Events

Date: 3 July 2025   Time: 14:00 - 15:00

Location: People's Palace PP1 + Online

Click here to join the seminar online

Summary

The rapid evolution of wireless communications with potentially 3 orders of magnitude in higher data connectivity and a goal of Terabit per second speeds for wired/chip-to-chip data transfers is upon us for the next decade. These speeds are needed to enable short range (a few meters) and long-range communications (km and satellite links) for distributed systems that will realize visions for tactile internet and haptic communications, virtual reality/artificial intelligence, manufacturing with digital twin models for inline adaptable fabrication, intelligent transportation, digital health care and remote surgery, to mention a few. These technologies are bound to change our way of living and in the next 10 years and beyond, from our

workspace, government services to our daily routines. This presentation will present progress in technologies that will contribute to this vision with laboratory demonstrations. Among them: 1) reinventing spectral employment by co-designing multi-functional system that better exploit the millimeter-wave to THz spectrum, 2) wide band RF-front ends boasting 30:1 contiguous bandwidths and beyond to consolidate several functions under a small aperture for the smaller vehicles (drones, cubesats or remote controlled automated delivery vehicles), 3) vertical heterogenous packaging of high-density RF/millimeter -wave transceivers that combine high power and low power components and deliver gigabit speeds on the go, and terabit speeds within the package, 4) suppression of EMI/EMC with inline corrections during manufacturing while realizing <10 μm pitch, 5) digital ultrawideband beamformers for high power and high rate deliveries on portable handheld devices with MIMO capabilities, 6) secure communications by exploiting the larger bandwidths, possibly with co-sharing options, 7) integration of wireless systems, algorithmic, and circuit technologies, required in future wireless links across low SNRs for IoT and privacy as relates to medical data sharing, navigation and vehicle to vehicle to vehicle communications, to mention a few, 8) robotics and 3D manufacturing with low latencies, 9) digital twin Multiphysics modeling for pre-design of entire densely packaged electronics with 1000s of parameters using AI algorithms, 10) entire radio transceivers that include apertures and reflectarrays operating across 30:1 bandwidth with reconfiguration and enabling technologies such as tiny implants to simultaneous transmitreceive radios (STAR).

Biography

Prof. Volakis is an IEEE, ACES, AAAS, NAI and URSI Fellow. He served as Dean of Engineering and Computing at FIU from 2017-2023. His career spans 4 decades: 2 years at Boeing, 19 years on the faculty at the Univ. of Michigan and 15 years at Ohio State, and nearly 8 years at FIU. After his PhD in 1982, he was recruited by North American Aircraft Operations (now part of the Boeing Company), where he carried out critical design innovations for the B1-B bomber. He began his academic career at The University of Michigan-Ann Arbor in 1984. During 1984-2003 he played a key role in reviving the Radiation Laboratory into becoming the leading RF/Electromagnetics lab worldwide. At the Michigan Radiation Lab, he graduated nearly 45 PhDs/Post-Docs and also served as its Director. During his time at Michigan, he led a large group of students and researchers, developed novelties in diffraction and radar scattering, particularly as relates to impedance/material surfaces, and played a key role in establishing the finite element method as one of the most popular Microwave/Electromagnetics analysis toolsets, now found in several commercial packages. He also supported the commercialization of these packages by working with start-up companies.

In 2003, he was recruited by his alma mater, The Ohio State University, to lead the historic ElectroScience Laboratory. At Ohio State, he was the Roy and Lois Chope Chair in Engineering and a Professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Dept. (2003-2017). He served as the Director of the Ohio State Univ. ElectroScience Laboratory for 14 years. During this time, ElectroScience reached 170 faculty, researchers and staff, and acquired a new 40,000 ft2 building to support its growth. More importantly, ElectroScience became a leading RF/electromagnetics center, growing from $3.5MM per year in funding to nearly $15MM per year at its peak.

After a highly successful period at Ohio State, he was appointed Dean of Engineering and Computing at Florida International University (FIU), one of the largest Colleges in the U.S. based on student population. During his time as Dean, the College's student population also grew from approximately 5400 to 8700 students, while its U.S. News and World Report rankings improved by more than 40 points to reach #61 among public Universities in 2023. Concurrently, eight of its programs reached top 50 status. Also, in less than 7 years, the College's four-year graduation rate increase from nearly 19% in 2017 to 60% in 2023, and its research expenditures grew 3-fold, reaching $75MM. Further, he established a robust fund-raising team with an exciting college alumni advisory team that led to $125MM in external fund raising.

Prof. John L. Volakis was elected Chair of the International Radio Science (URSI) (2021-2023), voted by nearly 45 countries. He also served as Vice Chair of URSI-B from 2017-2021. He was elected and served as President of the IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society in 2004.

Prof. Volakis is one of the most active researchers in electromagnetics, RF materials and metamaterials, antennas and phased array, RF transceivers, textile electronics, millimeter waves and terahertz, EMI/EMC as well as EM diffraction and computational methods. He is also the authors of 9 books, including the Antenna Handbook, referred to as the "antenna bible." He is recognized worldwide for introducing and/or establishing 1) hybrid finite method for microwave engineering, now defacto methods in commercial RF design packages, and helped establish two major traded companies, 2) novel composite materials for antennas & sensor miniaturization, 3) a new class of wideband conformal antennas and arrays with over 30:1 of contiguous bandwidth, referred to as tightly coupled dipole antennas, a key innovation for the future high data rate wireless links, 4) textile surfaces for wearable electronics and sensors, 5) battery-less and wireless medical implants for non-invasive brain signal collection, 6) diffraction coefficients for material coated edges, and for 7) model-scaled radar scattering verification methods to minimize costly full scale airframe field measurements.

He published over 475 journal papers, more than 1000 conference papers, 30 chapters, and over 45 patents/disclosures. In 2004, he was listed by ISI Web of Science as one of the top 250 most referenced authors, and as of Dec 2024, his google h-index=83 with over 30000 citations. He has mentored over 115 Ph.Ds/Post-Docs and has written with them 50 papers that received best paper awards. Among his students, 25 are faculty members, several became leaders at major corporations and at least 10 started their own companies. He is one of the most active and cited researchers in electromagnetics/wireless/RF, RF materials and metamaterials, antennas and phased array, RF transceivers, textile electronics, millimeter waves and terahertz, EMI/EMC as well as EM diffraction and computational methods. He is also the authors of 9 books, including the popular Antenna Handbook, referred to as the "antenna bible."

Among his Ph.D. students, Dr. Sunil Navale was the former CFO of Northrop Grumman and one of its current Vice Presidents, Dr. Leo Kempel became the Dean of Engineering at Michigan State Univ., Dr. Arindam Chatterjee is the Director of R&D at Synopsys Inc, Vik Verma stated the first RFID company sold to Lockheed Martin, Dr. Youssry Botros led 15,000 Intel engineers and production process people. Also, ten of his former students started their own companies.

His work has been recognized by several international and University-wide awards during his career. Among them are: 1) Univ. of Michigan College of Engineering Research Excellence award (1993), 2) IEEE Tai Teaching Excellence award (2011), 3) IEEE Henning Mentoring award (2013), 4) IEEE APS Distinguished Achievement award (2015), 5) Ohio State Univ. Distinguished Scholar Award (2016), 6) Ohio State ElectroScience Lab Sinclair award (2016), and the 7) International Union of Radio Science Booker Gold Medal (2020), one of the most international prestigious awards in radio science/microwaves.

He has also transitioned several antennas and computational toolsets to the market. Companies such as: Altair: www.altair.com/, PaneraTech: www.paneratech.com/ , Nikola Labs: www.nikola.tech/ , TeraProbes, Inc: www.teraprobes.com/wp/, Virtual EM, Inc: virtualem.com/, Savi Technologies: www.savi.com/ , Monarch Antennas: www.monarchantenna.com/, and Novaa, ltd: novaarf.com are among companies whose products are based on innovation and transitions developed or enabled by himself and his former students. At least 10 of his former graduate students started companies and several have become leaders in industry and academia.