Introduction to Professor Bertrand Hochwald and His Lab at University of Notre Dame

1. Could you briefly introduce yourself (and your University/Lab)?

I serve as the Frank M. Freimann Professor of Electrical Engineering and Co-Director of the Wireless Institute at the University of Notre Dame. I have invented and co-invented technologies and published research articles that have become mainstays of communication theory and practice, including differential multiple-antenna methods, linear dispersion codes, channel estimation analysis, and multi-user vector precoding methods. More details can be found on my professional website: https://wireless.nd.edu/people/faculty/bertrand-hochwald/

2. What have been your most significant research contributions up to now?

I am currently working on high-frequency radio circuits, sixth-generation cellular technologies, and methods to reduce human exposure to electromagnetic radiation from cell phones. I also oversee one of the Wireless Institutes flagship projects, the RadioHound spectrum sensing platform, currently on its third version. This multi-year project is unique in that the sensors have been designed and implemented predominantly by a team of graduate students, and have been deployed in trials run by the Federal Communications Commission and the US Postal Service.

3. What problems in your research field deserve more attention (or what problems will you like to solve) in the next few years, and why?

I would love to solve the problems that currently make it difficult to communicate and transfer power wirelessly without exposing the human body to excessive amounts of electromagnetic radiation.

4. What advice would you like to give to the young generation of researchers/engineers?

Don’t expect that artificial intelligence will be able to formulate the interesting problems that need to be solved over the next 50 years – only our young engineers can do that.