Eng. David Fernández Piñas

Biography: David Fernández Piñas works as a Communication Systems Engineer via Telespazio Belgium for ESA in the Telecommunication Systems and Techniques section (TEC-ESC), since March 2020. Master degree in Telecommunication Engineering from Polytechnical University of Catalonia since 2001 and master degree in Free and Open Source Software from the Open University of Catalonia since 2013. He has more than twenty years of professional experience in the field of satellite communications and its applications, in a great variety of sectors, such as: military, railway, civil aviation (SESAR and ESA Iris Programme), media and broadcasting, but also IoT and transaction systems (e.g. for lottery points of sale).

He has experience developing SW for embedded devices, network simulators and emulators, link layer and radio resource management communication standards and protocols, network managers and agents, using free and open source software solutions. He has participated and led the implementation of satellite network emulation and simulation models and test beds.

He has been invited as Associated lecturer at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, from 2014 to 2018, while working for Indra Communications Systems department in Barcelona, for the Communication Systems Design subject of the Master in Telecommunication engineering, contributing the industry perspective on the subject.

He has contributed to perform capacity assessment simulations of SATCOM systems, implemented encapsulation and ARQ protocols and is currently performing revision and verification of test beds specification, design and implementation for future SATCOM systems, acting as Technical Officer of multiple ongoing ESA Advanced Research in Telecommunications (ARTES), 5G and secure connectivity (4S) activities.

Title : Towards a seamless integration of satellites in future path aware, QoS enabled, multiple access networking for multimedia applications

Abstract:  The broadband and broadcasting networks of the future will be even more digital, ubiquitous, capable and efficient, based on multiple link technologies, for WAN, fixed and mobile, wired and wireless, terrestrial, airborne and satellite based, with a broadband and broadcast component, providing the best possible experience (QoE) cost-efficiently, provisioning technologies with tunable quality of service (QoS) in terms of latency, not only throughput, providing a reliable continuous and seamless connectivity and managed with the help of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Applications and networks will become path aware and will continue to be IP based, with end-to-end encryption, used mainly for video distribution, with higher and higher resolutions, besides traditional voice and data (web applications). The networks will be capable of distributing personalized on demand video as well as performing an efficient distribution of live events (video broadcasting). Emerging applications such as 8K video and volumetric video, in conjunction with Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality, anticipate the need for higher data rates, reduced latency and the use of multiple communications links and technologies in the most efficient way, technically and economically. In the future muti-link networks, the satellite links will be just another technology, seamlessly integrated in our user terminals (smartphones) and in the global communications infrastructure.