Jul 20, 2017
Arogyaswami J. Paulraj AVSM, VSM (born 14 April 1944) is a
distinguished Indian-American electrical engineer. A former
Commodore in the Indian Navy, he is currently a Professor Emeritus
in the Dept. of Elect. Engineering at Stanford University.
Paulraj was born in Pollachi near Coimbatore, India, one of
six children of Sinappan Arogyaswami and his wife Rose. He joined
the Indian Navy at age 15 through the National Defence Academy,
Khadakvasla and served the Navy for 30 years. Paulraj received his
bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from the Naval College
of Engineering, Lonavala, India, and his doctorate in electrical
engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, New
Delhi.
Paulraj is the pioneer of a breakthrough wireless technology
known as MIMO (multiple input, multiple output) that dramatically
increases performance of wireless systems. MIMO is now core
technology in latest WiFi and LTE systems. Paulraj served in India
till 1991 where he is known for pioneering the development of
military sonars (APSOH family). Paulraj also served as the founding
director for three major labs in India - Centre for Artificial
Intelligence and Robotics (CAIR), CDAC (Center for Development of
Advanced Computing) and CRL (Central Research Labs of Bharat
Electronics).
Paulraj’s MIMO technology is now crucial to local area and
mobile wireless communications. MIMO allows both higher data rates
and wider coverage areas. MIMO technology involves using multiple
antennas at both the transmit station and the receive station.
Efficiency is increased because parallel streams of data can be
multiplexed within the same channel.
Paulraj first developed the idea of MIMO in 1992 while at
Stanford University. Using the spatial multiplexing concept that
exploits MIMO antennas, he demonstrated that spectral efficiency
could be improved by transmitting independent data streams from
each antenna and then exploiting the distinct spatial signatures of
each stream at the receive antennas to separate them. Paulraj was
issued a patent for the MIMO concept in 1994. He faced skepticism
from industry and funding sources and practical application of the
technology was not seen until the early 2000s. Among the obstacles,
digital transmission was needed to fully exploit the potential of
MIMO, but the U.S. wireless industry was still predominantly analog
at the time. However, Paulraj persisted and held annual workshops
at Stanford on the technology that eventually helped interest in
MIMO and spatial multiplexing take hold.
Paulraj founded Iospan Wireless Inc. in 1998 to form the first
company to incorporate MIMO technology in a commercial system. The
system developed by Paulraj at Iospan helped erase lingering
skepticism about the practicality of MIMO. The lessons learned at
Iospan gave the wireless industry the confidence to incorporate
MIMO into emerging wireless standards, and the technology developed
at Iospan such as spatial multiplexing, orthogonal
frequency-division multiple access and opportunistic scheduling,
can be seen in today’s 4G systems. Intel Corp. acquired part of
Iospan in 2003 to help launch its own push into WiMAX, further
establishing the importance of Paulraj’s MIMO concept. Paulraj
co-founded Beceem Communications in 2003 and the company became a
leader in WiMAX chipsets. Beceem was acquired by Broadcom Corp. in
2010.
An IEEE Fellow, Paulraj is also a member of the U.S. National
Academy of Engineering and several other scientific / engineering
academies. His awards include the IEEE Signal Processing Society
Technical Achievement Award and Padma Bhushan from the president of
India, one of the country’s highest civilian awards. Paulraj is a
Professor Emeritus at Stanford University, Calif., and is also a
Senior Advisor to Broadcom Corp., Irvine, Calif.
During his 30 years in the Indian (Navy) (1961-1991), he
founded three national level laboratories in India and headed one
of India’s most successful military R&D projects – APSOH sonar.
He received over a dozen awards (many at the national level) in
India including the Padma Bhushan, Ati Vishist Seva Medal and the
VASVIK Medal.
Paulraj has set examples of bridging Academia & Tech Industry
by bringing Academic Innovations to the center-stage of the
Industry. After having designed and developed one of the most
advanced Sonar APSOH for the Indian Navy, while he proposed the
idea of MIMO from Stanford, it naturally faced skepticism and was
rejected by the Industry. His relentless persistence for over two
decades during which he created working models of his MIMO ideas
and proved them by creating two high technology companies in the
Silicon Valley. The first - Iospan Wireless Inc. developed the core
4G wireless technology and was acquired by Intel Corp. In 2003, his
second company - Beceem Communications Inc. became the market
leader in 4G chip sets and was acquired by Broadcom Corp. in
2010.
Through productization of his ideas into viable products, he
proved his innovative ideas about MIMO & WIMAX, which got
overwhelming adoption from the industry world over and became the
foundation of the next generation Mobile Communication, popularly
known as 4G. Not surprisingly, Paulraj is known as the Father of
MIMO and WIMAX, the 4G Cellular Technologies.
Paulraj has been honoured with the most coveted global
technology awards, the IEEE Alexander Graham Bell Medal in 2011 and
the Marconi Prize in 2014, for his pioneering contributions to the
telecommunications industry.