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Sergio Verdú

My research is in the fields of information theory and multiuser communications. In the 1980s, my work pioneered the communication receiver design technology of multiuser detection. This technology exploits the structure of the multiaccess interference in order to increase the capacity of multiuser communication systems. Multiuser detection finds applications in communication systems such as mobile cellular, fixed wireless access, high-speed data transmission, satellite communication, digital television, and multitrack magnetic recording. With the ever-growing sophistication of signal processing and computation, advances in communication theory have increasing potential to bridge the gap between feasible channel utilization and the fundamental information theoretical limits on channel capacity. Multiuser detection is now one of the most vibrant research areas in communications technology. Drawing from tools in fields such as detection and estimation, signal processing, information theory, computational complexity, and combinatorial optimization, research in multiuser detection presents opportunities for graduate students interested in applying theoretical tools to the design of innovative receiver technologies for state-of-the-art communication systems. A systematic presentation of this subject can be found in my 1998 textbook published by Cambridge University Press.

Our work on information theory explores the fundamental limits of data transmision and compression systems. Opportunities for research exist in a wide range of problems as illustrated by some previous contributions to information theory: a) The capacity of the single-server queues. b) The capacity of multiple-access channels (subject to asynchronism, memory, and so on) c) The capacity of channels with side information. d) A formula for the minimum energy required to send one bit of information reliably. e) The maximum randomness required to simulate the input to a random system. f) Generation of random bits from stochastic processes. g) A general formula for single-user channel capacity. h) Conditions for the validity of the source-channel separation principle. i) The empirical distribution of capacity-achieving codes. j) Formulas for the spectral efficiency of CDMA with optimal and suboptimal receivers. k) Role of the asymptotic equipartition property in optimum data compression. l)The rate-distortion function of Poisson processes and other continuous-time Markov processes.

The collection of tutorial articles Information Theory: Fifty Years of Discovery, which I edited and which was published by IEEE Press in 1999, is a useful reference for graduate students searching for research topics.

In addition to holding an appointment in the Department of Electrical Engineering, I am a core faculty member of the Program in Applied and Computational Mathematics. For more detailed information on my research interests and publications, please visit the web site http://www.ee.princeton.edu/~verdu.

Optimum multiuser detector in the presence of a synchronous interferer.