Virginia Tech, CCI researchers and students win big at influential military communications conference
Winners include the Bradley Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, National Security Institute, and the Commonwealth Cyber Initiative.
R. Michael Buehrer, Virginia Tech electrical and computer engineering professor receives the 2023 Technical Achievement Award at IEEE MILCOM 2023.
Researchers and students from Virginia Tech and the Commonwealth Cyber Initiative (CCI) garnered top honors at the prestigious Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Military Communications Conference held Oct. 30-Nov. 3 in Boston.
Members of Virginia Tech’s Bradley Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and National Security Institute were recognized for their cutting-edge work. The Military Communications Conference (MILCOM) is the leading conference of its kind, drawing participants from more than 20 countries.
“This conference is unique in that it brings together researchers from academia, industry, and military organizations to address critical challenges in military communications,” said CCI Executive Director Luiz DaSilva, who served as the conference's general chair and is the Bradley Professor of Cybersecurity at Virginia Tech. “With more than 900 attendees in unrestricted, restricted, and classified tracks, this year's MILCOM focused on communications in contested environments.”
Career Achievement Award
R. Michael Buehrer, professor in the Bradley Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and director of Wireless@VirginiaTech, brought home the conference’s top award, the 2023 Technical Achievement Award, for his sustained technical contributions to military communications. The award is given each year to a researcher who has “over a long period of time, made many important technical contributions to military communications as evidenced by significant, high-quality, technical publications in the unclassified conference records," according to its description
"It is an honor to receive this award, and I appreciate even being considered for it,” Buehrer said. “As it is a career achievement award, it is really a testament to the fantastic students that I have had over the years. I dedicate this award to them."
Best Paper
Buehrer also is part of the Best Paper winning team, which includes Megan O. Moore and William C. Headley, both of the National Security Institute. The institute was formed in 2021 with the goal of becoming the nation's preeminent academic organization at the nexus of interdisciplinary research, technology, policy, and talent development to advance national security.
Of roughly 235 submitted papers and 125 accepted papers, they won both the Fred. W. Ellersick award for best paper in the unrestricted technical program and as well as the Vanu Bose best paper awards in the unrestricted portion of the conference given by the National Spectrum Consortium. Both awards were given for their paper, "Time-Diverse Doppler-only LEO PNT." The paper addresses the use of the new satellite mega-constellations such as Starlink, which are designed primarily for internet access as a backup for GPS.
Best Demonstration Paper
CCI researchers and students swept the Best Demonstration Paper awards. CCI, unique in the nation, is a statewide consortium of more than 40 Virginia universities and colleges, and includes a number of industry and government partners. Its interlocking mission lines — research, workforce development, and innovation — focus on cybersecurity. The CCI Hub, which coordinates the entire network, and the CCI Southwest Virginia Node are based at Virginia Tech.
CCI winners include:
- "Demonstration of Closed-loop AI-driven RAN Controllers Using O-RAN SDR Testbed" by Nathan H. Stephenson, Azuka J. Chiejina, Nathaniel B. Kabigting, and Vijay K. Shah
- "End-to-end O-RAN Control Loop for Radio Resource Allocation in SDR-based 5G Network" by Asheesh Tripathi, Jaswanth S. R. Mallu, Md Habibur Rahman, Abida Sultana, Aditya Sathish, Alexandre Huff, Mayukh Roy Chowdhury, and Aloizio P Pereira Da Silva
- "Adaptive Beam Management for Secure MmWave Communications Using Software-defined Radios" by Adrian L. Baron-Hyppolite, Jefferson Viana Fonseca Abreu, Joao F. Santos, Luiz DaSilva, and Jacek Kibilda.
Adrian L. Baron-Hyppolite, a master’s student in computer engineering at Virginia Tech, studies a program display from the Commonwealth Cyber Initiative, where he is a graduate research assistant. IEEE Milcom featured five technical tracks, workshops, a variety of panels and tutorials.
Participants at the 41st annual IEEE Milcom conference in Boston discuss an exhibit featuring an Open Radio Access Network (O-RAN). Several Virginia Tech students are conducting O-RAN-related research with the Commonwealth Cyber Initiative, which is based at the Virginia Tech Research Center in Arlington.
Adrian L. Baron-Hyppolite, far right, a master’s student in computer engineering at Virginia Tech, explains a demonstration to IEEE Milcom participants during the conference in Boston earlier this month. Government, industry, and academia leaders representing more than 20 nations attended the conference.
From left, Aditya Sathish, masters student in computer engineering, Aloizio DaSilva, research faculty, and Md. Habibur Rahman, a Ph.D. student in electrical engineering, all of Virginia Tech, were recognized for work on the paper “End-to-end O-RAN Control Loop for Radio Resource Allocation in SDR-based 5G Network.” Other contributors to the paper included Asheesh Tripathi, Jaswanth S. R. Mallu, Abida Sultana, Alexandre Huff, and Mayukh Roy Chowdhury.
Virginia Tech researchers R. Michael Buehrer, center, Megan O. Moore, second from right, and William C. Headley, far right, took two best paper awards at IEEE Milcom for their work Time-Diverse Doppler-only LEO PNT. They’re here with Milcom chairs, from left, CCI Executive Director Luiz DaSilva, and William Semancik of the MIT Lincoln Laboratory.
