BrainSurge

Speaker 1: Angshul Majumdar

TOPIC: Energy Efficient Wireless Sensor Networks

Traditional methods to reduce energy consumption are not optimally designed for energy saving. They tinker with the different networking protocols or propose application and data dependent sensing mechanisms which bring only slight improvement in energy efficiency. To bring in the next level of energy reduction, we rely on recent theoretical breakthroughs in maths. I will discuss how the sensor network problem can be framed as a problem of matrix completion from sub-sampled entries, similar to the Netflix problem. The discussion will be devoid of maths, it will only include intuitive insights and qualitative understanding of the problem. Some astonishing results will also be shown.

BIOGRAPHY
Angshul Majumdar completed his Bachelor’s degree from Bengal Engineering and Science University, India. Before joining UBC as a grad student in 2007, he was working in Technology Advisory Service for PricewaterhouseCoopers.
He completed his Master’s in Electrical and Computer Engineering at UBC. Currently he is a PhD student at the Signal and Image Processing Lab. In the last term, he went for a research internship at Siemens Corporate Research, Princeton. He worked on the signal processing aspects of MR imaging for next generation scanners which are supposed to cut current scan times by 60-80%. Angshul is mainly interested in signal processing algorithms with applications as diverse as Medial Image Reconstruction, Color and Hyperspectral Imaging and Energy Efficient Distributed Sensor Networks.

Speaker 2: Roee Diamant

TOPIC: Spatial Reuse Protocols for Ad-Hoc Underwater Acoustic Communication Network

The oceans, covering two thirds of the Earth’s surface, represent one of the last frontiers for exploration and science. Wireless information transmission through the ocean is one of the enabling technologies for the development of future ocean-observation systems, whose applications include gathering of scientific data, pollution control, climate monitoring, detection of objects, and transmission of images from remote places. Wireless communication underwater is usually established using acoustic transducers since radio frequency communication is only possible for very short distances underwater. In this talk we will discuss the challenges of underwater acoustic communication network design and research possibilities in this area.

BIOGRAPHY
Roee Diamant obtained his M.Sc and B.Sc from Israel Institute of Technology, Technion. He has a wide-range of industry experience as well, working for a year in the biomedical industry as a researcher and 7 years at Rafael as a group leader, project manager and system engineer. As such, he was awarded first place in the annual Israel excellent worker distinction for 2009. Today, Roee is working on his PhD on “Underwater Acoustic Communication Networks” in the communication lab here at UBC.