H. Vincent Poor , a researcher whose innovative signal processing techniques for handling interference in multiple-access networks have had a major impact on the growth of wireless communications, was honored by IEEE with the 2011 IEEE Eric E. Sumner Award.

The award, sponsored by Alcatel-Lucent Bell Labs, recognizes Poor for pioneering contributions to multiple access communications. The award was presented on 7 June 2011 at the IEEE International Conference on Communications in Kyoto, Japan.

Multiple-access communications networks allow many users to share common wireless channels, enabling much more effective use of radio resources. These networks play a central role in the modern wireless revolution with applications ranging from cellular telephones to wireless computer networks. An inherent aspect of such networks, however, is the presence of interference, which can significantly degrade network performance and negate many of the advantages of multiple access communications. Poor’s innovative contributions to the theory and technology of interference mitigation in wireless networks have impacted some of the most important communications technologies developed over the past 20 years as well as today’s emerging technologies.

Poor’s contributions to multiple-access techniques began in the 1980s at a time when shared communications systems were transitioning from military to commercial applications. His pioneering technology is based on fundamental work of that era, which showed that it was possible in principle to remove the effects of interfering communication signals almost completely from multiple-access systems. His work has involved the development of advanced signal processing techniques to realize the potential of this fundamental principle. These techniques are beneficial particularly to wireless systems, where, by design, multiple terminals share channel access or where channel imperfections can cause interference.

Notably, Poor’s work has contributed techniques that are applicable across a broad spectrum of wireless multiple-access systems, including systems that make use of multiple transmit and receive antennas to achieve high capacity, systems with receivers that can self-adapt to their interference environments, and systems that exploit the redundancy of error control coding to achieve near perfect performance with very low complexity, among many others. This work has resulted in numerous journal publications and patented inventions, as well as several books, some of which have been translated into multiple languages.

An IEEE Fellow, Poor is also a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, an International Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (U.K.) and a member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering and the U.S National Academy of Sciences. His awards include the American Society for Engineering Education’s Terman Award, the National Science Foundation Director’s Award, the IEEE Communications Society’s Edwin Howard Armstrong Achievement Award, and the IET Ambrose Fleming Medal for Achievement in Communications. He received bachelor’s and master’s degrees in electrical engineering from Auburn University, Ala., as well as master’s and doctorate degrees in electrical engineering and computer science from Princeton University, N.J. Poor began his career at the University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign, in 1977 before joining Princeton University in 1990. He is currently the Michael Henry Strater University Professor of Electrical Engineering and dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Science at Princeton University, N.J.