Engineering professor earns presidential award for underwater communications research

Shengli Zhou, director of the University’s Wireless Communication Research Laboratory, has received a prestigious presidential award for his work on improving the efficiency of underwater acoustic communications.

Zhou was one of 67 researchers nationwide to receive the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers during a Dec. 19 ceremony in Washington D.C. The award is the nation’s highest honor for professionals at the outset of their independent scientific research careers.

An assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, Zhou is believed to be the first UConn faculty member to receive such a distinction.

“The PECASE is the most prestigious award available to a young faculty member,” says Mun Y. Choi, dean of the School of Engineering.

“This award underscores the high quality of the faculty members in the School of Engineering, and attests to the long-term importance of the work Prof. Zhou is conducting with Prof. Jun-Hong Cui in the area of remote underwater sensing. All of UConn can take pride in this honor.”

The awards are presented by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Nine federal departments and agencies annually submit nominations on behalf of scientists and engineers whose work shows exceptional promise for leadership at the frontiers of scientific knowledge. Zhou was among 15 scholars nominated by officials at the U.S. Department of Defense.

Innovative algorithms
As part of the award, Zhou will receive a $1 million federal grant over the next five years to expand his research in underwater acoustic communications, which involves novel transmitter design and advanced receiver processing, as well as development of a prototype of an underwater modem.

Communicating and transferring data under water present unique obstacles in naval operations, scientific exploration, and commercial industry. Radio communications, which work so effectively on land, do not work as well under water so they must be replaced by acoustic communications.

Due to the challenging characteristics of underwater channels, current acoustic communication technologies are extremely slow.

Zhou has conducted extensive research on broadband wireless communications over radio channels in the past, but has focused on underwater acoustic communications during the past four years.