Signal Processing for Large Scale Sensor Networks

Date: Monday, March 21, 08:00 - 09:00
Location: Exhibit Hall C

Presented by

Prof. L. Tong, Cornell University

Abstract

Large scale sensor network promises unprecedented ability of information gathering, processing, and understanding. However, daunting challenges of designing networks involving thousands (even millions) of low power sensors calls for new approaches that provide energy efficient sensing, communication, and computation. This talk describes a number of signal processing problems that arise from the design and applications of large scale sensor networks. These problems require techniques unburdened by the strict layered network architecture in which the role of signal processing is relegated to the two ends of the protocol stack: establishing and maintaining links at the physical layer, and efficient representation of source at the application layer.

Speaker Biography

Lang Tong is a Professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York. He received the B.E. degree from Tsinghua University, M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Indiana. He was a Postdoctoral Research Affiliate at the Information Systems Laboratory, Stanford University in 1991. He was also the 2001 Cor Wit Visiting Professor at the Delft University of Technology.

The inability to implement simple circuits during his university days swayed Lang Tong toward the theoretical side of electrical engineering. He studied higher order statistics (HOS) and was fasinated by the miracles of HOS. (He tried to produced miracles but found it extremely difficult.) Later he worked on channel equalization techniques, making his life harder (unnecessarily perhaps) by insisting on not using training symbols. He now works in areas that intersect statistical signal processing, wireless communications, wireless networks, and information theory. He is excited about many curious problems that arise from large scale sensor networks.