Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Know our people - Arogyaswami Paulraj


Prof. Arogyaswami Paulraj was born in Coimbatore, India. He joined the Indian Navy at age 15 through the National Defence Academy, Kharakvalsa and served the Navy for 30 years. He is currently a Professor at the Dept. of Elect. Engineering, Stanford University. Paulraj is the pioneer of a break through wireless technology known as MIMO (multiple input, multiple output) that dramatically increases performance of wireless systems, MIMO is now the core technology in latest WiFi and WIMAX systems.

Paulraj served in India till 1991 where he is known for pioneering the development of military sonars (APSOH0 family. Paulraj also served as the founding director for three major labs in India - CAIR ([Center for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics]), CDAC (Center for Development of Advanced Computing), and CRL (Central Research Labs of Bharat Electronics). He has won over a dozen defense and national awards in India. He is also a fellow of the Indian National Academy of Engineering.

After joining Stanford University in 1992, he created a new field of smart antennas and MIMO wireless. He has published 2 text books, over 350 research papers and is a co-inventor on 30 US patents. He has won a number of awards including the IEEE Technical Achievement award and is a member of the US National Academy of Engineering.

He founded Iospan Wireless in 1999 to develop MIMO-OFDMA technology and the company was later was acquired by Intel Corp. in 2003. He also co-founded Spectrum Infotech Ltd. in Bangalore which was acquired by L&T in 2006. In 2004 he co-founded Beceem Communications Inc., a company dealing in WIMAX wireless chip technology.

Paulraj sits on several university, company and advisory boards in US and in India. He is married to Nirmala Paulraj, and has two daughters.


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