Past Winner
2017 NSERC Synergy Awards for Innovation

We depend on wireless communication to keep in touch with family and friends and to stay connected with news and social media. But more and more, we rely on wireless communication for applications that improve efficiency, productivity and service delivery in almost every sector of everyday life. The growing need for connectivity anytime, anywhere, to anything, requires sharing huge amounts of data over a new generation of unified wireless networks called 5G. The deployment of 5G networks involves complicated challenges that require a combination of ingenuity and enterprise that can only be achieved by collaboration between industry and academia.

Slim Boumaiza, a researcher at the University of Waterloo, investigates ways to design high-performance radio hardware for wireless communications. He has been collaborating with Ericsson Canada Inc. and Keysight Technologies Canada Inc. to find ways to build energy-efficient radio-communication systems that minimize the environmental impacts and operational costs of 4G infrastructure. Ericsson, an industry leader whose networking equipment serves nearly 40% of the world’s mobile traffic, contributes insights to guide research priorities and works closely with Professor Boumaiza and his students to transfer their latest innovations to industry. Keysight’s electronic design automation software and test and measurement instrumentation is used in almost two-thirds of all radiofrequency communication hardware design globally. Keysight collaborates with Professor Boumaiza and his team to help develop cutting-edge measurement solutions to validate their research innovations to the highest degree of accuracy and reliability.

Boumaiza, Ericsson and Keysight’s collaboration is truly synergistic. New design ideas generate the need for new test and measurement solutions, which in turn boost the capacity for design innovation. The partners’ success with 4G not only sets the stage for 5G networks, but also provides excellent training to the next generation of engineers who will be on the forefront of wireless communications research and development.

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