Jim Cavers' personal pages
My research
You can read about my
research at the standard Engineering Science faculty page and at the page for the Mobile Communications Laboratory.
Transmission and detection of signals in radio channels form the core of
what I do. My primary research thrust
right now is multiuser detection combined with "smart antennas" -
adaptive antenna arrays for mobile and personal communications. Call it
MIMO-MUD (multi-input, multi-output antenna arrays with multiuser detection),
or multiuser-MIMO-MUD. Following this
line, my students and I have found ways to dramatically increase the number of
users a narrowband (i.e., TDMA-like) system can support – both uplink and
downlink. We have also devised
minimum-computation, but nevertheless optimum, methods for handling multiuser
macrodiversity in CDMA and narrowband systems.
In a quite different area, my students and I have made a number of
advances in radio transceiver design - integrated DSP/RF for radio amplifier
linearization, correction of modulator and demodulator impairments, etc. I'm
not an RF guy, though - I'm just a signals guy who strayed from the path.
What does it add up to?
Better quality cell phone conversations, with fewer system busy signals.
Cheaper calls, too, since the equipment the cellular operator installs becomes cheaper
– and, more importantly, that expensive radio spectrum is used more
effectively. For manufacturers who use the techniques developed in my group, it
means increased market share through innovative products. For example, one
licensee of the adaptive digital predistorter technology has already generated
over $35 million U.S. in sales with their first-generation product. We expect
licensees in the near future for the adaptive feedforward technology.
Downloadable Un-Publications
At the standard Engineering
Science faculty
page, you can download some of my publications. You can also download some useful unpublished fragments –
analyses, programs, reports, workshop presentations, etc. – written by my
students and myself at the “un-publication”
site.
For those of you wanting to
buy my book Mobile
Channel Characteristics, a 225-page hardcover from Kluwer Academic
Publishers, there is bad news and good news.
The bad news: the first edition has sold out. But the good news that the greatly expanded second edition
is now available as an interactive text from Shady Island
Press. Even better, it comes only
in CD ROM form, which is how I conceived of the text in the first place. Once installed on your computer, you get all
the features – the explanations, the interactive demos, the animations, the
simulations and all those links to researcher websites and online
journals. And better still is that a CD
ROM is way cheaper than hardcover, which scales it to a student budget. You’ll also find some free downloads at the
Support section of the Shady Island
Press site.
Some awards
I've been named…
• a 2002 Fellow of the Institute
of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
“for contributions to the theory and practice of digital transmission
over wireless channels.”
• a 2001 Canada
Research Chair in wireless communications.
• the 2000 recipient of the
R.A.
McLachlan Memorial Award from the Association of Professional Engineers and
Geoscientists of British Columbia (APEGBC).
• the 1998 recipient of the
Manning Foundation’s Principal Award of $100,000. This national award recognizes
outstanding innovation that has led to commercial success; in this case, for my
development of adaptive digital predistortion.
• the 1995 recipient of the
Gold Medal in Engineering and Applied Science from the
Science Council of British Columbia for research and practical inventions in telecommunications
in both university and industry.
• the 1992 recipient of the
Stentor Telecommunications Research Award of $5,000. This national award
recognizes outstanding collaborations between university and industry; in this
case, for my contributions to the next generation Airfone, an in-flight
telephone system.
Teaching
Teaching and research go
hand-in-hand. It's clear that an active research program allows a teacher to
enrich the students' courses with examples, tips and insights. Less often
recognized is that it works the other way, too - teaching keeps a researcher
razor-sharp on the fundamentals, which saves time in analysis and often leads
to novel techniques. That's why universities are special institutions. They're
not just teaching colleges, and they're not just research organizations.
They're both - and they're driven by the energy of young people and the
curiousity of seasoned researchers. Not to mention the cheap coffee.
I enjoy teaching. Here are
some Engineering Science courses I have taught. At the undergraduate level:
• ENSC 428 Digital Communications
At the graduate level:
• ENSC 810 Digital Signal Processing
• ENSC 832 Mobile and Personal
Communication
My life in fast forward
I grew up in Port
Alice, B.C.,
Canada. I received a B.A.Sc. in engineering physics in 1966 and a Ph.D. in
electrical engineering in 1970, both from the University
of British Columbia. From 1970 to 1979 I was an Assistant, then
Associate, Professor in the Department of Systems Engineering at Carleton
University in
Ottawa. I spent 1979 to 1982 as a program manager at MacDonald
Dettwiler and Associates, in Vancouver, followed by a year as senior engineer at Glenayre
Electronics, also
in Vancouver. In 1983 I joined the School
of Engineering Science at
Simon Fraser University, where I hold the rank of Professor. From 1990 to 1994,
I was Director of the School.
Travels
I spent January-May 1998 as
a Visiting Erskine Fellow in the Department of Electrical and Electronic
Engineering at the University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand. I was
also there for 6 months in 1995. Why New Zealand? First, the communications research group at Canterbury is excellent. Second,
the research group in radio systems at the University of Auckland is
doing innovative work in propagation modelling. And third, well, New Zealand is
beautiful - have a look.
.