Kaveh Pahlavan

Professor of ECE and CS,

Director of CWINS

Contact Information
Faculty Listing

Research & Teaching Interests

Indoor geolocation, WiFi localization, broadband and location aware wireless networks; hybrid mobile data networks; multi-Robot localization, body area networking.

Related Information

• CWINS Laboratory
• On Wikipedia
• CWINS on Facebook

Educational Background

• M.S., University of Teheran, 1975
• Graduate Student, University of Oklahoma, 1975-1976
• Ph.D., Worcester Polytechnic Institute, 1979

Years of Service at WPI

• Assistant Professor of EE, WPI, 1985-1987
• Associate Professor of EE, WPI, 1987-1990
• Professor of ECE, WPI, 1990-present
• Professor of CS, WPI, 1999-present

Honors & Awards

• Selected as the first Weston Hadden Professor of ECE, WPI, 1993-1996
• Elected as a fellow of the IEEE for contributions in wireless networks, 1996.
• Selected as a member of the Evolution of Untethered Communications Committee, National Research Council, 1997.
• Elected as the first non-Finnish fellow of the Nokia, 1999.
• Lead the American team to review the Finnish Academy/TEKES sponsored ETX, TLX, INVITE and Telektronics national R&D programs, 2000.
• Awarded the first Fulbright-Nokia fellowship, 2000.
• Lead the US review team for midterm evaluation of the TEKES sponsored NETS national; R&D program in Finland, 2003.

Highlights of Professional Experience & Activities

• Assistant Professor of ECE, Northeastern University, Boston, MA, 1979-1983
• Director of Advanced Developments, INFINET, INC., Andover, MA, 1983-1985
• Founder of the US first academic research program in wireless LAN, WPI, 1985.
• Co-founder and steering committee member of the IEEE International Symposium on Portable, Indoor, and Mobile Radio Communications (PIMRC) 1989-present.
• Founder, Organizer, and Program Chairman of the IEEE workshop on Wireless Local Area Networks, 1991 (Worcester, MA), 1996 (Worcester, MA) and 2001 (Newton, MA).
• Organizer and the TPC-Chair of the IEEE PIMRC, 1992 and 1998 (Boston, MA)
• Founder and Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Wireless Information Networks, 1994-present.
• Member of the advisory board of the IEEE Wireless Magazine, 1994-present.
• Founder of one of the world's leading academic research programs in indoor geolocation, WPI, 1996
• Visiting Professor as a Fulbright-Nokia fellow, University of Oulu, Finland, 2000
• Visiting Professor of Telecommunication Lab and CWC, University of Oulu, Finland, 2001-present
• Co-chair, the International Workshop on Utra Wideband Systems, Oulu, Finland, June 2-5, 2003.
• On sabbatical leave, Olin College, Needham, MA, Fall 2004
• Co-chair, the International Workshop on Wireless Adhoc Network (IWWAN), Oulu, Finland, June 1-3, 2004.
• General Chair, The Second International Conference on Mobile Adhoc Sensor Systems (MASS05), Washington, DC, Nov. 7-10, 2005.
• General Chair, Invitational Workshop on Opportunistic RF Localization for Next Generation Wireless Devices, Worcester, MA, June 16-17, 2008 and June 13-14, 2010.

Highlights in Entrepreneurship

• Chief technical advisor of the WINDATA, Northborough, MA, one of the pioneering WLAN companies of the world, 1988-1993.
• Chief technical advisor of the RoamAbout group of the DEC which designed the first award winning PCMCIA WLAN, 1993-1996.
• Chief technical officer of the Intrak Wireless, Woburn, MA, one of the pioneering indoor geolocation companies using TOA technologies, 1998-2002.
• Chief technical advisor of the Skyhook Wireless, Boston, MA, one of the pioneering WiFi localization companies of the world, 2004-

Corporate Consulting Experiences

• GTE Laboratories, Motorola/Codex, BBN, Mitre Corp., and 3COM, in Massachusetts
• United Technology Research Center, Connecticut
• Honeywell Avionics Systems, Arizona
• Jet Propulsion Laboratories, Savi Technologies, RadioLAN, California
• Nokia Mobile Phones, LK-Products, and Elektrobit, Finland
• NTT, Japan

International Visibility

• Steering committee member and co-founder of the IEEE PIMRC 1991 (London, UK), 1993 (Yokohama, Japan), 1994 (Hague, Netherlands), 1995 (Toronto, Canada), 1996 (Taipei, Taiwan), 1997 (Helsinki, Finland), 1999 (Osaka, Japan), 2001 (London, UK), 2002 (Lisbon, Portugal), 2003 (Beijing, China), 2004 (Barcelona, Spain), 2005 (Berlin, Germany), 2006 (Helsinki, Finland), 2007 (Athens, Greece), 2008 (Cannes, France)
• Technical program committee member and co-founder of the IEEE International Symposium on Spread Spectrum Techniques and Applications (ISSTA), 1990 (UK), 1992 (Japan), 1994 (Finland), 1996 (Germany), 1998 (S. Africa), 2000 (US)

Current courses

• EE 3308: Introduction to Wireless Networks
• EE 506: Introduction to Local and Wide Area Networks
• EE 538: Wireless Information Networks
• EE539W: Wireless Access and Localization
• Other Courses

Selected Publications

For over three decades of research, I have published a number of textbooks in wireless networks and contributed to numerous seminal visionary and technical papers and patents. The central part of my research has been devoted to the analysis of the effects of transmission medium on the design of access and localization techniques. In my early carrier (before 1985) I worked on channel modeling and performance evaluation of fixed wideband wireless data networks for communication over troposcatter, microwave line-of-sight and voice-band data communication channels. In my mid-carrier (1985-2000), I worked on indoor radio propagation for wireless LAN applications. Later on (1996-2010) I have worked on radio propagation analysis for design of indoor geolocation systems for human and robots. Since 2009, I am involved in radio propagation analysis for body area networks (BAN) and localization of micro-robots inside the human body.

Following selected publications provides an overview of my key books as well as visionary and technical papers in different stages of my career:

Major Textbooks:

• K. Pahlavan and P. Krishnamurthy, Wireless Access and Localization, John Wiley and Sons, 2013 (under print).
• K. Pahlavan and P. Krishnamurthy, Networking Fundamentals - Personal, Local and Wide Area Communications, John Wiley and Sons, 2009.
• K. Pahlavan and Allen Levesque, Wireless Information Networks, John Wiley and Sons, 2ed Ed. 2005.
• K. Pahlavan and P. Krishnamurthy, Principles of Wireless Networks - A Unified Approach, Prentice Hall, 2002.
• K. Pahlavan and Allen Levesque, Wireless Information Networks, John Wiley and Sons, 1st Ed. 1995.

Visionary Publications in BAN:

• K. Pahlavan, Y. Ye, U. Khan and R. Fu, "RF Localization Inside Human Body - Enabling micro-robotic navigation for medical applications", invited keynote Speech, the proceeding of the IEEE ICL-GNSS, June 29-30, 2011, Tampere, Finland.
• K. Pahlavan, G. Bao, Y. Ye, S. Makarov, U. Khan, P. Swar, D. Cave, A. Karellas, P. Krishnamurthy, K. Sayrafian, "RF Localization for Wireless Capsule Endoscopy", invited paper, special issue on localization, International Journal of Wireless Information Networks, Springer, Vol 19, No 4, December 2012.
• K. Pahlavan, Y. Ye, R. Fu and U. Khan, "Challenges in Channel Measurement and Modeling for RF Localization Inside the Human Body" invited paper, IGI special issue on ICL-GNSS, International Journal on Embedded and Real-Time Communication Systems (IJERTCS), 3(3), 18-37, July-September, 2012.

Technical Publications in BAN:

• J. He, Y. Geng, Y. Wan, S. Li and K. Pahlavan,“A Cyber Physical Testbed for Environment Virtualization of Wireless Access and Localization in Body Sensor Networks” Special issue on Internet of Things: Architecture, Protocol and Services, IEEE Sensors Journal (accepted for publication).
• J. He, K. Pahlavan, S. Li and Q. Wang , “"A Testbed for Evaluation of the Effects of Multipath on Performance of TOA-based Indoor Geolocation“, IEEE Trans on Instrumentation and Measurements, (accepted for publication).
• Y. Ye, P. Swar and K. Pahlavan "Accuracy of RSS-Based RF Localization in Multi-Capsule Endoscopy", invited paper, Wireless Health special issue, International Journal of Wireless Information Networks, Vol. 19, No 3, Springer, August 2012.
• R. Fu, Y. Ye, N. Yang, K. Pahlavan, "Characteristic and Modeling of Human Body Motions for Body Area Network Applications", invited paper, Wireless Health special issue, International Journal of Wireless Information Networks, Springer Vol 19, No 3, August 2012.
• F. Askarzadeh, Y. Ye, U. Khan, F. Akgul, K. Pahlavan and S. Makarov, "Computational Methods for Localization in Close Proximity", chapter of Position Location - Theory, Practice and Advances: A Handbook for Engineers and Academics, John Wiley and Sons, 2011.

Visionary Publications in Indoor Geolocation:

• K. Pahlavan, P. Krishnamurthy and J. Beneat, "Wideband Radio Propagation Modeling for Indoor Geolocation Applications", IEEE Communications Magazine, April 1998.
• K. Pahlavan, X. Li, and J. Makela, "Indoor Geolocation Science and Technology", IEEE Comm Soc. Mag., Feb. 2002.
• K. Pahlavan, F. Akgul, M. Heidari, A. Hatami, J. Elwell, and R. Tingley, "Indoor Geolocation in the Absence of Direct Path", Accepted for publication in IEEE Wireless Communications Magazine, 2006.
• K. Pahlavan, F. Akgul, Y. Ye, T. Morgan, F. A.-Shabdiz, M. Heidari, C. Steger, "Taking Positioning Indoors: Wi-Fi Localization and GNSS", InsideGNSS, vol. 5, no. 3, May, 2010.

Technical Papers in Indoor Geolocation:

• X. Li and K. Pahlavan, "Super-resolution TOA estimation with diversity for indoor geolocation", IEEE Trans on Wireless Comm. Dec. 2003.
• B. Alavi and K. Pahlavan, "Modeling of the TOA based Distance Measurement Error Using UWB Indoor Radio Measurements", IEEE Communications Letters, April 2006.
• A. Hatami, B. Alavi, K. Pahlavan, and M. Kanaan, "A Comparative Performance Evaluation of Indoor Geolocation Technologies", invited paper, Interdisciplinary Information Sciences, Japan, Vol 12, No.2, 2006.
• N. Alsindi, K. Pahlavan, "Cooperative localization bounds for indoor ultra wideband wireless sensor networks", EURASIP Journal on Advances in Signal Processing: special issue on Cooperative Localization in Wireless Ad Hoc and Sensor Networks, April, 2008.
• M. Heidari and K. Pahlavan, "Identification of the Absence of Direct Path Component in Indoor Localization Systems", IEEE Transaction on Wireless Communications, JULY 2009.
• Ferit Ozan Akgul, Kaveh Pahlavan, "A New Spatial Path Persistency Model for TOA-based Indoor Geolocation", IEEE Communication Letters, vol.13, no.4, March 2009.

Historical Visionary Publications Related to WLAN:

• K. Pahlavan, "Wireless Communication for Office Information Networks", IEEE Comm. Mag., June 1985.
• K. Pahlavan, "Wireless Intra-Office Networks", Invited paper, ACM Trans. On Office Inf. Sys., July 1988.
• K. Pahlavan and A. Levesque, "Wireless Data Communication", Invited Paper, IEEE Proceedings, Sep. 1994.
• K. Pahlavan, T. Probert, and M. Chase, "Trends in Local Wireless Networks", invited paper, IEEE Comm. Soc. Mag., March 1995.
• K. Pahlavan, A. Zahedi, and P. Krishnamurthy, "Wideband Local Access: WLAN and WATM", IEEE Communications Magazine, Special Series on Wireless ATM, November 1997
• Pahlavan K., Krishnamurthy P., Hatami A.,Ylianttila M., Makela J., Pichna R. and Vallstrom J., Handoff in Hybrid Mobile Data Networks. (invited paper) IEEE Personal Communications Magazine, vol. 7, no. 2, April 2000.

Historical Technical Papers Related to WLAN:

• T. A. Sexton and K. Pahlavan, "Channel Modeling and Adaptive Equalization of Indoor Radio Channels", IEEE Jour. Of Sel. Areas in Comm. (JSAC), Jan. 1989.
• K. Pahlavan and M. Chase, "Spread Spectrum Multiple Access Performance of Orthogonal Codes for Indoor Radio Communications", IEEE Trans. on Comm., June 1990.
• R. Ganesh and K. Pahlavan, "Modeling of the Indoor Radio Channel", IEE Proceedings-I, June 1991
• S. J. Howard and K. Pahlavan, "Autoregressive Modeling of Wideband Indoor Radio Propagation", IEEE Trans. On Comm., Sep. 1992.
• K. Zhang and K. Pahlavan, "Relation Between Transmission and Throughput of the Slotted ALOHA Local Packet Radio Networks, IEEE Trans. on Comm., March 1992.
• G. Yang and K. Pahlavan, "Sector Antenna and DFE Modems for High Speed Indoor Radio Communications", IEEE Trans. on VT, Nov. 1994.
• A Falsafi, K. Pahlavan, G. Yang, "Transmission Techniques for Wireless LANs", IEEE J. on Selected Areas in Communications, April 1996
• R. Tingley and K. Pahlavan, "Measurement of the Time-Space Characteristics of Indoor Radio Channel", IEEE Trans on Instrumentation and Measurements, September 2000.
• A. Zahedi and K. Pahlavan, "Capacity of a Wireless LAN with Voice and Data Services", IEEE Trans. on Communications, July 2000.
• M.H. Ali and K. Pahlavan, "A New Statistical Model for Site-specific Indoor Radio Propagation Prediction based on Geometric Optics and Geometric Probability", IEEE JSAC on Wireless Networks, Jan 2002.
• M. Ylianttila, J. Makela, and K. Pahlavan, "Analysis of Handoff in Location-Aware Vertical Multi-Access Networks", Invited Paper, Elsevier Journal on Computer Networks, Special Issue on Wireless IP Through Integration of Wireless LAN and Cellular Networks, Vol 47, 2005.

Key Publications in Early Career Research

• P. A. Bello and K. Pahlavan, "Adaptive Equalization for Staggered QPSK and QPR Over Frequency Selective Microwave LOS Channels", IEEE Trans. on Communications, May 1984.
• K. Pahlavan, "Comparison Between the Performance of QPSK, SQPSK, QPR, and SQPR Systems Over Microwave LOS Channels", IEEE Trans. on Communications, March 1985.
• K. Pahlavan and J. L. Holsinger, "Voice-Band Data Communication, A Historical Review: 1919-1988", invited paper, IEEE Comm. Soc. Mag., Jan. 1988.
• K. Pahlavan and J. W. Matthews, "Channel Measurement Noise and the Performance of Adaptive Matched Filter Receivers over Fading Multipath Channels", IEEE Trans. on Comm., Nov. 1990.
• K. Pahlavan, "Nonlinear Quantization and Multi-Level/Phase Modulation and Coding", IEEE Trans. on Comm., July 1991.

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