Prof. Ender Ayanoglu of University of California, Irvine (UCI)

Abstract

Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces (RISs) are programmable
metasurfaces that can adaptively steer received electromagnetic energy
in desired directions by employing controllable phase shifting
cells. Among other uses, an RIS can modify the propagation environment
in order to provide wireless access to user locations that are not
otherwise reachable by a base station. Alternatively, an RIS can steer
the waves away from particular locations in space, to eliminate
interference and allow for co-existence of the wireless network with
other types of fixed wireless services (e.g., radars, unlicensed radio
bands, etc.). The novel approach presented in this talk is a
wave-controlled architecture that properly accounts for the maximum
possible change in the local reflection phase that can be achieved by
adjacent RIS elements. It obviates the need for dense wiring and
signal paths that would be required for individual control of every
RIS element, and thus offers a substantial reduction in the required
hardware. We specify this wave-controlled RIS architecture in detail
and discuss signal processing and machine learning methods that
exploit it in both point-to-point and multi-cell MIMO systems. Such
implementations can lead to a dramatic improvement in next-generation
wireless, radar, and navigation systems where RIS finds wide
applications. They have the potential to improve the efficiency of
spectrum utilization and coexistence by orders of magnitude.

Biography:

Ender Ayanoglu received the Ph.D. degree from Stanford University in
1986, in electrical engineering. He was with the Communications
Systems Research Laboratory, part of Bell Laboratories, 1999. From
1999 until 2002, he was a Systems Architect at Cisco Systems,
Inc. Since 2002, he has been a Professor in the Department of
Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of California,
Irvine, where he served as the Director of the Center for Pervasive
Communications and Computing and held the Conexant-Broadcom Endowed
Chair during 2002-2010. He served as the Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE
Transactions on Communications from 2004 to 2008. From January 2015
until December 2016 he served as the Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE
Journal on Selected Areas in Communications - Series on Green
Communications and Networking, and as the Founding Editor-in-Chief of
the IEEE Transactions on Green Communications and Networking from
August 2016 to August 2020. From 1990 to 2002, he served on the
Executive Committee of the IEEE Communications Society Communication
Theory Committee, and from 1999 to 2002, was its Chair. He is the
recipient of the IEEE Communications Society (ComSoc)Stephen O. Rice
Prize Paper Award in 1995, ComSoc Best Tutorial Paper Award in 1997,
ComSoc Communication Theory Technical Committee Outstanding Service
Award in 2014, and the ComSoc Joseph LoCicero Award in 2023.  He has
been an IEEE Fellow since 1998. He has served as an IEEE
Communications Society Distinguished Lecturer in 2022-2023 and
2024-2025.