Communications

Wireless and optical communications.

We conduct advanced research in wireless and optical communications from the network layer down to the physical layer, including highly reliable machine-to-machine wireless networks, routing and scheduling for IoT networks, massive MIMO for 5G systems, flexible wideband RF front-end architectures, advanced error correction coding, and novel modulation and transmission techniques with adaptive signal processing for coherent fiber-optic and free-space optical communications.

  • Quick Links

  • Researchers

  • Awards

    •  AWARD    MERL’s Paper on Wi-Fi Sensing Earns Top 3% Paper Recognition at ICASSP 2023, Selected as a Best Student Paper Award Finalist
      Date: June 9, 2023
      Awarded to: Cristian J. Vaca-Rubio, Pu Wang, Toshiaki Koike-Akino, Ye Wang, Petros Boufounos and Petar Popovski
      MERL Contacts: Petros T. Boufounos; Toshiaki Koike-Akino; Pu (Perry) Wang; Ye Wang
      Research Areas: Artificial Intelligence, Communications, Computational Sensing, Dynamical Systems, Machine Learning, Signal Processing
      Brief
      • A MERL Paper on Wi-Fi sensing was recognized as a Top 3% Paper among all 2709 accepted papers at the 2023 IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing (ICASSP 2023). Co-authored by Cristian Vaca-Rubio and Petar Popovski from Aalborg University, Denmark, and MERL researchers Pu Wang, Toshiaki Koike-Akino, Ye Wang, and Petros Boufounos, the paper "MmWave Wi-Fi Trajectory Estimation with Continous-Time Neural Dynamic Learning" was also a Best Student Paper Award finalist.

        Performed during Cristian’s stay at MERL first as a visiting Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow and then as a full-time intern in 2022, this work capitalizes on standards-compliant Wi-Fi signals to perform indoor localization and sensing. The paper uses a neural dynamic learning framework to address technical issues such as low sampling rate and irregular sampling intervals.

        ICASSP, a flagship conference of the IEEE Signal Processing Society (SPS), was hosted on the Greek island of Rhodes from June 04 to June 10, 2023. ICASSP 2023 marked the largest ICASSP in history, boasting over 4000 participants and 6128 submitted papers, out of which 2709 were accepted.
    •  
    •  AWARD    Best Paper Award of 2022 IPSJ Transactions on Consumer Devices & Systems
      Date: March 27, 2023
      Awarded to: Yukimasa Nagai, Takenori Sumi, Jianlin Guo, Philip Orlik, Hiroshi Mineno
      MERL Contacts: Jianlin Guo; Philip V. Orlik; Kieran Parsons
      Research Areas: Communications, Signal Processing
      Brief
      • MELCO/MERL research paper “IEEE 802.19.3 Standardization for Coexistence of IEEE 802.11ah and IEEE 802.15.4g Systems in Sub-1GHz Frequency Bands” has won the Best Paper Award of the 2022 IPSJ Transactions on Consumer Devices and Systems. The Information Processing Society of Japan (IPSJ) award was established in 1970 and is conferred on the authors of particularly excellent papers, which are published in the IPSJ journals and transactions. Our paper was published by the IPSJ Transaction on Consumer Device and System Vol. 29 in 2021 and authors are Yukimasa Nagai, Takenori Sumi, Jianlin Guo, Philip Orlik and Hiroshi Mineno.
    •  
    •  AWARD    MERL receives 33rd ARIB Radio Achievement Award
      Date: June 28, 2022
      Awarded to: Yukimasa Nagai, Jianlin Guo, Shoichi Kitazawa, Kazuto Yano.
      MERL Contacts: Jianlin Guo; Philip V. Orlik
      Research Areas: Communications, Electric Systems
      Brief
      • Mitsubishi Electric Corporation (Yukimasa Nagai), MERL (Jianlin Guo), Muroran Institute of Technology (Shoichi Kitazawa) and Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute International (Kazuto Yano) jointly won the 33rd ARIB Radio Achievement Award with "IEEE 802.19.3 Standardization and Development for Sub-1 GHz Wireless Frequency Coexistence". The ARIB is an organization similar to the FCC in the U.S. It is responsible for setting standards for all radio communications in Japan at the request of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC). In order to promote the effective use of radio waves, the "Radio Achievement Award" is given annually to an individual or organization that has made a special achievement in the effective use of radio waves. This award is the most prestigious award in the field of wireless communications in Japan.
    •  

    See All Awards for Communications

  • News & Events

    •  NEWS    Jianlin Guo delivered a keynote in IEEE ICC 2024 Workshop
      Date: June 13, 2024
      Where: IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC)
      MERL Contacts: Jianlin Guo; Philip V. Orlik; Kieran Parsons; Pu (Perry) Wang
      Research Areas: Communications, Machine Learning, Signal Processing
      Brief
      • Jianlin Guo delivered a keynote titled "Private IoT Networks" in the IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC) 2024 Workshop "Industrial Private 5G-and-Beyond Wireless Networks", held in Denver, Colorado from June 9-13. The ICC is one of two IEEE Communications Society’s flagship conferences.

        Abstract: With the advent of private 5G-and-Beyond communication technologies, private IoT networks have been emerging. In private IoT networks, network owners have full control on the network resource management. However, to fully realize private IoT networks, the upper layer technologies need to be developed as well. This keynote presents machine learning based anomaly detection in manufacturing systems, innovative multipath TCP technologies over heterogeneous wireless IoT networks, novel channel resource scheduling in private 5G networks and efficient wireless coexistence of the heterogeneous wireless systems.
    •  
    •  NEWS    MERL Researchers give a Tutorial Talk on Quantum Machine Learning for Sensing and Communications at IEEE VCC
      Date: November 28, 2023 - November 30, 2023
      Where: Virtual
      MERL Contacts: Toshiaki Koike-Akino; Pu (Perry) Wang
      Research Areas: Artificial Intelligence, Communications, Computational Sensing, Machine Learning, Signal Processing
      Brief
      • On November 28, 2023, MERL researchers Toshiaki Koike-Akino and Pu (Perry) Wang will give a 3-hour tutorial presentation at the first IEEE Virtual Conference on Communications (VCC). The talk, titled "Post-Deep Learning Era: Emerging Quantum Machine Learning for Sensing and Communications," addresses recent trends, challenges, and advances in sensing and communications. P. Wang presents use cases, industry trends, signal processing, and deep learning for Wi-Fi integrated sensing and communications (ISAC), while T. Koike-Akino discusses the future of deep learning, giving a comprehensive overview of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, natural computing, emerging quantum AI, and their diverse applications. The tutorial is conducted virtually.

        IEEE VCC is a new fully virtual conference launched from the IEEE Communications Society, gathering researchers from academia and industry who are unable to travel but wish to present their recent scientific results and engage in conducive interactive discussions with fellow researchers working in their fields. It is designed to resolve potential hardship such as pandemic restrictions, visa issues, travel problems, or financial difficulties.
    •  

    See All News & Events for Communications

  • Research Highlights

  • Internships

    • CI0066: Internship - IoT Network Anomaly Detection

      MERL is seeking a highly motivated and qualified intern to conduct research on IoT network anomaly detection and analysis. The candidate is expected to develop innovative anomaly detection technologies that can proactively detect and analyze network failure in large-scale IOT networks. The candidate should have knowledge of LLM/ML and anomaly detection. Knowledge of network log analysis and network protocol a plus. Candidates in their junior or senior years of a Ph.D. program are encouraged to apply. Start date for this internship is flexible and the duration is 3 months.

      The responsibilities of this intern position include (i) research on anomaly detection in large-scale IoT networks; (ii) develop proactive network anomaly detection and analysis technologies; (iii) simulate and analyze the performance of developed technology.

    • CI0067: Internship - IoT Network Design methodology

      MERL is seeking a highly motivated and qualified intern to carry out research on mobile IoT network design methodology. The candidate is expected to develop innovative mobile network technologies to support UAV assisted IoT networks. The candidates should have knowledge of mobile network technologies such as path planning and cooperative network operations. Knowledge of UAV technology and mobility management is a plus. Candidates in their junior or senior years of a Ph.D. program are encouraged to apply. Start date for this internship is flexible and the duration is 3 months.

      The responsibilities of this intern position include (i) research on UAV assisted network design methodology; (ii) develop network configuration technologies to support UAV cooperative network operations; (iii) simulate and analyze the performance of developed technology.


    See All Internships for Communications

  • Recent Publications

    •  Sumi, T., Nagai, Y., Guo, J., Mineno, H., "Firmware Distribution with Erasure Code for IoT applications on IEEE 802.15.4g Mesh Network", Asia-Pacific Conference on Communications 2024, November 2024.
      BibTeX TR2024-153 PDF
      • @inproceedings{Sumi2024nov,
      • author = {Sumi, Takenori and Nagai, Yukimasa and Guo, Jianlin and Mineno, Hiroshi}},
      • title = {Firmware Distribution with Erasure Code for IoT applications on IEEE 802.15.4g Mesh Network},
      • booktitle = {Asia-Pacific Conference on Communications 2024},
      • year = 2024,
      • month = nov,
      • url = {https://www.merl.com/publications/TR2024-153}
      • }
    •  Kojima, K., Koike-Akino, T., "Photonics × Machine Learning", FIOLS, September 2024.
      BibTeX TR2024-154 PDF
      • @inproceedings{Kojima2024sep,
      • author = {Kojima, Keisuke and Koike-Akino, Toshiaki}},
      • title = {Photonics × Machine Learning},
      • booktitle = {FIOLS},
      • year = 2024,
      • month = sep,
      • url = {https://www.merl.com/publications/TR2024-154}
      • }
    •  Rahman, M., Yataka, R., Kato, S., Wang, P., Li, P., Cardace, A., Boufounos, P.T., "MMVR: Millimeter-wave Multi-View Radar Dataset and Benchmark for Indoor Perception", European Conference on Computer Vision (ECCV), DOI: 10.1007/​978-3-031-72986-7_18, September 2024, pp. 306–322.
      BibTeX TR2024-117 PDF Data
      • @inproceedings{Rahman2024sep,
      • author = {Rahman, Mahbub and Yataka, Ryoma and Kato, Sorachi and Wang, Pu and Li, Peizhao and Cardace, Adriano and Boufounos, Petros T.}},
      • title = {MMVR: Millimeter-wave Multi-View Radar Dataset and Benchmark for Indoor Perception},
      • booktitle = {European Conference on Computer Vision (ECCV)},
      • year = 2024,
      • pages = {306–322},
      • month = sep,
      • publisher = {Springer},
      • doi = {10.1007/978-3-031-72986-7_18},
      • url = {https://www.merl.com/publications/TR2024-117}
      • }
    •  Kirihara, H., Ibuki, S., Fujihashi, T., Koike-Akino, T., Watanabe, T., "Point Cloud Geometry Compression using Parameterized Graph Fourier Transform", ACM SIGCOMM, DOI: 10.1145/​3672196.367340, August 2024, pp. 52-57.
      BibTeX TR2024-106 PDF
      • @inproceedings{Kirihara2024aug,
      • author = {Kirihara, Hinata and Ibuki, Shoichi and Fujihashi, Takuya and Koike-Akino, Toshiaki and Watanabe, Takashi}},
      • title = {Point Cloud Geometry Compression using Parameterized Graph Fourier Transform},
      • booktitle = {ACM SIGCOMM},
      • year = 2024,
      • pages = {52--57},
      • month = aug,
      • publisher = {ACM},
      • doi = {10.1145/3672196.367340},
      • url = {https://www.merl.com/publications/TR2024-106}
      • }
    •  Nagai, Y., Guo, J., Rolfe, B.A., Yano, K., Sumi, T., Parsons, K., Orlik, P.V., Wang, P., "Sub-1 GHz Band Wireless Coexistence Study for OFDM Systems in IEEE 802.19.3a", Workshop on Smart Radio for IoT Era (SRIoT), July 2024.
      BibTeX TR2024-090 PDF
      • @inproceedings{Nagai2024jul,
      • author = {Nagai, Yukimasa and Guo, Jianlin and Rolfe, Benjamin A. and Yano, Kazuto and Sumi, Takenori and Parsons, Kieran and Orlik, Philip V. and Wang, Pu}},
      • title = {Sub-1 GHz Band Wireless Coexistence Study for OFDM Systems in IEEE 802.19.3a},
      • booktitle = {Workshop on Smart Radio for IoT Era (SRIoT)},
      • year = 2024,
      • month = jul,
      • url = {https://www.merl.com/publications/TR2024-090}
      • }
    •  Sun, Y., Guo, J., Parsons, K., Nagai, Y., "Improve Federated Learning Stability for Vehicle Trajectory Prediction", International Conference on Ubiquitous and Future Networks (UCIFN), July 2024.
      BibTeX TR2024-094 PDF
      • @inproceedings{Sun2024jul,
      • author = {Sun, Youbang and Guo, Jianlin and Parsons, Kieran and Nagai, Yukimasa}},
      • title = {Improve Federated Learning Stability for Vehicle Trajectory Prediction},
      • booktitle = {International Conference on Ubiquitous and Future Networks (UCIFN)},
      • year = 2024,
      • month = jul,
      • url = {https://www.merl.com/publications/TR2024-094}
      • }
    •  Fujihashi, T., Koike-Akino, T., Corcodel, R., "Graph-Based Analog Joint Source Channel Coding for 3D Haptic Communication", IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC), DOI: 10.1109/​ICC51166.2024.10622893, June 2024.
      BibTeX TR2024-070 PDF
      • @inproceedings{Fujihashi2024jun,
      • author = {Fujihashi, Takuya and Koike-Akino, Toshiaki and Corcodel, Radu}},
      • title = {Graph-Based Analog Joint Source Channel Coding for 3D Haptic Communication},
      • booktitle = {IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC)},
      • year = 2024,
      • month = jun,
      • publisher = {IEEE},
      • doi = {10.1109/ICC51166.2024.10622893},
      • issn = {1938-1883},
      • isbn = {978-1-7281-9054-9},
      • url = {https://www.merl.com/publications/TR2024-070}
      • }
    •  Guo, J., Parsons, K., Nagai, Y., Sumi, T., Sakaguchi, N., Tsuchida, H., Wang, P., Orlik, P.V., "Multipath TCP Over Multi-Hop Heterogeneous Wireless IoT Networks", IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC), June 2024.
      BibTeX TR2024-071 PDF
      • @inproceedings{Guo2024jun,
      • author = {Guo, Jianlin and Parsons, Kieran and Nagai, Yukimasa and Sumi, Takenori and Sakaguchi, Naotaka and Tsuchida, Hikaru and Wang, Pu and Orlik, Philip V.}},
      • title = {Multipath TCP Over Multi-Hop Heterogeneous Wireless IoT Networks},
      • booktitle = {IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC)},
      • year = 2024,
      • month = jun,
      • url = {https://www.merl.com/publications/TR2024-071}
      • }
    See All Publications for Communications

  • Videos

  • Software & Data Downloads