Dr. Antonino Masaracchia - Education and Work

Education:

- 2013 -2016: Ph.D. in Electronic and Telecommunication Engineering at University of Palermo. I completed my Ph.D studies defending my thesis entitled "Opportunistic traffic Offloading Mechanisms for Mobile/4G Networks". The research consisted in the design and validation of a new network architecture able to perform data trac ooading from the 4G/LTE cellular networks to another complementary network, e.g. Wi-Fi for Bluetooth, by exploiting device-to device (D2D) communication. This study was conducted with the joint supervision of the Institute of Informatics and Telematics (IIT), Pisa, Italy. All results obtained from my research activities have been considered by the European Commission as important contributions for the development 5G technologies inside the 5G-PPP programme.
- 2007- 2012: M.Sc. in Electronic and Telecommunication Engineering at University of Palermo. I received the M.Sc. degree in Telecommunication Engineering 110/110 cum laude equivalent to First-Class Honour. The main focus of the degree was to provide a deep knowledge of the main macro areas of telecommunication field like i) electromagnetism and antennas theory, ii) Information theory and signal processing, iii) electronic systems for signal transmission and detection, iv) radio access technologies for both wired and wireless networks, v) standard protocols for data transportation and network security.

Work Experience:

September 2018 - present: Research Fellow at Queens University Belfast. I perform research activities at the Centre for Wireless Innovation (CWI) under the supervision of Prof. Trung Q. Duong. Initially, my research activities were focused on the investigation of innovative wireless-based communication methodologies for the development of Disaster Relief Networks, which represent communication systems that can work even when extreme weather and natural disasters strike. These activities has been funded by the Department for Energy & Industrial Strategy and won the prestigious Newton Prize in 2017. In addition, I also performed research activities for the development of ML-based early warning system for prioritized climate-sensitive diseases. At date, my research activities are mainly focused on optimal resource allocation for enabling URLLCs services in future beyond 5G and 6G networks, as well as the investigation of innovative real-time optimization system for future wireless networks by exploiting the recent concept of Digital Twin. Last but not least, I am collaborating with VIAVI Solutions Ltd to design an emulation system that allows to emulate as much accurately as possible the most important characteristics of the future 5G networks. This is in line with the O-RAN alliance priorities.
July 2017 - August 2018: Research Fellow at School of Advanced Studies Sant'Anna. I worked at The BioRobotics Institute in Pontedera, Italy, under the supervision of Prof. Gastone Ciuti and Prof. Paolo Dario on the EU-Endoo project. The project consisted in the development of an integrated robotic platform for the navigation of a soft-tethered colonoscope capable of performing painless diagnosis and treatment.
October 2016 - June 2017: My research, supervised by Prof. Stefano Giordano, was part of the EU Umi-Sci-Ed project. The main goal was to enhance the attractiveness of science education and careers for young people via the use of latest technologies like Internet-of-Things (IoT). During this period I collaborated with an equip of pedagogics in order to create a set of IoT-based educational scenarios which can be able to either increase the attractiveness and learning curve of secondary school students towards scientic subjects.