Abstract:

Digital communication and wireless connectivity have become a commodity, assumed to be always present and noticed only when absent. Various cyber-physical systems, notably the energy systems, use communication as a basic building block that is critical for accurate and efficient system operation. This talk consists of three parts. The first part will introduce the fundamentals of communication systems, such as definition of a communication link, elementary communication protocols, and strategies for sharing resources among multiple competing users. The second part will introduce a communication system tailored to system constraints of MicroGrids (MGs). It is based on Power Talk, a concept for communication without a dedicated modem, but by using power electronics that interface the common bus. Information is transmitted by modulating the parameters of the primary control, incurring subtle power deviations that can be detected by other units. The third part will present the general concept of timing in communication systems and networks and its relation to effective information generation, processing, transmission, and reconstruction at the senders and receivers. The focus will be on wireless systems due to the increased focus on real-time and low latency communication in 5G and the emerging 6G systems. We will discuss measures of information freshness and their relevance in cyber-physical systems and distributed control.

Biography:

Petar Popovski is a Professor at Aalborg University, where he heads the section on Connectivity and a Visiting Excellence Chair at the University of Bremen. He received his Dipl.-Ing and M. Sc. degrees in communication engineering from the University of Sts. Cyril and Methodius in Skopje and the Ph.D. degree from Aalborg University in 2005. He is a Fellow of the IEEE. He received an ERC Consolidator Grant (2015), the Danish Elite Researcher award (2016), IEEE Fred W. Ellersick prize (2016), IEEE Stephen O. Rice prize (2018), Technical Achievement Award from the IEEE Technical Committee on Smart Grid Communications (2019), the Danish Telecommunication Prize (2020) and Villum Investigator Grant (2021). He is currently the Editor-in-Chief of IEEEE JOURNAL ON SELECTED AREAS IN COMMUNICATIONS. Prof. Popovski was the General Chair for IEEE SmartGridComm 2018 and IEEE Communication Theory Workshop 2019. His research interests are in communication theory and wireless connectivity.