``Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before. He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way."
-- Kurt Vonnegut in "Cat's Cradle"

My Research Interests

This page is a compilation of random information related to my research. The goal is to provide a non-technical background to my research work. I have tried to provide some trivia and other interesting information from my readings.

My Publications (with downloadable pdfs)

The Eames A Communications Primer

A nice non-technical video introduction to communication theory (made in the 1950's!!)


On the Lighter Side

Here's some mathematical paradoxes that are interesting (and fun) to think through.

Here are some quotes from academics ranging from funny to the ridiculous.

Here are some notes on the lighter/darker side of the scientific establishment.

University, Inc.

Research Notes

My research interests are broadly in the area of communication, coding and information theory for wireless cellular, ad-hoc and sensor networks. Recently I have become interested in the theory and practice of distributed communications and control for wireless sensor networks.

  1. Information Theory. Here are some notes on Shannon's theory of communication. Information Theory is best thought of as a part of the mathematical science of Probability and Statistics, adapted to the problems of compression, error coding and cryptography. Probability theory was formulated in its modern form only in the 1930's by Kotelnikov, however it has a rich and fascinating history going back to the study of gambling in the Middle Ages (and ultimately, like most other modern sciences, to the ancient Greeks).

  2. Wireless Communications. The major contribution of my dissertation research is on the theoretical analysis and experimental demonstration of distributed beamforming, which is a method of organising multiple wireless devices into a virtual antenna array. It is a special case of cooperative communication schemes that have become popular recently in the information theory literature; I developed methods to solve the crucial synchronization and channel estimation problems that could allow these schemes to be realised in practice. Here are some historical notes on the theory and practice of wireless communication systems.

  3. Sensor networks. Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are currently a very popular area of research that combines ideas from diverse disciplines such as controls, communications, MEMS, robotics etc. In my notes on sensor networks, I explore the underlying ideas behind WSNs and reasons for its current popularity and describe some of my research on the fundamental limits of localization and tracking in sensor networks.

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