UNIVERSITY OF NOVI SAD – FACULTY OF TECHNICAL SCIENCES – ICONIC Centre 

Centre for intelligent Communications, Networking and Information Processing (ICONIC) merged several teams at Faculty of Technical Sciences into a strong centre engaging 20 academic staff members and about the same number of PhD students. ICONIC targets internationally-visible research in massive cellular machine-type communications and large-scale distributed information processing and machine learning, supported by reconfigurable hardware design. ICONIC staff have established links towards local and regional ICT ecosystem and ongoing collaboration with companies in the domain of cellular IoT, cloud-based systems and hardware acceleration.

ICONIC is part of the Department of Power Electronics and Communication Engineering (DEET). DEET is the leading FTN department regarding the number of staff members, EU-funded projects and innovation-oriented spin-off companies emerging out of its research activities. Faculty of Technical Sciences (FTN), as part of the University of Novi Sad (UNS), comprises 11 departments and is the largest individual faculty in Serbia with over 1000 employees and 10,000 students.

The Project Coordinator and Scientist in charge on behalf of the University of Novi Sad is Prof. Dejan Vukobratovic. He is a Full Professor at the University of Novi Sad and Director of ICONIC centre. He received his PhD at the University of Novi Sad, Serbia, in 2008, and he has been Marie Curie Intra-European Fellow at the University of Strathclyde, UK, during 2009-2010. According to Google Scholar, he has published over 100 research papers in top-tier IEEE journal and conference venues which are cited about 1750 times (h-index:22).

AALBORG UNIVERSITY 

Aalborg University (AAU) is a world-class institution in the field of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, last year ranked as 7th in the world (the best in Europe) on Shanghai Ranking and this year as 8th in the world for Engineering on US News Ranking.

The Department of Electronic Systems is one of the largest departments at Aalborg University with a total of more than 200 staff. The department is internationally recognized for the contributions in information and communication technology, having published more than 400 articles in last five years. Research activities are carried out in cooperation with industry and national and international research institutions.

The project will be carried by two sections at the Department of Electronic Systems, AAU: Connectivity (CNT) and Center for communication, media and information technologies (CMI).

The Scientist in charge on behalf of Aalborg University is Dr Cedomir Stefanovic. He is an Associate Professor at Aalborg University. He received his PhD at the University of Novi Sad, Serbia, in 2010, and since then, he has been Postdoctoral Fellow, an Assistant Professor and is now an Associate Professor at Aalborg University, Denmark. According to Google Scholar, he has published over 100 research papers in top-tier IEEE journal and conference venues which are cited about 3000 times (h-index:29).

CHALMERS UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY

Chalmers University of Technology (CHALMERS) was founded in 1829 and was transformed into an independent foundation in 1994. It is one of the top universities in Sweden in Engineering with about 1200 professors, lecturers and other researchers/teachers and about 10.000 students, of which 1150 are PhD students. Master and PhD programmes are offered entirely in English, with a global recruitment. Chalmers’ annual turnover (2013) is 380M EUR, out of which 72% is related to research. Around 66% of the research funding is acquired in competition from external sources. Chalmers has developed leading research in the areas of life sciences, materials science, information technology, micro- and nanotechnology, environmental sciences and energy. Its research is organized in 8 thematic Research Centres and Areas of Advance, which bridge traditional departmental boundaries and facilitate interdisciplinary collaboration.

The researchers involved in this project will belong to the “Area of Advance in Information and Communication” and to the Communication Systems group (ComSys) of Department of Electrical Engineering.

The Scientist in charge on behalf of Chalmers University of Technology is Prof. Alexandre Graell i Amat. He is a Full Professor at Chalmers University of Technology. He received his PhD at Politecnico di Torino, Italy, in 2004, and since then, after research and faculty positions at University of California at San Diego, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, CTTC, Politecnico di Torino, University of South Australia and ENST Bretagne, he joined Chalmers University in 2011. According to Google Scholar, he has published over 150 research papers in top-tier IEEE journal and conference venues which are cited about 2450 times (h-index:26).

GERMAN AEROSPACE CENTER – DLR

German Aerospace Center (DLR) is the national aeronautics and space research centre of the Federal Republic of Germany. DLR has approximately 8000 employees at 16 locations in Germany. DLR Institute of Communications and Navigation, situated in Oberpfaffenhofen, develops and investigates new systems and methods for radio transmission and positioning. These are widely used in broadcasting multimedia contents as well as for internet connection of satellites, airplanes and remote areas. In the field of high rate data communications between satellite and ground the Institute works on optical free-space transmission methods. Within DLR, the Institute of Communications and Navigation will be responsible for carrying out the project and more specifically the Satellite Networks section, headed by Dr. Sandro Scalise, will be in charge of the proposed project.

The Scientist in charge on behalf of German Aerospace Centre is Dr Gianluigi Liva. He is a head of Information Transmission Group at the Institute of Communications and Navigation, DLR. He received his PhD at University of Bologna, Italy, in 2006, and since then, he is with DLR, and since 2014, he is lecturing at Technical University of Munich. According to Google Scholar, he has published close to 200 research papers in top-tier IEEE journal and conference venues which are cited about 3300 times (h-index:28).