ABSTRACT
In this talk, I would like to share my industry research experience in the last 20+ years during which I have contributed to the evolution of the wireless cellular technology from 4G to 5G and 6G. I will highlight the lessons that I have learned over the years in terms of what problems to research and how to solve them. I will emphasize where industry research is similar to or different from research in academia. I will provide three case studies to illustrate these points, namely (1) Flash-OFDM a precursor of 4G LTE, (2) FlashLinQ a precursor of 5G NR C-V2X and sidelink enabling Proximal Internet, and (3) mmWave communications from 5G Adv to 6G.

BIO
Junyi Li is a Vice President of Engineering at Qualcomm. He was a key inventor of Flash-OFDM, arguably the first commercially deployed OFDMA-based mobile broadband wireless communications system. He holds over 1000 granted U.S. patents.

He was a founding member of Flarion Technologies, a startup acquired by QUALCOMM in 2006. Prior to that, he was with Bell Labs research in Lucent Technologies. He has a Ph.D. degree in E.E. from Purdue University and an MBA from the Wharton School at University of Pennsylvania. He is a Fellow of the IEEE. He is a co-author of the book “OFDMA Mobile Broadband Communications” published by Cambridge University Press. He received the Outstanding Electrical and Computer Engineers award from Purdue University in 2012.