HomeZdenek Becvar

Zdenek Becvar

Professor

Research areas: Mobility management, Radio resource management, Flying base stations/UAVs, Edge computing, C-RAN, Machine learning

Google scholar

Research gate

PHONE NUMBER

+420 2 2435 5964

EMAIL ADDRESS

zdenek.becvar@fel.cvut.cz

Career in numbers

Biography

Zdenek Becvar received M.Sc. and Ph.D. in Telecommunication Engineering from the Czech Technical University in Prague, Czech Republic in 2005 and 2010, respectively. Now, he is Associate Professor at the Department of Telecommunication Engineering, Czech Technical University in Prague, Czech Republic. From 2006 to 2007, he joined Sitronics R&D centre in Prague focusing on speech quality in VoIP. Furthermore, he was involved in research activities of Vodafone R&D center at Czech Technical University in Prague in 2009. He was on internships at Budapest Politechnic, Hungary (2007), CEA-Leti, France (2013), and EURECOM, France (2016, 2019). He has participated in many European and national research projects focused on mobile networks. From 2013 to 2017, he was a representative of the Czech Technical University in Prague in ETSI and 3GPP standardization organizations. He is a member of more than 30 program committees at international conferences and workshops including flagship conferences, such as IEEE ICC, Globecom, WCNC, VTC, etc. He is an editor in IEEE Wireless Communications Letters journal and also acts as a review for many prestigious journals. He published more than 100 conference and journal papers and he is (co-)inventor of four US patents. He is recipient of one best paper award at European Wireless 2017 and of bronze medal at ACM Mobicom App contest 2015. Since 2019, he is included in the list of 2% top Scientists published by Stanford University. He has supervised more than 30 master and bachelor students and 6 PhD students, out of which, four master and two PhD students received the deans award for their theses. He works on development of solutions for future mobile networks with special focus on optimization of radio resource management, mobility support, device-to-device communication, self-optimization, and architecture of radio access network (including small cells, UAVs, MEC, and C-RAN).

Publications, patents, and demos

Zdenek is author of more than 100 papers at international conferences and in peer-reviewed journals, four book chapters, and four patents.
Selected publications

M. Nikooroo and Z. Becvar,“Maximization of Minimum User Capacity in UAV-Enabled Mobile Networks with NOMA”, IEEE Networking Letters, volume 5, no. 1, 2023.
A. Madelkhanova, Z. Becvar and T. Spyropoulos,“Optimization of Cell Individual Offset for Handover of Flying Base Stations and Users”, IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications, 2022.
Z. Becvar, M. Nikooroo and P. Mach,“On Energy Consumption of Airship-based Flying Base Stations Serving Mobile Users”, IEEE Transactions on Communications, volume 70, no. 10, 2022.
M. Nikooroo and Z. Becvar,“Optimization of Total Power Consumed by Flying Base Station Serving Mobile Users”, IEEE Transactions on Network Science and Engineering, volume 9, no. 4, 2022.
M. Najla, Z. Becvar, P. Mach and D. Gesbert, “System and Methods for Device-to-Device Communication”, US patent No. US11284361B2, 2022.
P. Mach, Z. Becvar and M. Najla,“Power Allocation, Channel Reuse, and Positioning of Flying Base Stations with Realistic Backhaul”, IEEE Internet of Things Journal, volume 9, no. 3, 2022.
M. Nikooroo and Z. Becvar, “Optimal Positioning of Flying Base Stations and Transmission Power Allocation in NOMA Networks”, IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications, volume 21, no. 2, 2022.
M. Najla, Z. Becvar and P. Mach, “Reuse of Multiple Channels by Multiple D2D Pairs in Dedicated Mode: Game Theoretic Approach”, IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications, volume 20, no. 7, 2021.
M. Najla, Z. Becvar, P. Mach and D. Gesbert,“Positioning and Association Rules for Transparent Flying Relay Stations”, IEEE Wireless Communications Letters, volume 10, no. 6, 2021.
A. Madelkhanova and Z. Becvar, “Optimization of Cell Individual Offset for Handover of Flying Base Station”, IEEE Vehicular Technology Conference (IEEE VTC-Spring 2021), 2021.
Z. Becvar, P. Mach, M. Elfiky and M. Sakamoto, “Hierarchical Scheduling for Suppression of Fronthaul Delay in C-RAN with Dynamic Functional Split”, IEEE Communications Magazine, volume 59, no. 4, 2021.
J. Plachy, Z. Becvar, E. Calvanese Strinati and N. di Pietro, “Dynamic Allocation of Computing and Communication Resources in Multi-Access Edge Computing for Mobile Users”, IEEE Transactions on Network and Service Management, 2021.
P. Mach, T. Spyropoulos and Z. Becvar,“Incentive-based D2D Relaying in Cellular Networks”, IEEE Transactions on Communications, volume 69, no. 3, 2021.
Z. Becvar and P. Mach, “Hierarchical resource scheduling method of wireless communication system”, US patent US10849139B2, 2020.
M. Najla, Z. Becvar, P. Mach and D. Gesbert,“Predicting Device-to-Device Channels from Cellular Channel Measurements: A Learning Approach”, IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications, volume 19, no. 11, 2020.
M. Najla, P. Mach and Z. Becvar,“Deep Learning for Selection between RF and VLC Bands in Device-to-Device Communication”, IEEE Wireless Communications Letters, volume 9, no. 10, 2020.
Z. Becvar and P. Mach, “Methods and devices for resource scheduling in wireless communication systems”, US patent US10798722B2, 2020.
Z. Becvar, P. Mach, M. Høgdal and A.P. Avramova, “Hierarchical resource scheduling method of wireless communication system”, US patent US10624105B2, 2020.
R.G. Cheng, Z. Becvar, Y.S. Huang, G. Bianchi and R. Harwahyu,“Two-Phase Random Access Procedure for LTE-A Networks”, IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications, volume 18, no. 4, 2019.
P. Mach, Z. Becvar and M. Najla,“Resource Allocation for D2D Communication with Multiple D2D Pairs Reusing Multiple Channels”, IEEE Wireless Communications Letters, volume 8, no. 4, 2019.
J. Plachy, Z. Becvar, P. Mach, R. Marik and M. Vondra, “Joint Positioning of Flying Base Stations and Association of Users: Evolutionary-Based Approach”, IEEE Access, volume 7, 2019.
K. da Costa Silva, Z. Becvar and C. R. Francês,“Adaptive Hysteresis Margin Based on Fuzzy Logic for Handover in Mobile Networks with Dense Small Cells”, IEEE Access, volume 6, 2018.
R.G. Cheng, Z. Becvar and P.H. Yang,“Modeling of Distributed Queueing-based Random Access for Machine Type Communications in Mobile Networks”, IEEE Communications Letters, volume 22, no. 1, 2018.
P. Mach and Z. Becvar,“Energy-aware Dynamic Selection of Overlay and Underlay Spectrum Sharing for Cognitive Small cells”, IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology, volume 66, no. 5, 2017.
Z. Becvar, M. Vondra, P. Mach, J. Plachy and D. Gesbert, “Performance of Mobile Networks with UAVs: Can Flying Base Stations Substitute Ultra-Dense Small Cells?”, European Wireless (EW 2017), 2017, BEST PAPER AWARD.
P. Mach and Z. Becvar,“Mobile Edge Computing: A Survey on Architecture and Computation Offloading”, IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials, volume 19, no. 3, 2017.
J. Plachy, Z. Becvar and P. Mach, “Path Selection Enabling User Mobility and Efficient Distribution of Data for Computation at the Edge of Mobile Network”, Computer Networks, volume 108, 2016.
M. Vondra and Z. Becvar,“Distance-based Neighborhood Scanning for Handover Purposes in Network with Small Cells”, IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology, volume 65, no. 2, 2016.

Patents

M. Najla, Z. Becvar, P. Mach, D. Gesbert, SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR DEVICE-TO-DEVICE COMMUNICATION, U.S. Non-Provisional Application No. 16/919,990, 2020.
Z. Becvar, P. Mach, M. Høgdal, A.P. Avramova, Hierarchical resource scheduling method of wireless communication system,
US Patent US10849139B2, November 2020.
Z. Becvar, P. Mach, Methods and devices for resource scheduling in wireless communication systems, US Patent US10798722B2, June 2020.
Z. Becvar, P. Mach, M. Høgdal, A.P. Avramova, Hierarchical resource scheduling method of wireless communication system, US Patent US10624105B2, April 2020.

Demos

D2D channel quality prediction via Deep Neural Network
- Prediction of channel quality between any two devices from already known channels to base stations
- Channel is predicted via deep neural network (DNN)
  - DNN trained offline and then deployed at a MEC server, where the prediction takes place
- Implementation lead by Jan Plachy
- Related publications
  - M. Najla, Z. Becvar, P. Mach, D. Gesbert, “Predicting Device-to-Device Channels from Cellular Channel Measurements: A Learning Approach”, IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications, vol. 19, no. 11, pp. 7124 – 7138, 2020.
    - Details of the concept of the channel prediction
  - M. Najla, Z. Becvar, P. Mach, D. Gesbert, SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR DEVICE-TO-DEVICE COMMUNICATION, U.S. Non-Provisional Application No. 16/919,990, 2020.
    - Patent application covering the idea of channel prediction
- Role: Design the concept and scenarios

Flying base station
- Prototype of Flying base station (FlyBS)
- The FlyBS consists of a drone (hexacopter) and a communication HW (NUC+USRP B205) + SW (OAI) for connectivity of the users and an LTE dongle for connectivity to a base station.
- Implementation lead by Miguel Fontanilla Perez de Tudela (alumni)
- Related publications
  - Video from an initial flight.
- Role: concept design, supervision of students working on the development

Mobile Edge Computing
- One of the first world-wide demo of functional MEC platform allowing to offload computation from phone to edge server collocated with a base station in frame of FP7 TROPIC project
- Implementaiton lead by Jakub Doleza (alumni) and Jan Plachy
- Related publications:
  - J. Dolezal, Z. Becvar, T. Zeman, “Performance Evaluation of Computation Offloading from Mobile Device to the Edge of Mobile Network”, IEEE Conference on Standards for Communications & Networking (IEEE CSCN 2016), pp. 1-7, 2016.
  - Third place in Mobicom 2015 App Contest with Android application Percipio for demonstration of MEC offloading performance
  - J. Dolezal, Z. Becvar, “Methodology and tool for energy consumption modeling of mobile devices”, IEEE Wireless Communications and Networking Conference (IEEE WCNC 2014) workshops, pp. 34-39, 2014.
  - Demo at Joint ETSI – OSA Workshop: Open Implementations and Standardization in 2018.

Research projects

Predictive allocation of edge computing resources for autonomous driving (07/2022 – 06/2025)
- funded by The Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports
- main roles: principal researcher, allocation of computing and communication resurces for vehicles
Cooperation with the International Research Centre in Area of Digital Communication Systems (03/2020 – 12/2024)
- funded by The Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports supports membership of CTU in EURECOM and international collaboration in the area of communication systems
- main roles: principal researcher, machine learning for network optimization
Precise positioning for autonomous train operation with secure communications on new 5G+ mobile networks (01/2020 – 12/2023)
- Research project no. FW01010187 funded by Technology Agency of Czech Republic
- main roles: Performance analysis of 5G for communication of autonomous trains
Communication in Self-optimizing Mobile Networks with Drones (01/2018 – 06/2021)
- funded by Czech Science Foundation
- main roles: principal researcher, positioning of the flying base station and users’ association based on genetic algorithms
Cooperation with the International Research Centre in Area of Digital Communication Systems (01/2018 – 12/2019)
- funded by The Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports supports membership of CTU in EURECOM and international collaboration in the area of communication systems
- main roles: principal researcher, machine learning for communication networks
Combined Radio Frequency and Visible Light Bands for Device-to-Device communication (01/2017 – 12/2019)
- funded by Czech Science Foundation
- main roles: performance limits, mobility management, mode selection
Mobile Edge Computing and Functional Splitting for Scheduling of Radio Resources (10/2016-09/2019)
- Research project funded by FOXCONN, Taiwan
- main roles: principal researcher, design and analysis of dynamic MAC functions splitting between BBUs and RRHs
Game theoretic aspects of wireless spectrum access (07/2016 – 06/2018)
- funded by Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of Czech Republic
- main roles: leader of CTU team, resource allocation, spectrum sharing, emulation of network
FP7 TROPIC (09/2012 – 04/2015)
- funded by European Commission
- main roles: WP leader (Scenarios, Architecture, and Market Analysis), architecture design, path selection, developent of AR application
Prediction Algorithms for Efficient Mobility Management in Wireless Networks (01/2011 – 12/2014)
- postdoc project funded by Czech Science Foundation
- main roles: principal researcher, design of prediction algorithms for mobility management (NCL, admission, handover) in future mobile networks
FP7 FREEDOM (01/2010 – 12/2011)
- FP7 project no. ICT-248891 funded by European Commission
- main roles: Workpackage leader (Control procedures for RRM), Member of coordination and technical project committees, mobility and radio resource management for networks with femtocells, leader of CTU team
FP7 ROCKET (01/2009 – 12/2010)
- FP7 project no. ICT-215282 funded by European Commission
- main roles: mobility management for OFDMA networks towards IMT Advanced requirements, leader of CTU team
Feasibility study of national radio access network based on WiMAX (09/2007 – 12/2007)
- National project funded by Ministry of the Interior of the Czech Republic.
FP7 FIREWORKS (01/2006 – 12/2007)
- FP6 project no. IST-027675 funded by European Commission.
- main roles: PhD student focused on relay stations in OFDM systems
Improvement of VoIP speech quality (01/2006-12/2007)
- Project funded by Sitronics R&D centre, Prague.
- main roles: Analysis of impact of various disturbtions on VoIP speech quality

Awards

Personal awards

Exemplary reviewer IEEE Wireless Communications Letters 2020
Included in the list of World’s Top 2% Scientists by Stanford University in 2020
Included in the list of World’s Top 2% Scientists by Stanford University in 2019
Invited participation at US-EU Frontieers of Engineering 2019, Stockholm, Sweden

Conferences

Best paper award at European Wireless 2017 (see Publications)
Third place in Mobicom 2015 App Contes with Android application Percipio as a proof of concept of Mobile Edge Computing

PhD theses

Dean’s award for prestigious PhD thesis to Mehyar Najla (2021)
Dean’s award for prestigious PhD thesis to Michal Vondra (2015)

Master and bachelor students

Dean’s award for outstanding master thesis to Martina Matejkova (2019)
Dean’s award for outstanding master thesis to Martin Charvat (2018)
Dean’s award for outstanding master thesis to Yi-Shin Huang (2017)
Dean’s award for outstanding master thesis to Jan Plachy (2014)

Standardization bodies

ETSI – representative of Czech Technical University in Prague, 2013-2017
3GPP – contributor and representative of Czech Technical University in Prague, 2013-2017

Journal reviews

IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications
IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing
IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology
IEEE Transactions on Network and Service Management
IEEE Transactions on Communications
IEEE Transactions on Network Science and Engineering
IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing
IEEE Transactions on Cybernetics
IEEE Internet of Things Journal
IEEE Communications Magazine
IEEE Wireless Communications Magazine
IEEE Vehicular Technology Magazine
IEEE Network Magazine
IEEE Wireless Communications Letters
IEEE Communications Letters
IEEE Networking Letters
IEEE Systems journal
Computer Networks
… and many others

Editorial boards

IEEE Wireless Communications Letters (since 12/2021)
Wireless Communications and Mobile Computing (since 2018)
KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (2015-2021)

Conference committees

• IEEE Globecom 2022 – TPC member

• IEEE PIMRC 2022 – Worskhop CLEEN – Publicity chair and TPC member

• IEEE WCNC 2022 – TPC member

• IEEE ICC 2022 – TPC member

• EuCNC & 6G summit 2022 – TPC member and Workshops Co-Chair

• IEEE Globecom 2021 – TPC member

• IEEE WCNC 2021 – TPC member

• IEEE ICC 2021 – TPC member

• IEEE Globecom 2020 – TPC member

• IEEE PIMRC 2020 – TPC member

• IEEE ICC 2020 workshop CLEEN – Publicity chair & TPC member

• IEEE Globecom 2019 – TPC member

• IEEE WCNC 2019 – TPC member

• IEEE WCNC 2019 workshop CLEEN – Publicity chair & TPC member

• IEEE VTC 2019 – Spring – TPC member

• IEEE VTC 2018 – Spring – TPC member

• IEEE WCNC 2018 – TPC member

• ICUFN 2018 – Organizing Chair

• IEEE VTC 2018 – Spring workshop CLEEN – Publicity chair & TPC member

• IEEE CloudNet 2017 – General co-chair

• IEEE Globecom 2017: Mobile and Wireless Networks track – TPC member

• IEEE ICC 2017 workshop WDN-5G – TPC member

• IEEE WCNC 2017 – TPC member

• IWCMC 2017 – Steering committee

• IGBSG 2016 – Track Chair

• IEEE VTC 2015-Spring

• IEEE WCNC 2015 workshop WDN-CN’15 – TPC member

• ISNCC 2015 – TPC member

• ISNE 2015 – TPC member

• IEEE GLOBECOM 2014 workshop Broadband Wireless Access – Publicity chair & TPC

• IEEE PIMRC 2014 workshop WDN-CN2014 – TPC member

• IEEE WCNC 2014 workshop CLEEN – TPC member

• IEEE PIMRC 2013 – TPC member

• IEEE PIMRC 2013 workshop WDN-CN2013 – TPC member

• IEEE VTC-Fall 2013 workshop CLEEN (Cloud Technologies…) – TPC member

• IFIP Networking 2012, Prague, May 2012, Organizing committee – Workshop Chair

• International Conference on Networks, TPC since 2008

• TPC of various conferences organized by AICIT

Supervised postdocs

Jan Plachy (01/2021 – … tenure (since 07/2022 part-time)
Mostafa Kishiani (04/2021 – 12/2022)
Mehyar Najla (05/2021 – 11/2021)
Akbar Majidi (03/2021 – 08/2021)
Md. Sakir Hossain (05-2019 – 12/2019)

Supervised PhD students

Muhammad Imad
Aida Madelkhanova
Mohammadsaleh Nikooroo
Toha Ardi nugraha
Mohammed Elfiky
Alumni
- Mehyar Najla co-supervisor (2016 – 2020) – Dean’s award for prestigious PhD thesis
- Jan Plachy (2014 – 2020)
- Michal Vondra (2010 – 2014) – Dean’s award for prestigious PhD thesis

Teaching and academic activities

University committees

Member of Scientific council at Faculty of Electrical Engineering, CTU in Prague
Member of Scientific council at EURECOM, France
Deputy chair of the board for Telecommunication Engineering section in Electrical Engineering and Communications PhD study program
Coordinator of master’s double-degree with NTUST, Taiwan
Coordinator of master’s double-degree with EURECOM, France
Member of board of Electronics and Communications study program at CTU in Prague

Supervisor of master and bachelor students

More than 35 master students
Four bachelor students

Currently taught courses

Mobile Networks (B2M32MKSA)
Wireless Technologies (B2M32BTSA)
Data Networks Theory (A8B32DNT)

Past courses

Mobile Communication Networks (A2M32MKS)
Telecommunication systems (X32TSS)
Fundamentals of Digital Technology (X32ZCT)
Wireless Technologies and Sensor Networks (B2M32BTS)