ESR 3

Ahmed Gaafar Ahmed Al-Sakkaf

Interference management for visible light communications in radio-frequency hostile environments

Biography

I am Ahmed Al-Sakkaf, born and brought up in Seiyun-Hadramout Yemen. My first degree was in communication engineering form Malaysia besides I got a master’s degree with distinction in telecommunication engineering at University of Malay. My research interests include wireless communication systems, 5G technology, visible light communications (VLC) and Internet-of-Things applications.

I was a first Yemeni candidate chosen for Erasmus Mundus programme in Smart Systems Integration. Two years program in smart systems and design, fabrication and micro-fabrication, MEMS design, Internet-of-Things applications, micro- and nanotechnologies. This program was awarded by three universities in three different countries (Heriot-Watt University in Scotland (HW)-UK, University College of Southeast Norway and Budapest University of Technology and Economics in Hungary (BME)). Besides the academic knowledge, I have studied courses related to the local culture and language of each of these three countries, which gave me an amazing experience on how to appreciate and cherish diversity and multicultural.

Currently, I have joined Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M) for PhD as part of the TeampUp5G project, in research area of interference management for visible light communications in radio-frequency hostile environments.

Objectives

The solutions based on visible light communications (VLC) are especially attractive for hostile environments where the use of radio-frequency (RF) systems is avoided, e.g., industry 4.0, tunnel construction or oil&gas sector. However, these environments require non-common lighting, i.e., high-power LED, light propagation in industrial areas or high density of light sources. Moreover, in contrast to the typical scenarios, the VLC systems are not under the umbrella of other RF systems such as WiFi o pico/femto cells when applied in the considered scenarios. The goal of this project is the development of resilient interference management schemes for RF hostile environments where the deployment of LED lights is employed for providing connectivity, which cannot be provided through RF systems. Specifically, the considered schemes must provide satisfactory data rates and latency for industrial environments while ensuring constant illumination.

Expected Results

Development of a VLC architecture comprising LED lights, receivers and signal processing algorithms for RF hostile environments. Solutions proved through a prototype working in an operational environment in order to facilitate the introduction of the developed schemes and algorithms in the industry 4.0 market segment during the following years.

Institutions and Supervisors

  • Main Institution: Universidad Carlos III de Madrid
  • PhD Enrollment: Universidad Carlos III de Madrid
  • Academic Supervisor: Dr. Maximo Morales Cespedes (UC3M)
  • Industry Supervisor: To be decided

Secondments

IT-Aveiro

PDM