Profile
Dr. Alvaro Valcarce Rial, Research Fellow
(Alvaro moved to the German industry in July 2010)
Alvaro obtained his MEng in Telecommunications Engineering from the School of Telecommunications Engineering of the University of
Vigo, Spain in 2006. His Master Thesis, “WiMAX Measurements. Analysis
and Study of Propagation at 3.5 GHz”, awarded with an honour-roll, was developed at the University of Applied Sciences of Saarbruecken,
Germany. During his Master studies Alvaro proposed
and created one of the first Spanish forums for students of Telecommunications
Engineering, which is nowadays a main meeting point for students and professors
from his University.
Through the 2004 DESY Summer Student
Programme, Alvaro worked at a German research centres on
high energy physics. Within the IT Department he developed a Java management
tool for AFS.
In 2005 he worked at Telefonica I+D in Madrid, integrating an applications-streaming platform into
an “ATG Dynamo Server”.
Before joining the Centre for Wireless Network Design (CWiND) Alvaro worked as a
research member of the WiSAAR consortium in Saarbruecken (Germany), where he
participated in a WiMAX field trials. There he performed measurements data analysis and study of
radio performance.
At CWiND, Alvaro was a
researcher in the first EPSRC-funded research project on femtocells - “The
feasibility study of WiMAX based femtocells for indoor coverage”
(EP/F067364/1). He obtained his PhD on the application of the finite-difference time-domain method to the modelling of large scale radio channels from the University of Bedfordshire in August 2010. This doctoral research belonged to the FP6 RANPLAN-HEC project and it dealt with the application of Finite-Difference algorithms for electromagnetic computation to the modelling of wireless channels. In particular, the wideband behaviour of the indoor-to-outdoor channel for femtocells was studied.
He is an author of the book "Femtocells: Technologies and Deployment",
which provides an in-depth guide on 3G/4G femtocells. Furthermore, his
paper "OFDMA femtocells: a roadmap on interference avoidance",
(IEEE Communications Magazine, vol. 47, no. 9, pp. 41 - 48, Sept. 2009)
was ranked
47 of the top 100 documents accessed in IEEExplore in October 2009.
Research Interests
- Radio channel modelling
- Wideband modelling with Finite-Difference algorithms
- Multicarrier systems
- Wireless Networks Planning & Optimisation
- Femtocells
- WCDMA, OFDMA and 4G networks
Awards and Achievements
-
Marie Curie Host Fellowship for Early Stage Research Training (2007 - 2010).
- Fundacion Pedro Barrie de la Maza Grant for postgraduate studies in Europe (2006).
- Honor Mention in pre-universitary education (1996-2000)
Projects
- ”Automatic 3G/4G Radio Access Network Planning and Optimisation - A High End Computing Approach (RANPLAN-HEC)”, EU FP6 (MESTCT-2005-020958), September 1 2006 - August 31 2010.
- "Feasibility study for WiMAX based home Femtocell for indoor coverage", EPSRC (EP/F067364/1), April 1 2008 - December 21 2008.
Books
- “Applying the finite-difference time-domain to the modelling of large-scale radio channels“, PhD Thesis, University of Bedfordshire, U.K., 2010.[pdf]
- “Femtocells – Technologies and Deployment”, Wiley, January 2010. (Lead authors: Prof. Jie Zhang and Dr. Guillaume de la Roche.
Contributing authors: Alvaro Valcarce, David Lopez, Enjie Liu and Hui
Song.
Journal Papers
- Alvaro Valcarce, G. De La Roche, L. Nagy, J.-F. Wagen, J.-M. Gorce, "Finite-difference Methods: A new Trend in Propagation Prediction," in IEEE Vehicular Technology Magazine, June 2011 (to appear).
- Alvaro Valcarce, H. Song and J. Zhang, "Characterization of the Numerical Group Velocity in Yee's FDTD Grid," in IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation, vol. 58, no. 12, pp. 3974 - 3982, Dec. 2010. [preprint]
- Alvaro Valcarce, H. Song and J. Zhang, " On the design of pulsed sources and spread compensation in finite-difference time-domain electromagnetic simulations," in IEEE
Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques, vol. 58, no. 11, pp. 2838
- 2849, Nov. 2010. [preprint]
- Alvaro Valcarce and J. Zhang, "Empirical indoor-to-outdoor propagation model for residential areas at (0.9 - 3.5) GHz," in IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters, vol. 9, pp. 682-685, Jul. 2010.[preprint]
- David López-Pérez, A. Valcarce, A. Ladanyi, G. De La Roche and J. Zhang, "Intracell Handover for Interference and Handover Mitigation in OFDMA Two-Tier Macrocell-Femtocell Networks," in EURASIP Journal of Wireless Communications and Networking. March 2010. [preprint]
- Guillaume De La Roche, A. Valcarce, D. López-Pérez and J. Zhang, "Access Control Mechanisms for Femtocells," in IEEE Communications Magazine, January 2010. [preprint]
- David López-Pérez, A. Valcarce, G. De La Roche and J. Zhang, "OFDMA femtocells: A roadmap on interference avoidance," in IEEE Communications Magazine, September 2009. (Ranked 47 of Top-100 documents accessed in IEEExplore in Oct. 2009).[preprint]
- Alvaro Valcarce, G. De La Roche, A. Juttner, D. López-Pérez and J. Zhang,
"Applying FDTD to the coverage prediction of WiMAX femtocells,"
in EURASIP Journal of Wireless Communications and Networking. February 2009. [html]
- Alvaro Valcarce, H. Krauss, J. Hauck, M. Buchholz, F. Aguado. “Empirical Propagation Model for WiMAX at 3.5 GHz in an Urban Environment,” Wiley Microwave and Optical Technology Letters. Vol 50, Issue 2, February 2008, pp. 483-487.
Conference Papers
- Guillaume de La Roche, A. Valcarce, and J. Zhang. "Hybrid Model for Indoor-to-Outdoor Femtocell Radio Coverage Prediction". In IEEE VTC (Vehicular Technology Conference), May 2011 (to appear), Budapest.
- Alvaro Valcarce (invited speaker). "Implementing a 2D FDTD scheme with CPML on a GPU using CUDA," in The 26th International Review of Progress in Applied Computational Electromagnetics, Tampere (Finland), April 2010.[pdf]
- Alvaro Valcarce (invited speaker). "Indoor-outdoor radio propagation for radio access network planning and optimisation," in National Physical Laboratory (NPL) Workshop on Advances, Challenges, and Opportunities in Wireless Communications, Teddington (U.K.), September 2009.
- Alvaro Valcarce, D. López-Pérez, G. De La Roche, and J. Zhang, "Limited Access to OFDMA femtocells," in IEEE PIMRC'09 (Personal, Indoor and Mobile Radio Communications Symposium), September 2009, Tokyo. [pdf]
- Alvaro Valcarce, D. López-Pérez, G. De La Roche, and J. Zhang,
“Predicting small-scale fading distributions with Finite-Difference
methods in Indoor-to-Outdoor scenarios,” in IEEE VTC (Vehicular Technology
Conference) 2009-Spring, April 2009, Barcelona. [pdf]
- Alvaro Valcarce, G. De
La Roche, J. Zhang, “WiMAX Femtocells: Measurements and Propagation Modelling,”
in COST 2100 7th Meeting, February 2009, Braunschweig (Germany).
- Alvaro Valcarce, G. De La Roche, J. Zhang. “A GPU approach to FDTD for Radio Coverage Prediction,” in IEEE 11th International Conference on Communication Systems, November 2008, Guangzhou (China). [pdf]
- David Lopez-Perez, A. Valcarce, G. De La Roche, J. Zhang, “Access Methods to WiMAX Femtocells: A downlink system-level case study,” in IEEE 11th International Conference on Communication Systems, November 2008, Guangzhou (China). [pdf]
- David Lopez-Perez, G. De La Roche, A. Valcarce, A. Juttner, J. Zhang, “Interference Avoidance and Dynamic Frequency Planning for WiMAX Femtocells Networks,” in IEEE 11th International Conference on Communication Systems, November 2008, Guangzhou (China). [pdf]
- Guillaume De La Roche, A. Valcarce, D.
Lopez-Perez, E. Liu and J. Zhang, “Coverage Prediction and System Level Simulation
of WiMAX Femtocells,” in COST 2100 6th Meeting, October 2008, Lille (France).
- Alvaro Valcarce, G. De La Roche, J. Zhang. “On the Use of a Lower Frequency in Finite-Difference Simulations for Urban Radio Coverage,” in IEEE VTC (Vehicular Technology
Conference) 2008-Spring, May 2008, Singapore. [pdf]
- Alvaro Valcarce, H. Krauss, J. Hauck, M. Buchholz “Measurements and Analysis of a WiMAX Field Trial at 3.5 GHz in an Urban Environment,” in IEEE International Symposium on Broadband Multimedia Systems and Broadcasting, March 2007, Orlando (U.S.A).
- Fernando Perez Fontan, A. Nuñez, A. Valcarce, U.C. Fiebig “Converting Simulated Rain-rate Series into Attenuation Series Using the Synthetic Storm Technique,” in COST 280 3rd International Workshop, June 2005.
Membership
- The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineering (IEEE)
- IEEE Communications Society (ComSoc)
- The Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET)
- COST Action 2100 – Pervasive Mobile & Ambient Wireless Communications
Reviewer
- IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation
- IEEE Antennas
& Wireless Propagation Letters
- IEEE Communications Letters
- Eurasip Journal on Wireless Communications and Networking
- IEEE Vehicular Technology Conference (VTC)
- IEEE Personal Indoor and Mobile Radio Communications (PIMRC) Symposium
