He is director of the Wireless Networking and Communications Group and the Wireless Systems Innovations Lab. He received the B.S. and M.S. degrees from the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, in 1996 and 1997 respectively, and the Ph.D. from Stanford University, Stanford, CA, in 2002, all in electrical engineering. From 1998 to 2001, he was a Senior Member of the Technical Staff then a Senior Consultant at Iospan Wireless Inc, San Jose, CA where he worked on the design and implementation of the physical and link layers of the first commercial MIMO-OFDM communication system.
Since January 2002, he has been with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin. He is also President and CEO of MIMO Wireless Inc. and VP of Innovation at Kuma Signals LLC. His research interests include several aspects of wireless communication and signal processing including limited feedback techniques, multihop networking, multiuser and multicell MIMO, interference alignment, adaptive video transmission, manifold signal processing, and 60GHz communication techniques.
Dr. Heath has been an Editor for the IEEE Transactions on Communication, an Associate Editor for the IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology, lead guest editor for an IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications special issue on limited feedback communication, and lead guest editor for an IEEE Journal on Selected Topics in Signal Processing special issue on Heterogenous Networks. He currently serves on the steering committee for the IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications. He was a member of the Signal Processing for Communications Technical Committee in the IEEE Signal Processing Society. Currently he is the Chair of the IEEE COMSOC Communications Technical Theory Committee. He was a technical co-chair for the 2007 Fall Vehicular Technology Conference, general chair of the 2008 Communication Theory Workshop, general co-chair, technical co-chair and co-organizer of the 2009 IEEE Signal Processing for Wireless Communications Workshop, local co-organizer for the 2009 IEEE CAMSAP Conference, technical co-chair for the 2010 IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory, the technical chair for the 2010 Asilomar Conference on Signals, Systems, and Computers, and is technical co-chair for the 2014 IEEE GLOBECOM conference.
Dr. Heath was a 2003 Frontiers in Education New Faculty Fellow. He was a co-author of best student paper awards at IEEE VTC 2006 Spring, WPMC 2006, IEEE GLOBECOM 2006, IEEE VTC 2007 Spring, and IEEE RWS 2009. He is co-recipient of the Grand Prize in the 2008 WinTech WinCool Demo Contest and is co-recipient of the 2010 EURASIP Journal on Wireless Communications and Networking best paper award. Dr.Heath is the recipient of the David and Doris Lybarger Endowed Faculty Fellowship in Engineering.
He is a licensed Amateur Radio Operator and is a registered Professional Engineer in Texas. Dr. Heath is a Fellow of the IEEE.
Robert W. Heath Jr. received the Ph.D. in EE from Stanford University. He is a Cullen Trust for Higher Education Endowed Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin and a Member of the Wireless Networking and Communications Group. He is also the President and CEO of MIMO Wireless Inc and Chief Innovation Officer at Kuma Signals LLC. Prof. Heath is a recipient of the 2012 Signal Processing Magazine Best Paper award, a 2013 Signal Processing Society best paper award, the 2014 EURASIP Journal on Advances in Signal Processing best paper award, and the 2014 Journal of Communications and Networks best paper award, the 2016 IEEE Communications Society Fred W. Ellersick Prize, the 2016 IEEE Communications Society and Information Theory Society Joint Paper Award, the 2017 IEEE Marconi Prize Paper Award, and the 2017 European Signal Processing Society Technical Achievement Award. He authored "Introduction to Wireless Digital Communication” (Prentice Hall in 2017) and "Digital Wireless Communication: Physical Layer Exploration Lab Using the NI USRP” (National Technology and Science Press in 2012). He co-authored “Millimeter Wave Wireless Communications” (Prentice Hall in 2014). He is a licensed Amateur Radio Operator, a registered Professional Engineer in Texas, and is a Fellow of the IEEE.
Dr. Heath’s research interests include:
• Signal processing for multiple antenna wireless communication systems including 5G
• Data-driven configuration of the physical layer
• Machine learning for millimeter wave beam training
• Using out-of-band information to reduce overhead in wireless systems
• Sensor fusion for advanced driver assistance systems
Data Science and Engineering