som kommer att förändra trafik och hela samhällen? ? Det handlar egentligen bara om att visa på teknik som kommer att skapa mycket bättre förare än vad människor är idag. Och att skapa kommunikationslänkar, trådlösa uppkopplingar, det vet vi ju redan hur vi gör. Så nu måste vi få bilarna att ta tala samma språk, få alla att bli överens om reglerna. Fredrik Tufvesson samarbetar med Volvo Cars, som har ett intresse i att säkra snabb och pålitlig uppkoppling och vill minska testtiden för fordon genom att göra fler virtuella, simulerade, tester.

Vid sidan om att skapa pålitliga kommunikationslänkar går hans och LTH-kollegornas arbete ut på att söka efter matematiska modeller som gör det möjligt att urskilja mönster i radiosignalerna som finns omkring oss ? så att bilarna på decimeternivå kan förstå var de är och så att det stora systemet, med många uppkopplade och kommunicerande bilar, kan styra sig självt. Detta görs med hjälp av maskininlärning. ? För att få robusthet och se till att autonoma bilar överträffar en mänsklig förare också när det inte blåser medvind och är fint väder behöver vi veta mer. Nyckelbegreppet är sensorfusion. Det är först när kamera, radar, lasermätare och radio ger samma bild som vi fullt ut kan lita på vad de säger.
TIINA MERI FAKTA | Forskning kring bilkommunikation Vad LTH-forskarna hittills arbetat med handlar till stor del om att skapa matematiska modeller för hur kommunikationen mellan bilar å ena sidan och mellan bilar och basstationer å den andra ser ut. För att visa hur pålitliga kommunikationssystem ska se ut måste forskarna först ge en verklighetstrogen beskrivning av hur radiokanalen faktiskt fungerar, det vill säga hur radiosignalen på en detaljerad nivå tar sig fram i omgivningen även då den exempelvis hindras av andra fordon eller byggnader.
FAKTA | 5G 5G-tekniken kräver tre extrema ytterligheter i fråga om datahastighet:

Extremt hög datahastighet
Extremt låg datahastighet och samtidigt låg energianvändning (exempelvis i ett ting där batteriet ska hålla i tio år)
Pålitliga datahastigheter och samtidigt mycket låga fördröjningar (vilket är en svår sak att kombinera).

Link to the article Om bilar kunde tala