Date and Time: September 4, 2026 at 2 pm CEST

Title: Reconfigurable Surface Assisted Communications with Embedded AI

Online location: https://liu-se.zoom.us/meetings/66870975248/invitations?signature=l70Vu_G20flDZD89b6jVX9P79wJWCBAX0lC4n8HNl50

In-Person location: Meeting room P1-03-206 of Lehrstuhl für Nachrichtentechnik, TU Dortmund (3rd floor) https://maps.app.goo.gl/Lvp1rYwyMZEZmaaA7

Abstract: Recently, reconfigurable antennas have drawn attention as a means to add degrees of freedom to the optimization of wireless communication systems, and improve their performance. Most importantly, they contribute to making massive MIMO and ultra-massive MIMO more practical and efficient. Among the ideas that add reconfigurability to transceivers is the idea of using stacked intelligent surfaces (SIS). These surfaces can add a layer of beam-pattern optimization to the already existing digital and analog beamforming layers. However, SIS can do more than beamforming. In particular, they can play the role of wave-domain signal processors that resemble neural networks. This talk will provide an overview of recent works in this area, which interpret and/or utilize SIS as neural networks. It will also introduce new ideas that can enhance this functionality and open the doors to new research directions. Finally, the talk will present some recent experimental work related to SIS, as well as tie SIS to the newly proposed architecture of tri-hybrid MIMO.

Biography: Anas Chaaban is an associate professor at the University of British Columbia. He received the Maîtrise ès Sciences degree in electronics from Lebanese University, Lebanon, in 2006, the MSc degree in communications technology and the Dr.Ing. (PhD) degree in electrical engineering and information technology from the University of Ulm and the Ruhr-University of Bochum, Germany, in 2009 and 2013, respectively. From 2008 to 2009, he was with the Daimler AG Research Group On Machine Vision, Ulm, Germany. He was a Research Assistant with the Emmy-Noether Research Group on Wireless Networks, University of Ulm, Germany, from 2009 to 2011, which relocated to the Ruhr-University of Bochum in 2011. He was a Post-Doctoral Researcher with the Ruhr-University of Bochum from 2013 to 2014, and with King Abdullah University of Science and Technology from 2015 to 2017. He joined the School of Engineering at the University of British Columbia in 2018. His research interests are in the areas of information theory and wireless communications. He served as an editor with the IEEE Transactions on Communications between 2018 and 2024, as well as in many roles in organizing committees of IEEE conferences. He currently serves as an editor with the IEEE Wireless Communications Magazine.

For any questions, please contact Onur Günlü via onur.guenlue@tu-dortmund.de