There is a sign-up schedule for this event that can be found at

http://apps.cs.utexas.edu/talkschedules/cgi/list_events.cgi

Type o

f Talk: Faculty Recruitment

Speaker/Affiliation: Shyamnath Gollakota/M

assachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge MA

Talk Audience: UTC

S Faculty, Graduate Students, Undergraduate Students and Outside Interest

ed Parties

Date/Time: Tuesday, May 1, 2012, 11:00 am

Location:
ACES 2.302

Host: Lili Qiu

Talk Title: Embracing Interference in

Wireless Systems

Abstract:
The wireless medium is a shared resource.
If nearby devices transmit at the same
time, the transmitted signals in

terfere, resulting in a collision. In
traditional networks, collisions

cause the loss of the transmitted information.
For this reason, wireless
systems have been designed with the assumption that
interference is intr

insically harmful and must be avoided.

My research takes an alternate

approach: Instead of viewing interference as an
inherently counterproduct

ive phenomenon that should to be avoided, I design
practical systems tha

t can successfully reconstruct the transmitted information
even in the pr

esence of collisions hence, rendering the interference harmless.
Moreove

r, these new systems can exploit interference constructively to increase

nthroughput and improve security.

In the talk, I will present the fir

st WiFi receiver that decodes colliding
packets, rendering WiFi interfer

ence harmless. I will also show how to inject
useful interference that in

creases network throughput using a system called
analog network coding. T

hen, I will talk about the role of interference in
improving security. I
will use interference to secure insecure medical
implants, and establis

h secure wireless connections without having users enter
passwords or use
pre-shared secret keys.

Bio:
Shyamnath Gollakota is a PhD candidate
in Electrical Engineering and Computer
Science at the Massachusetts Inst

itute of Technology. His research in
networking focuses on addressing wir

eless interference and security. He has
been awarded the ACM SIGCOMM 2008
Best paper award for ZigZag decoding, ACM
SIGCOMM 2011 Best Paper Award
for securing medical implants, and AT&T Applied
Security Award for pass

word-free wireless security. His work has appeared in
venues like Slashdo

t, BBC Radio, Forbes, and Network World. He received his
masters in El

ectrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT, and a bachelors
degree
in Computer Science and Engineering at IIT Madras.