Farah Arabian, an Electrical Engineering PhD student studying Telecommunications, was awarded Best Student Paper for her research paper submission at the International Telemetry Conference in Phoenix on November 7, 2018.
Her paper, entitled "On the Performance of Filter Based Equalizers for 16APSK in Aeronautical Telemetry Environment,” deals mainly with the research she conducted surrounding channel equalizers, which were designed to mitigate interference and multi-path echo infiltration on radio wave frequencies.
“I use filter-based equalizers for an applied answer for some channels in aeronautical space environments. We just analyze the performance of three equalization techniques on four measured channels and then observe and announce the result. "
Most of Farah's research is simulation-based. Her laptop simulates an aeronautical situation where a radio wave frequency is interrupted. She tests whether the filters she used were effective in the system performance enhancement.
Conducting this research required a significant amount of time and preparation for Farah. When discussing the timeline of her project, she said, "I started since I joined BYU, for the equalizers specifically, in January 2018. Since summer, I worked 40 hours per week to do the simulations. At the end of the summer, I started to write the paper. I just showed the results of my applied answers last week at the conference."
During the conference, she was awarded the Best Student Paper award, as well as a $1000 endowment. ITC also paid for all the travel expenses included flights and hotel.
Now that she has finished her paper, she hopes to continue studying apply channel equalizers for mm-wave band frequency in 5G mobile networks. She explained that when cell phones are used, there can be objects, such as the walls of the building, that interrupt the signals. She would like to study how diversity and equalization techniques can diminish the multipath effect.
Farah enjoys research and hopes to continue after her graduation from BYU. She attributes her success on this research paper and her other work to her passion for learning and research.
"If you're hardworking," she said, "you can achieve anything."
Due to her ambition and the guidance of her advisor, Doctor Michael Rice, whom she said has been very helpful and supportive, her research was recognized at the conference.
Arabian was born and raised in Tehran, Iran. Before her time at BYU, she worked at Nokia and Huawei companies. She has been studying in the Electrical Engineering department under the direction of Professor Rice since August 2017.