News & Events

Date: September 10, 2025 (Wednesday)
Time: 14:15 - 16:30 
Venue: Rayson Huang Lecture Theatre, HKU
Keynote Speaker: Professor Robert W. Heath Jr., University of California San Diego

All members of the HKU community and the general public are welcome to join. Seats for on-site participants are limited. Interested parties please register through the link below by September 10, 2025 18:00pm: 
https://hkuems1.hku.hk/hkuems/ec_hdetail.aspx?guest=Y&ueid=102594  

 A confirmation email will be sent to participants who have successfully registered.

Abstract:
Wireless networks have fundamentally transformed our daily lives. Behind this revolution, Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) communication standing out as one of the most influential innovations. By spatially multiplexing data streams across different antennas, MIMO enables high-rate access. In this talk, Professor Heath will introduce the fundamentals of MIMO communication and explore its applications within cellular systems. The lecture will begin with an overview of single-user and multi-user MIMO, highlighting their pivotal role in 4G networks. It will then discuss the adaptation of MIMO techniques to 5G millimeter-wave systems. Finally, the talk will explore a forward-looking concept: the tri-hybrid MIMO architecture, which integrates reconfigurable antennas into digital/analog hybrid MIMO framework to support very large-scale antenna arrays.

About the keynote speaker:

Professor Robert W. Heath Jr. is the Charles Lee Powell Chair in Wireless Communication in the Department of ECE at the University of California San Diego.  He is the recipient or co-recipient of several awards including the 2019 IEEE Kiyo Tomiyasu Award, the 2020 North Carolina State University Innovator of the Year Award, the 2021 IEEE Vehicular Technology Society James Evans Avant Garde Award, and the 2025 IEEE/RSE James Clerk Maxwell Medal. He authored “Introduction to Wireless Digital Communication” (Prentice Hall in 2017) and “Digital Wireless Communication: Physical Layer Exploration Lab Using the NI USRP” (National Technology and Science Press in 2012). He co-authored “Millimeter Wave Wireless Communications” (Prentice Hall in 2014) and “Foundations of MIMO Communications” (Cambridge 2019). He is a licensed Amateur Radio Operator, a registered Professional Engineer in Texas, a Private Pilot, a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors, a Fellow of the IEEE, and a Fellow of the AAAS. He is an elected member of the United States National Academy of Engineering, 2025 class.

Panellists:

Professor Nuria González Prelcic, University of California San Diego
Professor Nuria González Prelcic received her Ph.D. with Honors in 2000 from the University of Vigo, Spain. She is a Professor at the ECE Department of the University of California San Diego since January 2024. Her main research interests include signal processing and machine learning for wireless communications. She has published more than 150 papers in these areas, including a highly cited tutorial on signal processing for mmWave MIMO published in the IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Signal Processing which has received the 2020 IEEE SPS Donald G. Fink Overview Paper Award, and a paper pioneering the idea of enabling automotive radar with a WiFi waveform that won the 2022 IEEE Vehicular Technology Society Best Vehicular Electronics Paper Award. She has been an Editor for IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications and IEEE Transactions Communications. She is a member of the IEEE Signal Processing Society TWG on Integrated Sensing and Communication, SPCOM Technical Committee and IEEE SPS Education Board.

Dr Peiying Zhu, Huawei
Dr Peiying Zhu, Senior Vice President of Wireless Research, is a Huawei Fellow, IEEE Fellow and Fellow of Canadian Academy of Engineering. She is currently leading 6G wireless research and standardization in Huawei. The focus of her research is advanced radio access technologies. She is actively involved in 3GPP and IEEE 802 standards development. She has been regularly giving talks and panel discussions on 5G/6G vision and enabling technologies. She led the team to contribute significantly to 5G technologies and standardization. Many technologies developed by the team have been adopted into 5G standards and implemented in 5G products. She served as the guest editor for IEEE Signal processing magazine special issue on the 5G revolution and IEEE JSAC on Deployment Issues and Performance Challenges for 5G.

Professor Zhisheng Niu, Tsinghua University
Professor Zhisheng Niu graduated from Beijing Jiaotong University, China, in 1985, and got his M.E. and D.E. degrees from Toyohashi University of Technology, Japan, in 1989 and 1992, respectively.  During 1992-1994, he worked for Fujitsu Laboratories Ltd., Japan, and in 1994 joined with Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, where he is now a professor at the Department of Electronic Engineering. During 1997-1998, he visited Hitachi Central Research Laboratory as a HIVIPS senior researcher.  His major research interests include queueing theory and traffic engineering, wireless communications and mobile Internet, vehicular communications and smart networking, and green communication and networks. Professor Niu has been serving IEEE Communications Society since 2000, first as Chair of Beijing Chapter and then as Director of Asia-Pacific Board, Director for Conference Publications, Chair of Emerging Technologies Committee, Director for Online Contents, Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Trans. Green Commun. & Networks, and currently Chair of Emerging Technologies Committee.  He received the Distinguished Technical Achievement Recognition Award from IEEE Communications Society Green Communications and Computing Technical Committee in 2018.  He was selected as a distinguished lecturer of IEEE Communication Society as well as IEEE Vehicular Technologies Society.  He is a fellow of both IEEE and IEICE.

Professor Chan Byoung Chae, Yonsei University
Professor Chan Byoung Chae received the Ph.D. degree in electrical and computer engineering from The University of Texas at Austin (UT) in 2008. Prior to joining UT, he was a Research Engineer at the Telecommunications Research and Development Center, Samsung Electronics, Suwon, South Korea, from 2001 to 2005. He is currently an Underwood Distinguished Professor and Lee Youn Jae Fellow (Endowed Chair Professor) with the School of Integrated Technology, Yonsei University, South Korea. Before joining Yonsei University, he was with Bell Labs, Alcatel-Lucent, Murray Hill, NJ, USA, from 2009 to 2011, as a Member of Technical Staff, and Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA, from 2008 to 2009, as a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow. He was the Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Trans. Molecular, Biological, and Multi-scale Communications. He was an IEEE ComSoc Distinguished Lecturer from 2020 to 2023 and is an IEEE VTS Distinguished Lecturer from 2024 to 2025. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Engineering of Korea.

We look forward to seeing you in the lecture. Thank you.