Designing Agile and Scalable Self-Healing Functionalities for Ultra Dense Future Cellular Networks
Status: To be kicked off
My Role: Principle Investigator
Funding: $ 505,812 USD, National Science Foundation, USA
Project Collaborators:
AT&T Labs
Huawei
5GIC, University of Surrey, UK
University of Glasgow
IRES US-UK: Enabling Ultra-Dense Future Cellular Networks (5G)
Status: In progress
Role: Principle Investigator
Funding: $249,394 USD, National Science Foundation, USA
Project Collaborators:
US Cellular
Huawei
5GIC University of Surrey, UK
University of Glasgow
Big Data Empowered SON Research Center
Status: In Progress
Role: Founder and Director
Funding: $200,400USD, The University of Oklahoma, USA.
Project Team/Collaborators:
10+ Post Graduate students
AT&T
US Cellular
Huawei
5GIC University of Surrey, UK
University of Glasgow
National Instrument
University of Leads…
QSON: Quality of Service Aware Energy Efficient Self Organizing Future Cellular Networks
Status: Completed
Role: Lead Principle Investigator
Funding: 1.045 m USD, Qatar National Research Fund (Award ratio ~20-%)
Project Collaborators:
5G Innovation Center, University of Surrey, UK
University of Oklahoma, Tulsa, OK, USA
Qatar Mobility Innovations Center, Qatar
Centre Tecnològic de Telecomunicacions de Catalunya (CTTC), Spain
Leads University, UK (Adhoc Collaborator)
HONP: Holistic Network Planning, Optimization, and Management for 4G Wireless Systems
Status: In progress
Role: Research Scientist, at QMIC (Apr 2012-Dec-2013)
Funding: 1.048 million USD , Qatar National Research Fund
Project Collaborators:
King Abdullah Univ. of Science & Tech (KAUST), KSA
University of Texas, at Austin, USA (Consultant)
American University of -Lebanon
Status: Completed
Role: Work package leader at CCSR, Surrey, UK
Funding: 10.2 million Euro, ICT FP7 EC and Industry
Project Collaborators:
NEC Europe Ltd.
Telefónica-Spain
DOCOMO-Germany
Polska Telefonia Cyfrowa-Poland
Qualcomm-Germany
TTI-Spain
MimoOn-Germany
CTTC-Spain
CEA– LETI-France
University of Oulu-Finland
Status: Completed
Role: Research Fellow at CCSR, Surrey
Funding: 7.8 million USD, EPSRC, UK and Indian Research Council
Project Collaborators:
University of Surrey, UK
Indian institute of Technology, India
Status: Completed
Role: Research Fellow at CCSR, Surrey
Funding: 4.2 million Euro, ICT-FP6
Project Collaborators:
EADS DS SA (France)
CRC – Germany
REALVIZ (France)
MARTEC (France). CEA (France)
EPFL (Switzerland), UPV (Spain)
University of Leuven – KUL (Belgium)
Collaborators
Alexander Tyrrell (DOCOMO, Europe), Atta-ul-Quddus, (University of Surrey, UK), Awais Amin (Qualcomm, Europe), Adnan-Abu-Dayya (QMIC, Qatar), Beatriz Solana (Telefónica Investigación y Desarrollo , Spain), Christian Sgraja (Qualcomm, Europe), Cedric Abgrall (CEA-LETI, France), Carmen Palacios (TTI Spain), Desmond McLernon (University of Leeds, UK), E. Pateromichelakis (University of Surrey, UK), Elias Yacoub (QMIC, Qatar), Emilio Calvanese Strinati (CEA-LETI, France), Harri Pennanen (University of Oulu, Finland), Jochen Giese(Qualcomm, Europe), Karl Aberer (EPFL, Switzerland ) Lorenza Guipponi (CTTC Spain), Mark C. Reed (ANU, Australia) Muhammad Imran (University of Surrey, UK), Mehdi Benis (University of Oulu, Finland), Mehrdad Shariat (University of Surrey, UK), Mariano Lopez (TTI Spain), Manuel Palmowski (mimoOn, Germany), Mounir Ghogho (University of Leeds, UK) Mischa Dohler (Kings College London), Nazir Mohsin (University of Uulu, Finland), Nicola Baldo (CTTC Spain), Raquel Garcia-Perez(Telefónica Investigación y Desarrollo , Spain), Serkan Uygungelen (DOCOMO, Europe), Des Salil Kanehri (UNSW, Australia), Syed A. R. Zaidi (University of Leeds, UK), Sylvie Mayrargue (CEA-LETI, France), Youngwook Ko, (Queens University, Belfast, UK), Zaher Dawy (AUB, Lebanon), Hazem Refai (OU, USA)
E X P E R T I S E
Systems and Standards
Analytical and Technical
Programming
Professional
E D U C A T I O N
Awards
Dr. Imran’s work has been recognized by numerous awards and honors. For complete list awards and honors see news section at our lab page( www.ai4networks.com ) .
- William H. Barkov Presidential Professorship, University of Oklahoma, 2019
- Vice President Research Award for Outstanding International Impact, University of Oklahoma, 2018
- IEEE Award for Best Green ICT Solution, Paris, France. The competitors included teams from over 30 countries. , 2017
- Best Paper Award, IEEE CAMAD, Germany, 2013,
- PhD Scholarship –University of Surrey, UK, 2008 • value over £75000
- HEC Scholarship – Government of Pakistan, 2006 • value over £ 20000
- BISE National Merit Scholarship, Pakistan, 2003 • Country-wide competitive merit scholarship.
- First Prize in All-Pakistan Sci-Tech Competition, 2002
- Gold Medal –SA Degree College, BWP, Pakistan, 2001
- Gold Medal –SA High School, BWP, Pakistan,1999
Center for Communication Systems Research, (CCSR) University of Surrey, UK
Thesis Title: “Self Organisation in Future Cellular Networks”.
Thesis research contributed to several EU ICT framework projects.
Higher Education Academy, UK
• An accredited nine month training course for academic research and teaching career.
• Training in pedagogical techniques specialised for higher education sector.
• Training in assessment, evaluation, feedback, supervision, lesson planning, small and large group dynamics management, and diversity management.
• Training in pedagogical techniques specialised for higher education sector..
University of Surrey, UK
• With Distinction
• Mobile Communication as second major
University of Engineering & Technology Lahore, Pakistan
• With major in communications and side major in power and software engineering
Govt. SA College, APE, Bahawal Pur, Pakistan
• Majors: Maths, Physics, Chemistry.
• Average in majors 95%
Govt. SA High School, APE, Bahawal Pur, Pakistan
• Majors: Maths, Physics, Chemistry.
• Average in majors 95%
E M P L O Y M E N T
Telecommunication Engineering Program
Research: Lead PI on the $1.045 million international research project QSON (www.qson.org)
Teaching: Telecommunication Technologies , Fall 2014
http://www.ou.edu/coe/tcom.html
http://www.ou.edu/content/coe/tcom/facultyandstaff/dr–imran.html#contentpar_textimage
• Leading and conducting multidisciplinary research activity spread across telecom, software, sensing domain focused at enabling smart living.
• Generating funding by identifying the needs of regional commercial and government sectors and proposing applied research plans and ideas to develop novel solutions for them.
• Establishing international collaborations with key industrial and academic partners leading towards common mutual interest.
• Providing advisory and consultancy service.
• Giving tutorials and lectures at national as well as international forums public knowledge dissemination.
• Mainly worked on European Commission, EPSRC-UK and internationally funded research projects to research performance enhancement techniques in wireless systems. Derived analytical solutions of optimization problems. Developed innovative concepts and algorithms and evaluated them by implementing detailed system level simulation models.
• Disseminated research outcomes in variety of other forms different than publications, namely deliverables, technical reports, presentations, international consortium meetings and teleconferences with international project partners and summer and winter training schools.
• Supervised and facilitated MSc and PhD students.
• Delivered short courses on latest developments in the field. Designed and delivered crash courses on number of basic analytical research tools to MSc and first year PhD and students.
• Provided technical consultancy to design teams and to teams working in the field on RF planning & optimization of base station subsystem.
• Worked as team leader as well as member in a team of 20 professionals to meet tight deadlines of new base station site deployments as well as their troubleshooting.
• Installed & troubleshot microwave links, including configuration of IDU & ODU using PNMT, Paso link, Hyper software tools.
• Executed Site Surveys & LOS clearance tests, prepared link profiles on Pathloss Software, designed link budget & frequency plan for microwave transmission links.
Telecom IT Centre (Part time) • Did set up, configuration and troubleshooting GSM lab equipment
• Gave tutorials to junior undergrad students on cellular system architecture and hardware
• Tutored over 20 student in group of 1-4
• Tutored students from, Iran, Nepal, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Somalia
• Tutored in 20 different subjects in Elect. Engineering discipline.
• Taught Math and Physics to groups of up to 85 students
Continued Education and Training
Training course on Graduate Program Design and Management, Mar, 2013
By Dr. William Wiener, Dean of the graduate school at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and hosted by Qatar University at Qatar.
‘Preparing to Teach’ professional training course, 2009-2010
A 9 month course leading towards the award of Associate Fellowship of Higher Education Academy
Multiple Training courses on Soft Skills, 2006-2010
Attended over a dozen trainings courses by university of surrey delivered by high profile subject specialist. The key soft skills polished through these trainings are: o Leadership and Research Management
o Increasing the impact of research
o Creativity and problems solving in research
o Academic writing and getting published
o Research project and time management
o Communication and interpersonal skills
o Assertive and negotiation skills
Training on GSM Architecture and Air interface, Summer-2003
The training covered GSM overall architectural concepts & hardware Installation. It was conducted at HUTIC (HUAWEI UET Telecom IT Centre, Lahore, Pakistan) by subject specialists from HUAWEI, China.
T E A C H I N G
It is a postgraduate course that I am teaching at university of Oklahoma-Tulsa. This course provides extensive understanding of state of the art wireless and optical technologies, and then delves into cellular principles with LTE in focus including terrestrial/HAP/satellite deployments.
This course is designed to train graduate students for their research to advance the state of the art in wireless cellular system. This course provides an overview of selected topics that are currently being researched globally for developing LTE-A and 5G cellular network technologies. These topics include: self-organizing networks, applications of big data analytics for optimizing cellular networks, network densification, split of control and data plane, network virtualization, heavy and localized cache, infrastructure sharing, concurrent operation at multiple frequency bands, simultaneous use of different MAC and PHY layers, and flexible spectrum allocation, mmWave Small cell, and Massive MIMOs. To achieve its objectives the course is divided into three parts:
1) Overview of LTE-A & 5G Landscape
2) Self Organizing Networks (SON)
3) Big Data Empowered SON for enabling 5G.
A half day short course which was delivered at the 20th European Wireless Conference, May, 14-16, 2014, Barcelona, Spain. //www.ew2014.org/tutorials-menu.html.
A half day short course which was delivered at IEEE WCNC-2014, 6-9-April, 2014, Istanbul, Turkey http://wcnc2014.ieee-wcnc.org/program/tutorials#tutorial5.
This half day short course was delivered at IEEE ICC-2013, 8-12-Jun, 2013, Budapest, Hungary http://icc2013.ieee-icc.org/programTutorials.html#T7
This half day invited seminar was delivered at Queens Marry University, 16 April, 2013, London UK
This invited half day short course was give at joint BeFemto and Freedom Femto cell Winter training school, 09-Feb-12, Barcelona, Spain. http://femtoschool.cttc.es/
Panels
Gave a plenary talk in a panel on “5G network infrastructure challenges” held at the 20th European Wireless Conference, May, 14-16, 2014, Barcelona, Spain. The Abstract and details of panel can be found at http://www.ew2014.org/panel-session.html. The panel consisted of following speakers:
Ali Imran (University of Oklahoma)
Javier Benítez (Colt Technology Services, Spain)
Xavier Costa Pérez (NEC Laboratories Europe)
Hans-Peter Mayer (Alcatel-Lucent)
Josep Mangues-Bafalluy (CTTC)
The panel was attended by over 150 attendees.
N E W S
