Research Colloquium talk – Sensor-less Sensing: The Future of Ubiquitous Context-Awareness

Talk Overview

RF-based device-free (DF) context-awareness is an emerging field that enables the detection, tracking, and identification of objects that do not carry any devices nor participate actively in the sensing process using the already installed wireless infrastructure. The DF concept utilizes the fact that RF characteristics are functions of the surrounding environment. Changes in the received physical signals can be used to identify the presence of humans and objects, track them, as well as identify their characteristics. DF systems are attractive for many practical applications including intrusion detection and tracking, sensor-less sensing, home and factory automation, low cost surveillance, and interactive visual display systems for museums and retail stores, among many others. Based on its characteristics, DF sensing fits the vision of ubiquitous computing, where each device in the environment can be potentially used to sense the environment and its objects.

In this talk, I will cover different DF systems used for intrusion detection, localisation, activity recognition, among others based on ubiquitous wireless technologies such as WiFi, FM, and cellular networks. The talk ends by a road-map for open research challenges and future directions.

When: Friday, November 8, 1-2:00pm

Where: CDM Theater 708

Who: Dr. Moustafa Youssef, Professor, Alexandria University

Now the colloquium talks are live-streamed and available on YouTube!

Speaker bio: Moustafa Youssef is a professor at Alexandria University and founder & director of the Wireless Research Center of Excellence, Egypt. His research interests include mobile wireless networks, mobile computing, location determination technologies, pervasive computing, and network security. He has tens of issued and pending patents. He is the Lead Guest Editor of the upcoming IEEE Computer Special Issue on Transformative Technologies, an Associate Editor for IEEE TMC and ACM TSAS, served as an Area Editor of ACM MC2R as well as on the organizing and technical committees of numerous prestigious conferences. He is the recipient of the 2003 University of Maryland Invention of the Year award, the 2010 TWAS-AAS-Microsoft Award for Young Scientists, the 2013 and 2014 COMESA Innovation Award, the 2013 ACM SIGSpatial GIS Conference Best Paper Award, the 2017 Egyptian State Award, multiple Google Research Awards, among many others. He is an ACM Distinguished Speaker, an ACM Distinguished Scientist, and an IEEE Fellow.