I am a Ph.D candidate in the ECE department at UC San Diego. I work with Prof.Dinesh Bharadia in the Wireless Communication, Sensing and Networking Group (WCSNG).

My research vision is to design and prototype systems for sensing, computing and communication in our connected world. My research has aimed to identify and solve fundamental problems, which led to translating the developed techniques to enable applications in different domains. The solutions I developed had an impact on improving the next-generation communication, sensing, and autonomous systems to everyday life.

If you are interested to know more about my projects or have discussion on my research, drop me an email (mdunna at ucsd dot edu).

Projects

• Communication and Sensing with Smart Surfaces:
  • Smart Surfaces: Reconfigurable intelligent surfaces to shape the wireless channel properties to improve wireless throughput and coverage.
    • Publications: ScatterMIMO - Mobicom’20
• Backscatter Communication for IoT and everyday devices
  • Ultra-Low power WiFi communication for IoTs: Enabling IoT devices to communicate with existing WiFi/BLE infrastructure at >1000x lower power.
    • Publications: [ISSCC’22], [SyncScatter - NSDI’21], [ISSCC’21] and, [JSSC’20]

• Extending the Sensing abilities of Wireless signals
  • Force Sensing: A wireless sensor to sense contact force applied on an object with applications in medical sensors.
    • Publications: [WiForce - NSDI’21]

Short Bio

I have been at UC San Diego as a Ph.D. student in WCSNG lab since August 2018. My research interests are in low-power wireless communications and sensing with a focus on using the RF backscatter technique to enable them. In my research, I build hardware technologies to bring an idea from theory to practice which have impact on autonomous systems and day-to-day life. Before joining UC San Diego, I received my Bachelor’s + Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras in 2018.