News Release

NJIT distinguished professor honored by IEEE for contributions to publications

Grant and Award Announcement

New Jersey Institute of Technology

Yeheskel Bar-Ness, PhD, a distinguished professor at New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT), was honored by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics (IEEE) for his "outstanding, sustained and visionary contributions" to the institute's publications and for founding the journal IEEE Communications Letters."

Bar-Ness, who is foundation chair of communications and signal processing at NJIT, received the IEEE Communications Society Publications Exemplary Service Award during an award ceremony held Nov. 29 in St. Louis, Mo.

"Professor Bar-Ness has been a tireless worker for the IEEE Communications Society over the last several decades," said Raymond L. Pickholtz, a past president of the IEEE Communications Society. "But his singular accomplishment of lasting value has been the establishment of IEEE Communications Letters, an archival journal that allows researchers to publish brief papers in a short turnaround time. He conceived of the idea for the journal -- now a thriving and widely cited publication -- and served as its founding editor for three years."

Bar-Ness, an internationally known expert in communications and signal processing, directs the Center for Wireless Communications and Signal Processing Research at NJIT. For many years the center has been in the forefront of wireless technology. An especially notable achievement of the center is a set of algorithms that has been developed by its researchers. The algorithms, which have become industry standards, are used to facilitate code division multiple access (CDMA), a widely used digital cell-phone technology that eliminates the interference commonly caused by high cell-phone usage.

"The pressure just keeps building to expand the wireless envelope when it comes to transmission speed, user mobility, and transparent transitions across equipment, carriers and services," said Bar-Ness. "We are trying to develop technologies that will keep America in the vanguard of signal processing and wireless communications."

Bar-Ness is a Fellow and lifetime member of IEEE. He has published more than 200 papers, has a U.S. patent on smart antennas as well as more than eight pending patents. He has been a principal investigator or co-principal investigator on research grants or contracts supported by the National Science Foundation, the New Jersey Commission on Science and Technology, the U.S. Army, the U.S. Air Force and the Naval Oceanic Center. He is a recipient of the Kaplan Prize (1973), which is awarded annually by the government of Israel to the 10 best technical contributors.

In addition to theoretical analyses aimed at increasing knowledge about wireless communications, Bar-Ness and his colleagues are working to develop breakthrough technologies for industry. Multiple input/multiple output (MIMO) is one such technology. MIMO uses antenna arrays to increase the bit rate of wireless communications. Antennas are multipliers for bandwidth, and as such are an invaluable component of communications. "MIMO enables increased rate and coverage and is crucial to the fourth-generation wireless communications for 2008 and beyond," said Bar-Ness. "Recognizing the importance of the center's contributions in these fields, Samsung, Korea, is funding the research, which has resulted in many publications and patent applications."

Bar-Ness leads a collaborative project with Samsung to improve the capability of Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) -- a certification mark for products that pass conformity tests established by the IEEE. The WiMAX protocol, a way of networking computing devices together, is similar to Wi-Fi (wireless fidelity), but is faster and has a longer range. WiMAX is revolutionizing the broadband wireless world, enabling the formation of a global mass-market wireless industry. Industry revenue from this new approach now tops $1 billion and is expected to reach $2.4 billion by 2007. Bar-Ness's team is using multiple-in, multiple-out Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (MIMO-OFDM) technology to improve the capability of this industry standard. The project builds on the center's expertise in multi-carrier technologies. One patent is in the process of being submitted jointly between Samsung and NJIT. For the third consecutive year, Bar-Ness has attended the 4G Forum in Korea, hosted by Samsung. The company invited international researchers and developers of wireless communications to discuss their plans for future technology.

Researchers affiliated with Bar-Ness's center - the backbone of communications research in the department of electrical and computer engineering at NJIT for two decades - have received funding for projects from the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Army and Air Force, and companies that include AT&T, ITT, InterDigital, Nokia, Mitsubishi, Panasonic, Samsung and Telcordia.

"The growing level of funding for NJIT's wireless initiatives reflects the international recognition that the university has achieved in wireless research and development," said Bar-Ness. "This recognition also encompasses the number of issued and pending patents -- a dozen in just the past few years, of which I am extremely proud."

Bar-Ness received a bachelor's and a master's degree in electrical engineering from the Technion, Haifa, Israel and a doctorate from Brown University. He joined NJIT in 1985 after being at the University of Pennsylvania, Drexel University and AT&T Bell Labs. Between September 1993 and August 1994, he was on sabbatical with the Telecommunications and Traffic Control Systems Group, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Delft University of Technology, Delft, the Netherlands. Between September 2000 and August 2001, he was on sabbatical at Stanford University.

###

New Jersey Institute of Technology, the state's public technological research university, enrolls more than 8,300 students in bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees in 100 degree programs offered by six colleges: Newark College of Engineering, New Jersey School of Architecture, College of Science and Liberal Arts, School of Management, Albert Dorman Honors College and College of Computing Sciences. NJIT is renowned for expertise in architecture, applied mathematics, wireless communications and networking, solar physics, advanced engineered particulate materials, nanotechnology, neural engineering and eLearning.


Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert system.