Prof. Dr. Lau Buon Kiong

Prof. Dr. Lau Buon Kiong, Lund University, Sweden.

Dr. Buon Kiong (Vincent) Lau is an Associate Professor and a "Docent" at the Department of Electrical and Information Technology, Lund University, Sweden. He is also the Director of Postgraduate Studies at the same department.

Dr. Lau obtained the Bachelor of Electrical and Electronic Engineering (1st Class Honors) from the University of Western Australia in 1998. From 1998 to 2002, he performed his Ph.D. at Curtin University of Technology, Australia, on the topic "Applications of Adaptive Antennas in 3G Mobile Communication Systems". From 2003 to 2004, he was a Guest Research Fellow at the Department of Signal Processing, Blekinge Institute of Technology. In 2004, he became a Research Fellow at the Department of Electroscience, Lund University and later an Assistant Professor at the Department of Electrical and Information Technology (formerly Department of Electroscience).

Dr Lau is an Associate Editor for the IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation and a Co-chair of Subworking Group 2.2 on "Compact Antenna Systems for Terminals" (CAST) within EU COST Action 2100. He is a Senior Member of the IEEE.  Dr Lau's primary research interests are in various aspects of multiple antenna systems, particularly the interplay between traditionally separate disciplines of antennas, propagation channels and signal processing.

Abstract:

Even though multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) technology has captured the attention of many wireless communication researchers for well over a decade, surprisingly little effort has gone into the design of practical antennas that are required to make it work. Moreover, the current large scale commercial deployment of long term evolution (LTE) and other wireless systems with integrated MIMO technology adds to the urgency of good antenna design.

In this seminar, the focus is on the design of antennas for MIMO user terminals. Due to the space constraint and the physical structure of today’s terminals, achieving a good design can be especially challenging. In particular, (i) the space constraint forces the antennas to be closely spaced, which degrades the expected MIMO performance due to high signal correlation and low antenna efficiency and (ii) the terminals are equipped with small ground planes which can interact with the antenna elements in such a way as to further degrade MIMO performance.

Fortunately, recent research provides several promising solutions for the aforementioned design problems. While most of these solutions attempt to reduce mutual coupling among the antennas, such that multiple antennas can co-exist in the terminal without degrading MIMO performance, more advanced solutions have also being proposed to also account for user effects and propagation conditions. Finally, despite the recent progress in MIMO antenna design, many opportunities remain to be explored. A number of interesting topics for future research will be presented in the seminar.