Lehigh University - RCEAS In the News: Wireless Day

Wireless networking means looking for teammates
Lehigh U. researchers hold open house to find partners to study connectivity

By Sam Kennedy
Of The Morning Call
December 9, 2003

From cell phones to laptop computers with Wi-Fi Internet service, the point of wireless technology is getting connected.

For Lehigh University professors and students involved in wireless research, the goal is connecting to the private companies and public agencies that make wireless products. It enables them to stay abreast of developments, use special equipment, test research in the real world and identify relevant research topics.

''We need teammates,'' said Rick Blum, an engineering professor who heads a communications lab at Lehigh.

In an effort to recruit them, Lehigh held its first wireless technology open house on Monday. About 50 people from industry and the government attended, and Lehigh faculty members from a variety of departments showcased their work.

Blum, for example, is studying how to use multiple antennas to improve the speed at which data is transmitted over radio waves. Another professor is analyzing the topography of Susquehanna County to devise wireless infrastructure that's suitable to the area's mountainous terrain.

Attendees, who included representatives from local companies such as Agere Systems of Hanover Township, Lehigh County, and officials of public agencies such as the Army Research Center in Picatinny Arsenal, N.J., were clearly interested. Immediately following the presentations, a half dozen people lined up to talk to Blum about collaborating.

''We've never talked to a lot of these people, so this is very interesting to us,'' he said later.

The collaborative model has been in place for some time. Lehigh has joined forces with the biggest names in the telecommunications industry, including AT&T, Verizon and Lucent, as well as with numerous defense agencies.

Those who work with Lehigh benefit in many ways, Blum said. They gain access to the university's vast resources, including expertise in a range of fields. Many tap its manpower for labor-intensive research.

''You'll get to know our students before you hire them,'' Blum told the attendees.

To better serve the industry's needs, Lehigh has created a new interdisciplinary master's degree devoted to wireless and network engineering.

The demand for such skills is great. In no other field does research move so quickly from the laboratory into development, Blum said. ''It's something I find very startling.''

That pace, Blum said, is one of the reasons he and his colleagues decided to hold the open house. Being close to the industry enables the university to identify the most pressing real-world problems, which make the most timely research projects.

''You don't really find those kinds of problems teaching at a university or grading papers,'' Blum said.

sam.kennedy@mcall.com
610-820-6517