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NICOLA LAURENTI

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Position

Professore Associato

Address

VIA G. GRADENIGO, 6/B - PADOVA

Telephone

0498277781

Nicola Laurenti received his Laurea in Electrical Engineering in 1995 and his PhD in Electrical and Communications Engineering in 1999, both from University of Padova. Since 2020 he has been an Associate Professor at the Department of Information Engineering, University of Padova. In 2008-2009 he was a Visiting Scholar at the Coordinated Science Laboratory, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. In 2001 he became an Assistant Professor at the School of Engineering, University of Padova. In 1992-93 he was an exchange student of the University of California at Berkeley.

His research activity spans the following topics:
Global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) security: key management schemes for GNSS services; integrity protection and source authentication for GNSS and SBAS signals; unconditional security for the GNSS infrastructure through quantum cryptography.
Quantum communications and cryptography: receiver optimization for quantum PPM modulation; optimization of binary quantum transmission through non unital channels; experimental implementation of free-space quantum key distribution protocols;
Security at the lower layers of wireless networks: Physical layer authentication for IoT devices; information theoretic physical layer secrecy for OFDM and MIMO systems in fading channels; information theoretic key agreement in wireless systems; physical layer authentication via channel estimation in fading scenarios; secure MAC layer protocols against jammers; mutual information jamming games in OFDM systems.

He has been leader of a research unit in the following projects
National position, navigation and timing cyber-response center (European Space Agency, 2018-19)
Position authenticated tachograph for OS NMA launch (European Commission, 2018-19)
Enhanced navigation in space (European Commission, H2020 2017-19)
More GNSS open service signal integrity protection and authentication at the physical layer (European Space Agency, 2016-19)
Advanced key management simulator (European Space Agency, 2016-18)
EGNOS authentication security testbed (European Commission, 2016-17)
Advanced GNSS open service signal integrity protection and authentication at the physical layer (European Space Agency, 2014-16)
Quantum Future: free space communications at the quantum limit (University of Padova, 2009-2013);
Enabling blocks for CMOS integration of a UWB Multi-band OFDM transceiver (Italian Ministry 2006-2007);

He has taught the following classes at University of Padova:
Positioning, Location and Navigation;
Information-Theoretic Methods in Security;
Information Security;
Network Security;
Advanced Digital Transmission;
Digital Commmunication;
Signal Theory

He has authored 5 chapters in edited books, 28 journal papers, 63 conference papers, 2 European patents, and is a coauthor of the textbooks "Communications Systems. Fundamentals and Design Methods" e "Principles of Communication Networks and Systems"

He has collaborated with several Italian companies such as Qascom, ST Microelectronics, Fracarro Radioindustrie and Elvox

He has obtained the Italian National Qualification for Associate Professorship in Telecommunications on April 2017.

Notices

Office hours

  • Tuesday from 12:30 to 13:30
    at Studio n. 222, secondo piano, corridoio destro, edificio DEI/A, via Gradenigo 6/b. In alternativa su Zoom meeting n. 822 0981 2010

  • Thursday from 10:30 to 11:30
    at Studio n. 222, secondo piano, corridoio destro, edificio DEI/A, via Gradenigo 6/b. In alternativa su Zoom meeting n. 822 0981 2010

Teachings

Publications

Nicola Laurenti has authored 26 journal papers and 49 conference papers. For a complete list, refer to the attached file. Among his most recent and relevant publications:

A. Biason, N. Laurenti, M. Zorzi, "Achievable Secrecy Rates of an Energy Harvesting Device," IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications, vol. 34, n. 5, pp. 1502-1517, May 2016

S. Chang, Y. Hu, N. Laurenti, “SimpleMAC: A Simple Wireless MAC-Layer Countermeasure to Intelligent and Insider Jammers,” IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking, vol. 24, n. 2, pp. 1095-1108, February 2016.

F. Renna, M. R. Bloch, N. Laurenti, “Semi-Blind Key-Agreement over MIMO Fading Channels,” IEEE Transactions on Communications, vol. 61, n. 2, pp. 620–627, February 2013.

D. Bacco, M. Canale, N. Laurenti, G. Vallone, P. Villoresi, “Experimental quantum key distribution with finite-key security analysis for noisy channels.,” Nature communications, vol. 4, n. 13, art. 2363, September 2013.

F. Renna, N. Laurenti, H. V. Poor, “Physical-Layer Secrecy for OFDM Transmissions Over Fading Channels,” IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security, vol. 7, n. 4, pp. 1354–1367, August 2012.

P. Baracca, N. Laurenti, S. Tomasin, “Physical Layer Authentication over MIMO Fading Wiretap Channels,” IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications, vol. 11, n. 7, pp. 2564–2573, July 2012.

Research Area

since 2013
Global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) security:
• Key management schemes for GNSS services
• Integrity protection and source authentication for SBAS signals
• Integrity protection and source authentication for GNSS signals
• Unconditional security for the GNSS infrastructure through quantum cryptography

since 2009
Quantum communications and cryptography:
• Receiver optimization for quantum PPM modulation
• Optimization of binary quantum transmission through non unital channels
• Experimental implementation of free-space quantum key distribution protocols

since 2008
Security at the lower layers of wireless networks:
• Information theoretic physical layer secrecy for OFDM and MIMO systems in fading chan-
nels
• Information theoretic key agreement in wireless systems
• Physical layer authentication via channel estimation in fading scenarios
• Secure MAC layer protocols against jammers
• Mutual information jamming games in OFDM systems

2012–2014
Networked control systems with nonideal transmissions:
• Optimizing the tradeoff among delay, channel losses and reconstruction SNR in Linear
Quadratic Gaussian systems

1996–2008
Multicarrier modulation:
• System analysis and performance evaluation
• Receiver synchronization and frequency estimation
• Complexity-efficient design and implementations of mo-demodulators

1996–2008
Ultra Wideband systems and networks:
• Receiver design for Impulse Radio
• Performance analysis of UWB Multiband OFDM systems
• Synchronization of Multiband OFDM receivers

1995–2005
Time-frequency analysis, signal theory and signal processing:
• Fractional Fourier transforms
• Spectral modeling of musical sounds
• Biomedical image processing

Thesis proposals

My scientific interests lie within the areas of information security and information theory, with a focus on wireless and mobile communication, and the issues in positioning and navigation. If you are interested in carrying out your thesis work within these fields, come to my office hours and I will be happy to discuss it.