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Erik G. Larsson

Professor, Head of Division

Prof. Erik G. Larsson's current research focuses on techniques for efficient, robust and secure wireless connectivity in 6G, and techniques for distributed machine learning over networks.

Erik G. Larsson is Professor and Head of the Division for Communication Systems in the Department of Electrical Engineering (ISY) at Linköping University (LiU) in Linköping, Sweden. He joined LiU in September 2007. He has previously held positions at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm, University of Florida, George Washington University (USA), and Ericsson Research (Stockholm). He received his Ph.D. from Uppsala University in 2002. In the spring of 2015 he was a Visiting Fellow at Princeton University, USA, for four months.
His main professional interests are within the areas of wireless communications and signal processing. He has published some 200 journal papers on these topics, he is co-author of the two Cambridge University Press textbooks Space-Time Block Coding for Wireless Communications (2003) and Fundamentals of Massive MIMO (2016) and he holds many issued and pending patents on wireless technology.
He served as Associate Editor for several major journals, including the IEEE Transactions on Communications (2010-2014) and IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing (2006-2010). During 2015-2016 he served as chair of the IEEE Signal Processing Society SPCOM technical committee. He served as chair of the steering committee for the IEEE Wireless Communications Letters during 2014-2015, and as member of the steering committee for the IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications during 2019-2022. He was the General Chair of the Asilomar Conference on Signals, Systems and Computers in 2015, and the Technical Chair in 2012. He was a member of the IEEE Signal Processing Society Awards Board during 2017-2019, and a member of the IEEE Signal Processing Magazine editorial board during 2018-2022.
He received the IEEE Signal Processing Magazine Best Column Award twice, in 2012 and 2014, the IEEE ComSoc Stephen O. Rice Prize in Communications Theory in 2015, the IEEE ComSoc Leonard G. Abraham prize in 2017, the IEEE ComSoc Best Tutorial Paper Award in 2018, and the IEEE ComSoc Fred W. Ellersick Prize in 2019, and the IEEE SPS Donald G. Fink Overview Paper Award in 2023. He is a Fellow of the IEEE, and a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (KVA).
He won the 2021 "gyllene moroten" (golden carrot) best teacher award from LinTek, the Engineering College student union at LiU.

Teaching (recent):

Research:

- enabling technology for 6G wireless
- statistical inference and signal processing
- network science
- decentralized learning

  • Current research sponsors: The Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation; Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research (SSF); ELLIIT; Security-Link; Swedish research council (VR); H2020-SNS-6GTandem.

  • Previous research sponsors: Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences (KVA) rådsforskartjänst, 2007-2012, SSF Framtidens forskningsledare (2008-2013), U.S. National Science Foundation (theoretical foundations program), Oak Ridge Associated Universities (ORAU), Wireless@KTH. My group was partner in FP7-SENDORA (2008-2010), FP7-LOLA (2010-2012), FP7-SAPHYRE (2010-2012), FP7-MAMMOET (2014-2016) and H2020-REINDEER (2021-2024). We were also partner in H2020-ITN-5G-Wireless (2015-2018). I held a distinguished young researcher grant from the Swedish Research Council (VR) from 2013-2018.

Current Ph.D. students (as main advisor):

Graduated Ph.D. students (as main advisor, at LiU):

  • Zakir Hussain Shaik (M.Sc., IIIT Hyderabad, India, 2019)
    Dissertation title: Distributed Signal Processing for Cell-Free Massive MIMO
    Now with Nokia, France.
  • Unnikrishnan Kunnath Ganesan (Lic. Eng., LiU 2022; Ph.D. LiU 2024)
    Dissertation title: Beyond Boundaries: Evolving Connectivity with Massive MIMO
    Now with Chalmers, Gothenburg, Sweden
  • Ziya Gulgun (Lic. Eng. LiU 2021; Ph.D. LiU 2023)
    Dissertation title: GNSS and Massive MIMO: Spoofing, Jamming and Robust Receiver Design for Impulsive Noise
    Now with Ericsson, Kista, Sweden.
  • Ema Becirovic (Lic. Eng. LiU 2020; Ph.D. LiU 2022)
    Dissertation title: Signal Processing Aspects of Massive MIMO
    Now with FOI, Sweden.
  • Giovanni Interdonato (Lic. Eng. LiU 2018; Ph.D. LiU 2020)
    Dissertation title: Cell-Free Massive MIMO: Scalability, Signal Processing and Power Control
    Now with the University of Cassino, Italy.
  • Marcus Karlsson (Lic. Eng. LiU 2016, Ph.D. LiU 2018)
    Dissertation title: Blind Massive MIMO Base Stations: Downlink Transmission and Jamming
    Now with FOI, Linköping, Sweden.
  • Hei Victor Cheng (Lic. Eng. LiU 2016; Ph.D. LiU 2018)
    Dissertation title: Optimizing Massive MIMO: Precoder design and power allocation
    Now Assistant Professor at Aarhus University, Denmark.
  • Christopher Mollen (Lic. Eng. LiU 2016; Ph.D. LiU 2018)
    Dissertation title: High-End Performance with Low-End Hardware
    Now with Ericsson Research, Kista, Sweden.
  • Antonios Pitarokoilis (Lic. Eng., 2013; Ph.D. LiU 2016)
    Dissertation title: Phase noise and wideband transmission in massive MIMO
    Now with Ericsson Research, Kista, Sweden.
  • Hien Q. Ngo (Lic. Eng., 2012; Ph.D. LiU 2015)
    Dissertation title: Massive MIMO: Fundamentals and System Design.
    Now lecturer at Queens University, Belfast, UK.
  • Mirsad Cirkic (Lic. Eng., LiU 2011; Ph.D. LiU 2014)
    Dissertation title: Efficient MIMO Detection Methods
    Now with Sematic AB, Linköping.
  • Johannes Lindblom (Lic. Eng., LiU 2010; Ph.D. LiU 2014)
    Dissertation title: The MISO Channel as a Model for Non-Orthogonal Spectrum Sharing
    Now with FOI, Linköping.
  • Reza Moosavi (Lic. Eng., LiU 2011; Ph.D., LiU 2014).
    Dissertation title: Improving the Efficiency of Control Signaling in Wireless Multiple Access Systems
    Now with Ericsson, Global AI Accelerator, Stockholm, Sweden.
  • T.V.K. Chaitanya (Lic. Eng., LiU 2011; Ph.D., LiU 2013).
    Dissertation title: HARQ Systems: Resource Allocation, Feedback Error Protection, and Bits-to-Symbol Mappings
    Now with Sony, Lund, Sweden.
  • Erik Axell (Lic. Eng., LiU 2009; Ph.D., LiU 2012).
    Dissertation title: Spectrum Sensing Algorithms Based on Second-Order Statistics
    Now with FOI, Linköping, Sweden.

Graduated Lic. Eng. students:

Publications

Erik G Larsson, Nicolo Michelusi,  Unified Analysis of Decentralized Gradient Descent: A Contraction Mapping Framework, IEEE Open Journal of Signal Processing 6:507-529 (2025)  https://doi.org/10.1109/OJSP.2025.3557332  https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.14353

Chung-Hsuan Hu, Zheng Chen, Erik G Larsson,  Energy-Efficient Federated Edge Learning With Streaming Data: A Lyapunov Optimization Approach, IEEE Transactions on Communications 73:1142-1156 (2025)  https://doi.org/10.1109/TCOMM.2024.3443731  https://arxiv.org/abs/2405.12046

Daniel Pérez Herrera, Zheng Chen, Erik G Larsson,  Faster Convergence With Less Communication: Broadcast-Based Subgraph Sampling for Decentralized Learning Over Wireless Networks, IEEE Open Journal of the Communications Society 6:1497-1511 (2025)  https://doi.org/10.1109/OJCOMS.2025.3540133

Jianan Bai, Zheng Chen, Erik G Larsson,  Delay-Constrained Grant-Free Random Access in MIMO Systems: Distributed Pilot Allocation and Power Control, IEEE Transactions on Cognitive Communications and Networking 11:1535-1550 (2025)  https://doi.org/10.1109/TCCN.2024.3486715

Sara Willhammar, Hiroki Iimori, Joao Vieira, Lars Sundstrom, Fredrik Tufvesson, Erik G Larsson,  Achieving Distributed MIMO Performance with Repeater-Assisted Cellular Massive MIMO, IEEE Communications Magazine 63:114-119 (2025)  https://doi.org/10.1109/MCOM.001.2400332

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