Projects

Prof. Beferull is leading the Lab Intelligent Signal Processing and Wireless Networks (WISENET) at University of Agder (UiA), created in 2014 with the following three-fold mission:

• To perform both theoretical and applied research of high international impact.
• To provide advanced postgraduate education and training
• To perform an effective technology transfer of high quality to established, SME and start-up companies

The three main research areas that are covered by the Lab are the following ones:

• De-centralized Communications, In-network Processing and Intelligence for heterogeneous wireless sensor and communication networks
• Signal Processing and Analytics for multi-sensor data
• Multidisciplinary Tools and theoretical foundations for fundamental performance analysis and optimal design of signal processing algorithms and network protocols.

The Lab includes also several PhD students and Postdoctoral researchers. 

Selected Present and Recent Past Projects as Coordinator and/or IP

1) Next Generation Wireless Devices and Networks enabled by Self-Organized Spectrum Cartography (WISECART), FRIPRO TOPPFORSK Research Program, Research Council of Norway, 5/2016 - 5/2021, Role: Coordinator and Leader of all WPs.

2) Off-shore--On-shore Collective Analytics & Intelligence for condition-based monitoring in drilling & operations using heterogeneous networks (SMART-RIG), Researcher Project, Research Council of Norway, 4/2015 – 4/2019, Role: Coordinator and Leader of all WPs. 

3) Offshore Mechatronics (Center of Research-Driven Innovation SFI), Research Council of Norway, 5/2015 – 5/2023, Role: PI and Leader of WP IT Integration, Data Analytics and Big Data.

4) Reconfigurable Radio Network Platform (ReRaNP),Research Council of Norway, 10/2015 – 10/2020, Role: PI and Leader of WP dedicated to heterogeneous Wireless Sensor Networks.

5) Autonomous Control of Large-scale Water Treatment Plants based on Self-Organized Wireless BioMEM Sensor and Actuator Networks (HYDROBIONETS), European Commission FP7-ICT (Objective: Cyber-Physical Systems), 10/2011 – 10/2014, Role: Coordinator and Leader of WP In-network Distributed Intelligence for Wireless BioMEM sensor networks.

6) Foundations and Methodologies for Future Communication and Sensor Networks(COMONSENS), SpanishMinistry of Science and Innovation, CONSOLIDER Programme (Top Research Programme in Spain across all disciplines), 1/2009 -12/2014, Role: PI and Leader of WP Distributed communications and Wireless Sensor Network Testbed design.

7) Cooperative and Cognitive Strategies for Interference Management in Wireless Communication Networks (COSIMA), 1/2011-12/2014, Role: PI and Leader of WP Distributed communications and Wireless Sensor Network Testbed design. 

8) Sensor Network for Dynamic and Cognitive Radio Access (SENDORA), European Commission FP7-ICT (Objective: Future Networks),01/2008 - 12/2010, Role: PI and Leader of WP Cross-layer protocol design for spectrum sensing and resource allocation in Cognitive radios 

9)Wireless Sensor Networks for Cognitive Software Radios (WISERNETS),European Commission, FP7-MC, 01/2011 - 12/2012, Role: Coordinator and Leader of WPs on distributed detection, resource allocation and implementation for the Software Defined Radios.

10) Collaborative signal processing for efficient wireless sensor networks (ASPIRE),European Commission,FP6-MC-ToK, 09/2006 - 09/2010, Role: PI and Leader of WP Distributed Inference. 

11) Self-Organized Communications for Wireless Sensor Networks, Spanish Ministry of Education and Science, 01/2007 - 01/2010, Role: Coordinator and Leader of the various WPs (distributed sampling, in-network inference, self-organized communications and testbed design).

Background

Baltasar Beferull-Lozano received his MSc in Physics from University of Valencia, Spain, in 1995 (First in Class Honors) and the MSc and PhD degrees in Electrical Engineering from University of Southern California (USC), Los Angeles, in 1999 and 2002, respectively. At USC, he received several awards including the Best PhD Thesis paper Award in 2002 and the Outstanding Academic Achievement Award in 1999. 

Prof. Beferull brings extensive research and technology transfer experience from both the US., having worked at USC and AT&T Shannon Labs, (formerly AT&T Bell Labs) and also Europe, having worked at EPFL as Research Associate and at University of Valencia, Spain, as Professor. Since Aug. 2014, he is Full Professor at University of Agder, leading the Lab Intelligent Signal Processing and Wireless Networks (WISENET). 

He has coordinated or participated as IP in more than 20 international Projects in the areas of Wireless Sensor and Actuator Networks, Signal Processing, Data analytics and last-generation Wireless Communications, including 10 EU Projects (FP6, FP7, H2020), among others, HYDROBIONETS, SENDORA, WISERNETS, CRUISE, as well as a CONSOLIDER (top excellence research program in Spain) Project and similar ones in Switzerland and the US. Currently, he is coordinator or IP in four large Research Projects funded by the Research Council of Norway, including a FRIPRO TOPPFORSK project (most competitive Program for fundamental research). He has co-authored over 100 technical peer-reviewed international journal and conference papers (including several Best paper Awards) with a high-rate of citations, generated 3 U.S. patents, supervised 10 PhD Theses and imparted seminars and postgraduate courses at more than 40 different international institutions since 2002. Prof. Beferull has also collaborated intensively with several companies in the field, such as Telenor, ACCIONA, Thales Communications, Telefónica and Deutsche Telekom. Prof. Beferull is a Senior Member of the IEEE. 

He is an official Evaluator and Expert for European Commission (since 2006), Qatar National Research Fund Program, Qatar Foundation (since 2008) and the US. NSF (since 2008), for both Research Proposals and on-going projects on Information and Communication Technologies. He has served as a member of the Technical Program Committees for several top ACM \& IEEE International Conferences. Prof. Beferull is also a Senior Area Editor for IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing.

He carries out fundamental and applied research on these topics: a) advanced signal processing and data analytics, b) de-centralized communications and in-network processing for Wireless Communications and Embedded Systems, c) cross-layer design and cross-disciplinary tools for future generation wireless networks. His work is highly interdisciplinary, covering Theory, Algorithms and Testbed implementation for different application scenarios, such as condition-based monitoring of industrial plants and natural resources, ambient intelligence, environmental monitoring, smart energy grids and 4G, 5G wireless networks. 

He received the Best Paper Award at the IEEE International Conference on Distributed Computing in Sensor Systems (DCOSS) 2012. He received the IDEA Award in Novel Technologies 2006 from the Spanish government, and ranked 1st in the Ramón y Cajal Spanish Program 2005, a highly competitive program for promoting outstanding young investigators. He has also received the TOPPFORSK Grant Award from the Research Council of Norway, 2015 (only recipient in the areas of signal processing and communications), Top cross-disciplinary excellence research program for fundamental research in Norway. Several of Prof. Beferull’s published papers related to the area of Wireless Sensor Networks, have been used, as part of the selected mandatory reading list for graduate courses in several US. Universities, such as: Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USC, Univ. of California, Santa Cruz and Univ. of Massachussets, Amherst.

Google Scholar

Selected Journal Publications

- C. Asensio, B. Beferull-Lozano, "Energy efficient Consensus over Complex Networks", IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Signal Processing, Vol. 9, no. 2, pp. 292-303, March 2015.

- I. Alustiza, P. Crespo, B. Beferull-Lozano, "Analog Multiple Description Joint Source-Channel Coding Based on Lattice Scaling", IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing, Vol. 63, no. 12, pp. 3046-3061, March 2015.

- X. Huang, B. Beferull-Lozano, C. Botella, "Quasi Nash Equilibrium for non-convex distributed power allocation games in Cognitive Radios", IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications, Vol. 12, no. 7, pp. 3326-3337, July 2013.

- X. Insausti, F. Camaro, P. Crespo, B. Beferull-Lozano, J. Gutiérrez-Gutiérrez, “Distributed Gossip Algorithm and Finite-Length Computational Codes for Efficient In-network Subspace Projection”, IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Signal Processing, Vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 163-174, April 2013.

- A. Erdozain, P. Crespo, B. Beferull-Lozano, “Multiple Description Analog Joint Source-Channel Coding to Exploit the Diversity in Parallel Channels”, IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing, Vol. 60, no. 11, pp. 5800-5892, Nov. 2012.

- B. Beferull-Lozano, R. Konsbruck, “On source coding for distributed temperature sensing with shift-invariant geometries”, IEEE Transactions on Communications, Vol 59, no. 4, pp. 1053-1065, April 2011.

- V. Velisavljevic, B. Beferull-Lozano, M. Vetterli, “Space-Frequency Quantization for Image Compression with Directionlets”, IEEE Transactions on Image Processing, Vol. 16, no. 7, pp. 1761-1773, July 2007.

- G. Tzagkarakis, B. Beferull-Lozano and P. Tsakalides, “Rotation-Invariant Texture retrieval with gaussianized steerable pyramids”, IEEE Transactions on Image Processing, Vol. 15, no. 9, pp. 2702-2718, Sept. 2006.

- I. Jovanovic, B. Beferull-Lozano, “Oversampled A/D Conversion and Error-Rate Dependence of Non-Bandlimited Signals with Finite Rate of Innovation”. IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing, Vol. 54, no. 6, pp. 2140-2154, June 2006.

- G. Barrenetxea, B. Beferull-Lozano and M. Vetterli, “Lattice Sensor Networks: Capacity Limits and Optimal Routing”.  IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking, Vol. 14, no. 3, pp. 492-505, June 2006.

- D. Ganesan, R. Cristescu and B. Beferull-Lozano, “Power-efficient sensor placement and transmission structure for data gathering under distortion constraints", ACM Transactions on Sensor Networks, Vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 155-181, May 2006.

- R. Cristescu, B. Beferull-Lozano and M. Vetterli, “Networked Slepian-Wolf: Theory, Algorithms and Scaling Laws”. IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, Vol. 51, no. 12, pp. 4057-4073, Dec. 2005.

- R. Cristescu, B. Beferull-Lozano, M. Vetterli and R. Wattenhofer. “Network Correlated Data Gathering with Explicit Communication: NP-Completeness and Algorithms”. IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking, Vol. 14, no.1, pp. 41- 54, Feb. 2006.

- B. Beferull-Lozano and A. Ortega, Efficient Quantization for Overcomplete Expansions in R^N, IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, Vol. 49, No. 1, pp. 129-150, January, 2003. 

Academic interests

Current courses at University of Agder:

• Wireless Embedded Systems and Sensor Networks, Master in Information and Communication Technologies, Course 2015/2016
• Advanced Optimization, Master in Information and Communication Technologies, Course 2015/2016
• Advanced Optimization, PhD Program in Information and Communication Technologies, Courses 2016/2017

In addition, Prof. Beferull has taught courses and given invited seminars in different areas (Wireless Communications, Wireless Sensor Networks, Advanced Signal Processing, Information Theory), at several other Institutions world-wide, such as: UCLA, AT&T Shannon Labs, Univ. of British Columbia, Deutsche Telekom, California Institute of Technology, Univ. of California San Diego, Jet Propulsion Laboratory (NASA), NTNU, KTH, University of Valencia, University Pompeu Fabra, Polytechnic University of Catalonia, Polytechnic University of Madrid, University of Crete, University of Navarra, University of Vigo, University of Coruña.

Last changed: 2016-09-21 17:07:51