STI Virtual Seminar: Wednesday 23 November 2022 at 3 pm (CET)

[STI Secretariat]

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STI  seminar
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You are most cordially invited to a virtual seminar organized by the 
ICTP Science Technology and Innovation Unit (STI Unit)

** * * Wednesday, 23 November 2022 at 15:00 (Rome/CET time) *** * **

Register in advance for this seminar:///
https://zoom.us/meeting/register/tJ0vfuqgrjMpGdMkM1rPf7aWLJEHZ-11e_Fu
/After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing 
information about joining the seminar.

Speaker: *Mohamed-Slim Alouini *- King Abdullah University of Science 
and Technology(KAUST), Saudi Arabia**

Title:***A light in digital darkness: Free space optics to connect the 
unconnected*

_Abstract_

Despite the ubiquitous digital connectivity that we experience all 
around us, it is a fact that almost half of the population of the world 
is still “offline” due to the lack of a robust Internet and 
communications infrastructure in many places on the globe. The reason 
why such digitally dark spots still exist in the world is mainly 
two-folds. For one, economically backward or thinly scattered 
populations are not viable for relatively larger investments in 
communications infrastructure. Secondly, a hostile geography/terrain 
raises the cost of installing optical fibers and other equipment. Thus, 
its no wonder that many big Internet giants such as Amazon, Facebook, 
and SpaceX, have attempted to reach the hitherto “digitally 
inaccessible” regions by providing connectivity through satellites or 
high altitude platforms (HAPs). A constellation of satellites/HAPs 
provides a more cost-effective and reliable alternative to the 
deployment of optical fiber and related equipment in such locations of 
the world. Because of the large chunks of relatively unlicensed 
bandwidth available in the optical spectrum, there is a great 
opportunity to use lasers for ground gateway station-satellite/HAPs, and 
inter-satellite or inter-HAP communications, a communications model 
known as the free-space optics (FSO). Towards that end, this talk 
examines the FSO communications from the perspective of satellite and 
HAP communications. In this regard, some new pointing, acquisition and 
tracking aspects are presented. Furthermore, this talk goes also through 
the adaptive optics and relaying schemes that are needed to deal with 
atmospheric turbulence which affects such kind of networks.

/Bio: Mohamed-Slim Alouini was born in Tunis, Tunisia. He received the 
Ph.D. degree in ElectricalEngineering from the California Institute of 
Technology (Caltech) in 1998. He served as a faculty member at the 
University of Minnesota then in the Texas A&M University at Qatar before 
joining in 2009 the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology 
(KAUST) where he is now a Distinguished Professor of Electrical and 
Computer Engineering. Prof. Alouini is a Fellow of the IEEE and OPTICA 
(Formerly the Optical Society of America (OSA)). He is currently 
particularly interested in addressing the technical challenges 
associated with the uneven distribution, access to, and use of 
information and communication technologies in rural, low-income, 
disaster, and/or hard-to-reach areas./

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-- 
Nicoletta Ivanissevich (Ms.)
Secretariat,
STI - Science, Technology and Innovation Unit
The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics
Strada Costiera, 11
I-34151 Trieste
Italy

Phone: +39-040-2240.383
STI Webpage:https://www.ictp.it/research/sti.aspx
Email:sti at ictp.it

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