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Brief Profile of the Awardee

awardee

Dr Neelesh B Mehta

  • 2017
  • Engineering Sciences
  • 09/01/1975
  • Wireless Communications
Award Citation:

Dr Mehta has made notable contributions in the areas of wireless communication, energy-harvesting wireless networks, interference modeling and co-operative communications.

Academic Qualifications:
SNODegreeSubjectCGP/MarksYearUniversityAdditional Particular
1B. Tech.Electronics and Communications9.71996Indian Institute of Technology, Madras 
2M.S.Electrical Engineering 1997California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA 
3PhDElectrical Engineering 2001California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USAIn wireless communications
       
Thesis and Guide details:
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Details of CSIR Fellowship/ Associateship held, if any or from other sources/ agencies.
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Significant foreign assignments:
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(a) Significant contributions to science and/ or technology development by the nominee based on the work done in India during most part of last 5 years:
- Note: Cross-references of research papers are with respect to serial numbering in Annexure 16(d), and of patents are with respect to serial numbering in item 18(a) - Prof. Mehta has made fundamental contributions to the modeling, design and analysis of opportunistic selection and adaptation in modern wireless communication systems, with applications to green wireless sensor networks, 4G/5G cellular radio systems, opportunistic selection, cooperative relaying, and cognitive radio. His research on green energy harvesting networks, which exploit renewable energy and promise perpetual operation, is getting increasingly well-cited. It has highlighted several new design challenges and trade-offs that arise in these networks [J4][J12][J23][J43]. His original work on hybrid sensor networks, which consist of a mixture of energy harvesting and conventional sensor nodes, is the first to investigate this important and new class of networks [J14]. It revisits fundamental issues such as new performance measures to evaluate and compare such networks, and how to compute them efficiently. His seminal investigation in [J43] establishes the benefits of exploiting energy harvesting in cooperative relays. He and his group in IISc have pioneered best-in-class, distributed, scalable algorithms for opportunistically selecting the best node from among the available nodes in a wireless system. These find applications in many contemporary wireless systems such as cellular radio, cooperative relaying, cognitive radio, and wireless sensor networks [J9][J17][J22][J32][J37][J45]. The structural properties that he has proved about the optimal timer algorithm have led to new computationally-efficient methods for designing and applying these popular algorithms in many opportunistic wireless systems [J10][J21][J24][J47]. He was also awarded the Swarnajayanti Fellowship for the year 2014-15 for his research proposal on new opportunistic selection algorithms. His group has also developed energy-efficient training schemes to acquire channel state information required for opportunistically selecting a subset of the available antennas in multi-antenna capable nodes [J25][J26][J41][J44][J46][J48]. These enable the use of low-complexity multi-antenna selection technologies in 4G/5G cellular standards [J33]. Another well-known contribution by Prof. Mehta is his novel analytical framework, which is based on the concept of an effective exponential signal-to-noise-ratio mapping (EESM). It helps characterize and optimize the performance of feedback schemes in 4G cellular standards [J11][J19][J38][J39]. This has also led to novel adaptation and scheduling algorithms for reduced feedback schemes that improve cell throughput without additional feedback [J1][J3]. Cooperative communications is another technology of relevance to 5G cellular systems, to which Prof. Mehta has made several important, well-recognized recognized contributions. These include his highly cited earlier works on relay selection for cooperative beam-forming [J55] and rateless codes-based relaying [J42], which establish the benefits and fundamental limitations of cooperative techniques. His substantial body of work on optimal adaptation, relaying, and selection policies in interference-constrained cognitive radio systems is noteworthy for its systematic development of the optimal policies, and the order of magnitude performance gains achieved over ad hoc approaches pursued in the literature [J5][J6][J7][J13][J15][J16][J20][J30]. This research vastly improves the potential of the promising cognitive radio technology to effectively address the significant spectrum shortage faced currently by wireless operators in India.
(b) Impact of the contributions in the field concerned:
Prof. Mehta’s research work has led to the new advances in the design and evaluation of energy harvesting-based green wireless sensor and relaying networks. This is an impactful area of research today given the focus on the telecommunications industry and society on green, energy-efficient communications. His research vastly improves cognitive radio’s potential to effectively address the significant spectrum shortage faced by society today. His work on selection algorithms and adaptation finds applications in opportunistic techniques, which play a vital role in current and next generation wireless cellular systems, vehicular networks, and sensor networks. His work advances Indian technology in cellular standards.
Places where work of last 5 years has been referred/ cited in Books, Reviews:
(i). Paper Cited
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(ii). Book Cited
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Names of the industries in which the technology (ies) has (have) been used :
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The achievements already been recognised by Awards by any learned body:
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The Awardee a fellow of the Indian National Science Academy/Indian Academy of Sciences/National Academy of Sciences/Others:
FASC,FNAE,Swarnajayanti
The Awardee delivered invited lecture(s) in India/abroad and/or chaired any scientific Internatiional Conference Symposium:
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List of Awardee's 10 most significant publications.
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List of Awardee's 5 most significant publications during the last 5 years
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List of Awardee's 5 most significant publications from out of work done in India during the last five years:
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Complete list of publications in standard refereed journals:
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Complete list of publications with foreign collaborators (indicating your status as author):
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List of papers published in Conferences /Symposia/ Seminars, etc:
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List of the most outstanding Technical Reports/ Review Articles:
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Statement regarding collaboration with scientists abroad:
List of Patents taken
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Total number of patents granted in last five years.
Details of Books published:
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Contact Details


  • Department of Electrical Communication Engineering
    Indian Institute of Science
    CV Raman Road
    Bangalore - 560012
    Karnataka INDIA
  • 080 2293 2276
  • 080 2360 0563
  • neeleshbmehta[at]gmail[dot]com
20 Jun 2025, https://ssbprize.gov.in/Content/Detail.aspx?AID=531