Adaptive Processing Technologies (ADAPT)
Email: nikolaos.bartzoudis@cttc.catPhone: +34 93 645 29 00
Summary
Nikolaos Bartzoudis (Alexandroupoli, Greece 1976) is a Senior Researcher and Head of the PHYCOM department at CTTC. Previously, he has worked as a Senior Research Officer in the University of Essex (UK, 2005-2008) and as a Research Assistant in Loughborough University (UK, 2001-2003).
Nikolaos holds a Ph.D. degree in Electronic Engineering and a M.Sc. degree in Digital Communication Systems (Loughborough University, UK, 2006 and 2001 respectively). Before that he obtained a B.Sc. degree in Electronic Engineering (Greece, 2000) from the homonymous department of the Technical Educational Institute of Thessaloniki (as of 2019, the latter was merged with the International Hellenic University, department of Information and Electronic Engineering).
Nikolaos has served as Principal Investigator (PI) in a total of 16 competitive funding research proposals and offers for direct industry contracts (i.e., 2 at consortium-level and the rest at CTTC-level). On top of that, he participated as associate researcher in 38 more submitted proposals/offers since 2009.
As a fruit of this activity, Nikolaos has held the role of Project Manager (PM) in 2 industrial projects (CONVERGE -due to kick off-, ITERATE), 2 R&D projects (ReproRun, AEThER acting as co-PI) and 2 technology valorization & licensing projects (GEDOMIS-ADCOMM and BeMImoMAX respectively). Furthermore, he participated as WP/Task/PoC leader in 12 other projects funded by the EC (H2020 Flex5Gware, FP7 EMPhAtiC, FP7 NEWCOM#, FP7 BeFEMTO, FP7 BuNGEE, MEDEA+ MIMOWA), the Spanish government (SensorQ, 5G-TRIDENT, GRE3N), the EPSRC in UK (PROSEN, FLEXNET) and the industry (DI-PRE-DATORS). With a loose participation in 2 additional industrial projects (GIPRE, Small Cell AVE) , his overall experience sums 20 projects. Moreover, Nikolaos has served as responsible of CTTC’s GEDOMIS testbed (2008 – 2013), a role that informally holds up to this date, maintaining, updating and extending its use. He is also affiliated with CTTC’s SHAPER demonstrator, built upon a long standing collaboration with a UPC research team.
Nikolaos has supervised postgraduate students (Ph.D., M.Sc.), served as external examiner in 2 Ph.D. thesis (2012, 2020), participated as co-mentor in the Google Summer of Code 2015 (link 1, link 2,), gave invited lectures and talks (e.g., in PhD training schools, conferences, workshops), participated in industry panels (e.g., GLOBECOM 2014) and in conference organization (e.g., ICASSP 2020), occasionally contributed in activities of public-private bodies (e.g., 5G-PPP and NetWorld2020 publications like White Papers and Strategic Agendas), served as proposal evaluator (CFCA, Republic of Latvia), drove joint dissemination activities with the industry (e.g., Airbus, CEA-Leti, Intel, SINTEF, Nutaq) and academia (e.g., UC3M, UPC, UCL -Belgium-) and prepared/coordinated live demonstrations in various events (some of which are listed here). He also possesses tangible knowledge of the entire technology transfer cycle (e.g., projects BeMImoMAX and GEDOMIS-ADCOMM). As a culmination of the previously mentioned activities, Nikolaos was one of the recipients of the EURASIP JWCN 2020 best paper award for this paper, driving and contributing to this dissemination effort.
Highlights of technical competencies:
Nikolaos has more than 12 years of hands-on experience in leading the development of spectral and energy efficient SDR systems (i.e., 4G, 5G, B5G), using FPGA devices to accelerate bit-intensive DSP functions. Such SDR development flow implied the use of:
– Efficient RTL design techniques using VHDL, Verilog & schematic-entry SW tools.
– HW-SW co-design approaches for FPGA-based SoC devices.
– Good design practices to tackle strigent FPGA design constraints (e.g., area, speed).
– Board-level code integration (firmware), laboratory testing and debugging.
– KPI-driven experimental validation under controlled conditions.
Developed technologies:
– Multi-carrier (e.g., OFDM, FBMC) and multi-antenna SDR systems
– Interference-free spectral cohabitation of radio transmissions
– Cognitive/Reconfigurable radio solutions
– Hardware-accelerated Network Function Virtualization (NFV)
– Hardware-accelerated fronthaul solutions
– RAN Functional Splits (e.g., 6, 7.x and 8 as defined in the 3GPPP)
A further account of competencies and experience follows.
1. Duties as Head of Department
– Define the scientific and technical objectives according to CTTC’s strategic Functional Plan.
– Take all necessary actions to guarantee financial sustainability.
– Manage the effort devoted to R&D projects.
– Liaise with internal or external actors for technical, administrative & logistical issues.
– Participate as secretary in recruiting committees.
2. Duties as technical team leader
– Supervise and coordinate the development and experimental testing of computational intensive DSP algorithms and SDR systems (i.e., using high-speed digital designs techniques and hardware-software co-design practices).
– Motivate or lead the dissemination of results produced in projects.
– Networking activities leading to national and international collaborations, materialized as publications or demonstrations (e.g., with Intel (Munich), CEA-Leti, Airbus DS (Paris), SMEs and other academic institutions).
– Principal Investigator & project manager in proposals and projects respectively.
3. Other engagements at CTTC
– Member of CTTC’s equality committee (06/2016 – current time).
– Participating in CTTC’s WG on Human Resources Strategy for Researchers (since 10/2018).
4. Grants and awards
– EURASIP Journal on Wireless Communications and Networking (JWCN) 2020 Best Paper Award for the following work: Robin Gerzaguet, Nikolaos Bartzoudis, Leonardo Gomes Baltar, Vincent Berg, Jean-Baptiste Doré, Dimitri Ktenas, Oriol Font-Bach, Xavier Mestre, Miquel Payaró, Michael Färber, Kilian Roth, “The 5G candidate waveform race: a comparison of complexity and performance”, EURASIP Journal on Wireless Communications and Networking, volume 2017, Article number 13, Jan. 2017.
– “Torres Quevedo” grant, Spanish ministry of education and science, National plan of scientific research, technologic development and innovation. Ref: PTQ-08-01-06441.
– Ph.D. studentship, Loughborough University, Department of Electronic & Electrical Engineering, UK (01/11/03 – 31/07/05).
– M.Sc. grant (as part of a training-course) Essex University, Department of Computing and Electronic Systems, UK (01/10/06 – 31/01/07).
5. Invited talks & lectures
– “Extending the ns-3 LTE module for SDR: a HW-SW function split paradigm”, 13th EAI International Conference on Cognitive Radio Oriented Wireless Networks (CROWNCOM 2018), Workshop in “Open radio platforms for 5G research and beyond”, September 18-20, 2018, Ghent, Belgium.
– “Partitioning and distributing communication stack functions of 5G wireless hotspots”, EuCNC 2016, 5G-PPP Workshop on 5G Physical Layer Design and Hardware Aspects Below and Above 6 GHz, Athens, Greece 27 June 2016.
– “To SDR or not to SDR? Hardware accelerators and co-processors for SDR systems“, invited talk, panel session organized by National Instruments, Industry Forum at GLOBECOM 2014, Austin, TX, USA, December 2014.
– “Wideband Digital Predistortion Techniques”, IMS 2014, Tamba, FL, USA, talk given by Professor Pere Gilabert UPC with personal contributions, industry workshop entitled “Recent Advances in Digital Pre-Distortion”.
– “Flexible multicarrier waveforms: implementation issues and baseband processing technologies”, SUPELEC, Rennes, France, May 2014, NEWCOM# Spring School “Flexible Multicarrier Waveforms for Future Communications Wireless Networks “.
– “Prototyping the Physical Layer of Modern Wireless Communication Systems: Development Flows, Challenges and Pitfalls”, CTTC, Castelldefels, Spain, November 2013, NEWCOM# Winter School “Beyond 4G Networks in Cities: From Theory to Experimentation and Back”.
– Lecture on “Advanced digital design techniques using FPGAs”, UNLP, Argentina, August 2011.
– Lecture on “Commercialization roadmap for FPGA IPs”, UNLP, Argentina, August 2011.
– Several additional talks at CTTC as part of its established weekly seminar framework.
6. Demonstrations (experimental prototypes TRL 3-4)
More information is available in this link.
Cloud Technologies and Energy Efficiency in Mobile Communication Networks (CLEEN 2017), 22 June 2017, Turin, Italy.
PoC leader, coordination of the demo, test & validation campaign at CTTC.
Function split of the LTE communication stack for flexible C-RAN configurations according to 5G prerequisites in order to achieve targeted KPIs.
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11th EAI International Conference on Cognitive Radio Oriented Wireless Networks (CROWNCOM), May 30–June 1, 2016, Grenoble, France.
Participation/coordination of the demo test & validation campaign at CTTC.
New Multicarrier Waveforms for Broadband Professional Mobile Radio. Joint demo carried out with CEA Leti, Airbus DS, Centrale Supelec, TeamCast.
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Joint NEWCOM/COST Workshop on Wireless Communications (JNCW 2015), October 14 – 15, 2015, Barcelona, Spain.
Participation/coordination of the demo test & validation campaign at CTTC.
Performance evaluation of a communication scenario featuring two of the key enablers of 5G: (i) post-OFDM modulations (like FBMC) and (ii) efficient use of the spectrum via spectrum sharing.
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ETSI workshop on Reconfigurable Radio Systems, 3-4 December 2014, Sophia Antipolis, France.
In support of the standardization activity of AIRBUS DS for the EMPhAtiC project which was materialized in the ETSI Technical Report 103 217 and presented during the ETS RRS workshop.
Participation/coordination of the demo test & validation campaign at CTTC
Real-time FPGA-based SoC implementation of a LTE-like broadband FBMC transmitter coexisting with narrowband PMR (TETRA) transmissions in fragmented spectrum application scenarios with adaptive subcarrier allocation.
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Mobile World Congress 2012, 27 February – 1 March 2012, Barcelona, Spain.
Responsible of the remote demonstration setup.
Interference mitigation in a macro/femto cell coexistence scenario (real-time FPGA baseband design). LTE-based DL communication between macro BS & UE (primary communication) and an opportunistic DL communication at the same band between a femto BS & femto UE (calculation, generation and propagation of a feedback to guide the opportunistic transmission).
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DSPecialists GmbH commercial event, 11-13 May 2011, Berlin, Germany
Responsible of the remote demonstration setup.
DL mobile WiMAX 2×2 MIMO transmitter and receiver in a closed loop communication link with antenna selection (real-time FPGA baseband design). The feedback calculation and generation was based on a CSI decision per radio frame.
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European Nanoelectronics Forum 2010, Nov. 16-17, Madrid, Spain.
Responsible of the in-situ demonstration.
DL mobile WiMAX 2×2 MIMO transmitter and receiver in an open loop communication link using Alamouti STC (real-time FPGA baseband design).
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Nikolaos also prepared and coordinated numerous other demonstrations at CTTC premises in the framework of:
– final project reviews (e.g., for the BuNGee, BeFEMTO, EMPhAtiC, ReporRun projects)
– institutional visits (i.e., academic and industrial visitors)
– other dissemination purposes (e.g., visits of local schools)
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7. Other professional highlights
Ph.D. student supervision
– Oriol Font-Bach, “Digital design and experimental validation of high-performance real-time OFDM systems”, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC), Barcelona, Spain, (12/2009 – 07/2013).
– Paolo Del Fiorentino (partially co-supervised), “Implementation and validation of polar codes using an SDR approach”, PhD student from Pisa University (Italy) hosted at CTTC for a short academic stay, mobility grant within the NEWCOM# NoE, (04/2015 – 07/2015).
M.Sc. project supervision
– Giacomo Pojani, “Advanced digital design of a power amplifier linearization solution for next generation wireless backhauling systems”, MSc student from Bologna University (Italy) hosted at CTTC in the framework of the NEWCOM# NoE, (02/2014 – 09/2014).
– Vasileios Tantsios, “Self-testing of embedded microprocessors using the LEON-3 HDL-based microprocessor”, University of Essex, School of Computer Science and Electronic Engineering, UK, (05/2007 – 09/2007).
Presence in high-visibility events
– Participation in the Mobile World Congress 2014 (invited by Nujira Ltd, UK).
– Participation on behalf of CTTC in the brokerage event of the Mobile World Congress 2016.
Proposal Evaluator
– 09/2018: Subcontracted by the Central Finance and Contracting Agency (CFCA) of the Republic of Latvia to act as an Evaluator for proposals falling within the field of my expertise. CFCA has accessed my profile in EC’s Expert database.
Standardization
– Representing CTTC for the preparation of the ETSI TC BRAN, TR 101 534 (December 2011), entitled “Very high capacity density BWA networks; System architecture, economic model and technical requirements”.
– Representing CTTC for the preparation of the ETSI RRS WG1 (16) 035030, November 2016, “Scenario proposal for DTR/RRS-0147 (TR) Feasibility Study of a Radio Interface Engine”.
Contributions to institutions & bodies
– “Smart Networks in the context of NGI” (link), Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda 2021-27, European Technology Platform NetWorld2020, May 2020. (in the list of contributors)
– “View on 5G Architecture”, 5G PPP Architecture Working Group, White Paper, Version 1.0, July 2016. Available online at https://5g-ppp.eu/white-papers/ (in the list of contributors).
Reviewer
– IEEE Transactions on: Circuits and Systems, Wireless Communications, Vehicular Technology, Computers, Parallel and Distributed Systems, Industrial Electronics, Instrumentation & Measurement
– IEEE Magazines: Communications, Wireless Communications, Vehicular Technology, Micro, Design &Test
– IET: Computers & Digital Techniques
– EURASIP Journal on: Wireless Communications and Networking, Advances in Signal Processing
– Elsevier Journal on: Digital Signal Processing, Physical Communication, Computer Networks
Conference organization
– EUSIPCO 2011 (local committee member)
– ICASSP 2020 (local committee member)
Conference TPC member
EUCNC (2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020), PIMRC (2008, 2009, 2013, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020), ISWCS (2014, 2015, 2016, 2019), GLOBECOM (2010, 2012), VTC (2012, 2014), CROWNCOM 2019, SAM 2014, EW 2014, URSI 2015, ICC (2015, 2019), ICT (2009, 2019), SET CAS 2015, SSD 2014, ISCC 2011
Scientific & professional memberships
– Senior IEEE member (Member of the IEEE Communication and Signal Processing Societies, Founding member and vocal of the IEEE Sensors Council (Spanish Chapter)).
– Deputy member of the 5G-PPP Technical Board (since 09/2015).
– Member of a CTTC research group recognised by the local Catalan government since 2009.