Sometimes more traffic is a good thing

ECE’s New Vanier Scholar is working hard to bring us a wireless future

UBC has recently added an outstanding young scientist to a team of researchers working to improve wireless networks. Mohammad Khoshkholgh joined Dr. Victor Leung’s Laboratory for Wireless Networks and Mobile Systems (WiNMoS) as a PhD student this year and has been awarded the prestigious Vanier Scholarship to help support his work. Mohammad will be developing ways wireless networks can send and receive more than one data signal on the same radio channel (known as MIMO, multi-input multi-output) to increase the carrying capacity of the network.

The potential of wireless technology has captured the attention of literally everyone. There are about 7 billion cellphone subscriptions in the world, and an estimated 4.5 billion mobile phone users. Approximately 40% of the world’s population has access to the internet at home through a mobile phone, computer, gamebox, or other hardware. These numbers are growing quickly. Cisco VNI predicts that global mobile data traffic will increase nearly tenfold between 2014 and 2019. Nearly three-fourths of the world’s mobile data traffic will be video by 2019.

Some of this traffic will be more of the services and entertainment we are already familiar with, but wireless devices also play an important role in smart energy systems, smart buildings, a variety of wearable devices and industrial control systems that can substantially change the way we go about our day-to-day lives. Wireless networks need to keep pace with the growing demand for wireless devices.

For example, 4G MIMO technology has implications for developing a smart power grid. To increase the efficiency and potential use of the electric grid there must be greater communication and control of the grid. Mohammad Khoshkholgh comes to UBC with experience working in the Simula Research Laboratory-Fornebu in Norway on smart grid communication systems; experience that is a perfect match for research in the WinMoS lab under Dr. Leung’s direction. Mohammad has also pursued telecommunications research in Iran where he was born.

The Government of Canada launched the Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarships  program in 2008 to strengthen Canada’s ability to attract and retain world-class doctoral students and establish Canada as a global centre of excellence in research and higher learning. Vanier Scholars demonstrate leadership skills and a high standard of scholarly achievement in graduate studies in the social sciences and/or humanities, natural sciences and/or engineering and health.

photo: Mohammad Khoshkholgh and Zahraa Almasslawi with Yue Minjun’s sculpture in downtown Vancouver

Find out more:

Wireless Networks and Mobile Systems Lab (WiNMoS)

Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarships