ECE Seminar Series – Oct 31 (Fri) @ 2:00pm: "Signal Processing Meets RF Hardware: Compensating RF Nonidealities in Future Wireless Systems,” Nuutti Tervo, Visiting Researcher, UCSB

Location: Engineering Science Building, Room 1001
Come at 1:30p for Cookies, Coffee and Conversation
LECTURE at the ECE SEMINAR SERIES

Abstract

Radio frequency (RF) transmitters and receivers contain multiple nonideal hardware components. In modern transceiver architectures, understanding their behavior and properties is essential for achieving high performance. This presentation will discuss the role of RF impairments, such as nonlinear distortion, and their compensation in future wireless communication systems.

RF impairments will be explored from the perspective of the signals and waveforms they carry, emphasizing system-level signal processing techniques such as digital predistortion for mitigation. While antenna arrays are typically used for directing signals, they can also provide new opportunities to reduce hardware imperfections. Array-level approaches introduce tradeoffs and phenomena that must be understood when designing practical systems.

Selected examples from interdisciplinary research combining RF, antennas, experimental validation, and signal processing will be presented, including digital predistortion of phased array transmitters.

Bio

Nuutti Tervo received his B.Sc. (Tech.), M.Sc. (Tech.), and D.Sc. (Tech.) degrees from the University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland, in 2014, 2014, and 2022, all with distinctions. He works as an Assistant Professor (tenure track) with the Centre for Wireless Communications—Radio Technologies (CWC-RT) research unit at the University of Oulu. Currently, he is also a visiting researcher and a Fulbright Finland Scholar at the University of California, Santa Barbara, USA, until February 2026. From April 2022 to March 2024, he worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Oulu, leading the RF signal processing research at the RF group. Since September 2023, he has also worked as the coordinator of the Devices and Circuit Technologies research area in the 6G flagship program by the Academy of Finland. In October 2023, he received the title of Docent in RF transceiver signal processing from the University of Oulu. From October to November 2023, he was a visiting scholar in the Excellence Center at Linköping – Lund in Information Technology (ELLIIT) focus period at Lund University, Lund, Sweden. He also teaches a special course on digital predistortion at the University of Oulu.

Nuutti Tervo has a strong background in different fields of wireless communications, including RF transceivers, radio channel modeling, signal processing, and system-level analysis. Around those topics, he has authored or co-authored more than 90 international journal and conference papers, and he holds several patents. In 2019, he was a recipient of the Young Scientist Award of the URSI XXXV Finnish Convention on Radio Science, Tampere, and in 2020, he co-authored the paper that won the 50th EuMC Microwave Prize 2020, Utrecht, Netherlands.

Hosted by: Lecture at the ECE Seminar Series

Submitted by: B.S. Manjunath <manj@ucsb.edu>