Research

Research Overview

My research is focused on the full stack of a communication network, starting from PHY, MAC, and network layer, with an extensive focus on prototyping. I have used tools from online learning, causal inference, and signal processing for my research.

In the following, I have put an overview of a few submitted/published projects.

Graduate Research

Sensing-aided beamforming for multi-user mmWave communication

Used deep neural network (DNN) to predict the angle-of-departures (AoDs) of the channel’s significant multipath components from sensor data.
Proposed a novel loss function called supervised soft-contrastive loss (SSCL) that can leverage the inherent similarity between labels to extract similar features from sensor data.
Designed a multi-user strategy to predict analog precoders from the predicted AoDs.
Publication:
- Harnessing Multimodal Sensing for Multi-user Beamforming in mmWave Systems [Preprint]
  Kartik Patel, Robert W. Heath Jr.
  Submitted to IEEE Transactions of Wireless Communications

Configuration management in cellular network

Developed a data-driven framework for analyzing the impact of configuration change on the performance of the network.
Enables network operators to test configuration changes before applying them on the live network.

Publication:

- Predicting the Performance Impact of Configuration Changes in Cellular Networks
  Kartik Patel, Changhan Ge, Ajay Mahimkar, Sanjay Shakkottai, Yusef Shaqalle
  Submitted to ACM MobiHoc 2024

User clustering and selection in cellular network

Proposed a Bandit learning-based approach to user clustering based on the similarity in channel distribution and the associated rate regions.
Designed a heuristic-based approach to an online user selection to optimize the network throughput.

Publication:

- Bandit Learning-based Online User Clustering and Selection for Cellular Networks
  Isfar Tariq, Kartik Patel, Thomas Novlan, Salam Akoum, Milap Majmundar, Gustavo de Veciana, Sanjay Shakkottai
  20th International Symposium on Modeling and Optimization in Mobile, Ad Hoc, and Wireless Networks (IEEE WiOpt) 2022

Defense against eavesdropping attack on low-resolution phased arrays [Project page]

Developed a low-complexity physical layer defense against eavesdropping attacks on low-resolution phased arrays.
Designed experiments on the mmWave testbed to verify the defense mechanism.

Publications:

Circulant Shift-based Beamforming for Secure Communication with Low-resolution Phased Arrays
Kartik Patel, Nitin Jonathan Myers, Robert W. Heath Jr.
Accepted to IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications, September 2022

- Physical Layer Defense against Eavesdropping Attacks on Low-Resolution Phased Arrays
  Kartik Patel, Nitin Jonathan Myers, Robert W. Heath Jr.
  IEEE International Conference on Communications (IEEE ICC) 2022

Side information-aided mmWave beam alignment designs

Designed a beamforming mechanism for mmWave communications based on the side information.
Set up mmWave testbed with SiBeam phased arrays and designed calibration procedure.
Publication:
- Side-information-aided Noncoherent Beam Alignment Design for Millimeter Wave Systems
  Yi Zhang, Kartik Patel, Sanjay Shakkottai, Robert W. Heath Jr.
  ACM International Symposium on Mobile Ad Hoc Networking and Computing (ACM MobiHoc) 2019
  Finalist for the best paper award

Undergraduate Research

Analytical Modelling of Bluetooth Low Energy Protocol-based Sensor Networks

Supervisor: Dr. Debashis Ghosh, Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee (July 2016 - May 2017)

Developed an analytical model for analysis of Bluetooth Low Energy protocol-based sensor networks.

NS3-based simulator for Bluetooth Low Energy protocol-based sensor networks

Supervisor: Dr. Neelesh Mehta, Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru (May - July 2016)

Developed a BLE protocol module on NS3 for end-to-end protocol simulation. [Documentation]

Distribution-free Spectrum Sensing Technique for Full-Duplex Cognitive Radio

Used likelihood ratio-based statistic for spectrum sensing for Full-Duplex Radios.
Publications:
- Distribution-Free Spectrum Sensing for Full-Duplex Cognitive Radio
  Kartik Patel, Dhaval Patel, Miguel Lopez-Benitez, S Chaudhary
  IEEE 88th Vehicular Technology Conference (VTC-Fall) 2018

Hobby projects

gr-bokehgui: Web-based display for GNURadio [Link]
GNU Radio, Google Summer of Code 2017

MIPS Single Cycle Microprocessor using VHDL [Link]
Implemented a processor capable of running 7 basic instructions.
Added Python script to act as a compiler for converting assembly code to ModelSim simulation script (binary instructions).