Zubair Akhter PhD
Exploring Impossibilities
Career Highlights
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Gained high-quality exposure to industry-sponsored research from the world’s leading companies in the Communication, Defence, and Energy sectors. Successfully completed projects of budget ($ 1.4 M) as a key team player, and currently working /co-written projects of budget ($ 1.6 M).
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Played a critical role in calibrating and enhancing the sensitivity of our commissioned Black Powder Detection Technology to Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) while associated as a research engineer at Gas Research Center, Abu Dhabi, UAE.
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Designed and delivered ultra-thin antennas to Lockheed Martin Corporation for UAVs that can be seamlessly integrated with the wings or fuselage like a sticker. This work was featured in the IEEE Open Journal of Antennas and Propagation in 2021.
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Multiple intellectual properties (IPs) have been generated and a few of them are jointly patented with the world’s leading Communication company viz. Ericsson and the world's Top Energy Company viz. Saudi Aramco.
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Presented 12+ invited lectures at Institutions of international repute (TII Abu Dhabi, Khalifa University, IIT Kanpur/Delhi/Madras) and various admired IEEE-sponsored conferences/workshops. Published 60+ international research documents in top peer-reviewed journals of the field such as IEEE Transactions Microwave Theory and Techniques (MTT), IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation (TAP), IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement (TIM), IEEE Sensors Journal, and various admired international conferences with overall 700+ citations on the google scholar profile.
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Gained a respected Higher Education Teaching Certificate from Harvard University and received the Early Career Researcher Teaching Award at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology. I closely co-supervised 8+ international undergraduate, and graduate students on their projects, research theses, and Internships, and the work done by my students is recognized at national and international forums (First place in MSWC-2022, Second place in SSI-2021, and SSI-2022 poster competition).
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Magnificent response to online video lectures published online. My YouTube channel is listing 10.5k + views and more than 1.04k subscribers worldwide within 28 days (Weblink).
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Serving a Review Editor position at Frontiers on Wearable Electronics and Reviewer at various IEEE Transactions i.e., MTT, TAP, TIM, TIE, and Sensors journal. Founded the IEEE Antennas and Propagation Student Branch Chapter (SBC) IIT Kanpur and served as Vice-chair of IEEE Microwave Theory and Techniques SBC (2014-2015) IIT Kanpur. Executive committee member of IEEE UP Section for 2015-2016, Technical Program Committee member at IMaRC-2021, and MAPCON-2022.
ABOUT ME
Background & Expertise
With this platform, I would like to uphold that I am a person who is driven by curiosities. I am enjoying science discipline since my schooling and still remember that I often tried to get the scientific reasoning behind the questions like “Why does a hand drum make a sound upon a hitting?”, “Why chapattis got fluffed up?” during my 8th standard. My curiosity for finding the scientific principle behind such questions drove me to choose a science career. At my higher secondary level, I thought up various projects (viz. “Earthquake resistance buildings”, “Air conditioning through ground pit”, “Free energy harvesting at gates of malls parks, walkways, and rolling breakers for vehicles” but could not able to pursue them due to lack of resources/guidance and the necessary skillset. I joined Electronics and Instrumentation engineering to boost my knowledge and skill-set. In my bachelor’s project demonstration of a smart home environment, I learned how physical quantities are translated into an electrical signal (acquired from the sensor/transducers), and their conditioning/ processing to automate a process/ event with the theoretical background of control systems. I did realize that the overall control systems have too many wires around them for interfacing various components. This problem becomes even more troublesome when too many parameters are involved which leads me to think about how such systems can be operated wirelessly and decided to pursue a master's in Communication Engineering (RF and Microwave particularly).
In my master’s, dissertation, I worked on a systems-level problem and developed and demonstrated a Concurrent dual-band Transceiver. In this program, I learned about microwave component design such as antenna, filters, power amplifier, low noise amplifier, power divider, various EM simulation tools CST microwave, Keysight ADS, and measuring instruments like signal generator, spectrum analyzer, and vector network analyzer (VNA). After completing my master's, I took interest in doing further research and started my doctorate journey. Here I learned how electromagnetic waves interact with the media and how this interaction quantitatively be observed to estimate the electromagnetic properties of the medium in a non-destructive and non-contact fashion. In Short, the significant contributions of this thesis can be briefly summarized in the following points:
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Quantitative Approach: A novel concept in the real-time 2D microwave imaging for security applications is introduced where the identification of the objects is made through both the geometrical and electrical properties.
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Calibration Independence: The calibration independent, position insensitive purely analytical method in the time-domain is proposed to retrieve the permittivity, conductivity, and thickness of various dielectric materials. The requirement of reference measurement was removed for the first time in the open literature.
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Dual-Domain Approach: A versatile microwave imaging method by combining the frequency-domain and time-domain reconstruction methods was proposed to take advantage of the imaging schemes in both domains. The proposed technique based on the dual-domain is quite useful in reconstructing the permittivity as well as conductivity profile of the lossy media using a non-iterative approach, which otherwise was not possible using either independently.
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Real-Time Monitoring: The proposed microwave imaging method facilitates the real-time online monitoring of the testing media using a non-iterative procedure requiring less mathematical operations, which makes it suitable for a low-cost solution related to homeland security applications.
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
Senior Antenna Engineer, TII Abu Dhabi
Aug 2023 - Onwords
To be updated soon
Multiphase flow in oil production consists of three phases, i.e., oil, water and gas. This classification of MPFM’s is based upon the manner in which the gas phase is treated. The separated-flow MPFM measures the gas flow after the separation of it from the liquid phases (i.e., oil and water); this simplifies measurement of the liquid phase. Additionally, in-line MPFMs treats the entire multiphase stream in a single conduit, which enables these and similar meters to be more compact in comparison to the separated-flow meters. In this assignment, a true 3-phase compact MPFM meter based on microwave sensing principles is being developed for oil and gas industry.
Technical Consultant, Saher Flow Solutions
March 2022 - Ongoing
Research Fellow, KAUST
January 2020- Ongoing
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), also known as autonomous drones, are being utilized for a variety of applications such as disaster management, search and rescue, surveillance, and remote monitoring. The antenna, being the most important part of that wireless link, must be designed such that it seamlessly integrates with the drone without affecting its flight. This means the antenna must be thin, lightweight, conformal, and provide wide coverage. To provide a plug-and-play solution, the antenna’s performance must not be deteriorated due to the UAV mounting. Further, to cater for high data rate applications, a large bandwidth is required, which is difficult to achieve with thin substrates. In this project, a thin, conformal antenna system is designed and developed for a long-range HD video transmission where the antenna can be attached to the drone’s body on demand like a sticker. Additionally, antennas radiation pattern diversity is useful to extend the communication range and a dual-band feature could be used to maintain the communication in presence of interference or jammers.
July 2018 - Sep 2019
Research Engineer, ADNOC
Black powder (BP) is one of the most common contaminants in steel pipes used for the transportation of gas. It is an amalgam of iron sulfides, oxides, and carbonates. It is reported to originate from the milling of pipes, early detection of BP is incumbent to ensure the integrity of gas pipelines and to avoid catastrophe. In this project, a microwave sensing technology has been developed that utilizes a microwave probing mechanism to detect and monitoring of solid contaminants (BP) inside the natural gas pipelines.
ACADEMICS
Learning and Living
BIT, Mesra, Ranchi
January 2018 - May 2018
Worked here as an Assistant Professor at Department of Electronics and Communication recruited by National Project Implementation Unit (NPIU). NPIU is a unit of MHRD Govt. of India for Implementation of World Bank Assisted Projects in Technical Education.
IIT Kanpur
January 2012 - Nov. 2017
Ph.D. program in RF and Microwave Engineering, Department of Electrical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, India.
Unified microwave imaging methodology for real-time monitoring and detection of objects
Advisor: Prof. Mohammad Jaleel Akhtar
IIT Roorkee
July 2009 - June 2011
Master of Technology (M. Tech.) in RF and Microwave Engineering, Department of Electronics and Computer Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee, UK, India
Design, analysis, and implementation of concurrent dual-band (2.4/5.2 GHz) wireless transceiver.
Advisor: Prof. Nagendra Prasad Pathak
Research
Research Thrust
Microwave Imaging and Nondestructive Testing
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Non-destructive Non-ionization Imaging
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Calibration independent non iterative
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Dual-domain approach
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Real-time imaging on conveyor belt.
Sensing Solutions for Oil and Gas Industry
Mid-Stream Solutions
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Black Powder detection in NG Pipelines
Up-Stream Solutions
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Water-cut measurement
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Multiphase flow measurements
Antennas
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Integration and miniaturization.
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Flexible and Transparent 5G antennas (28 GHz)
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Antennas on-chip for mmWave (94 GHz)
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UAV's antennas (Ultrathin)
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Intelligent Reflecting Surfaces
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UHF, RFID antennas
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Chipless RFID sensing
E-Learning Resources
MOOC: Filter Design
MOOC: Filter Design
Ex3-Bandpass filter design Chebyshev response
Ex3-Bandpass filter design Chebyshev response
Lec1-Introduction and Need for Microwave Filters
All Videos
All Videos
P1-Microwave Sensing in Oil and Gas Industry
August 24, 2020
Nimbus Vtol testing with payload landing
TESTIMONIALS
Ibrahim Alsayoud
Second Prize (SSI-2021)
It is my pleasure to provide this recommendation for Dr. Zubair Akhter. He was my mentor on SSI program in KAUST. He helped me a lot over the short period of two months. He provided guidance and knowledge related to mm-wave antenna design that accelerated my work. In general Dr. Zubair is someone who you can depend on to support you emotionally and technically.
Jaime Sanchez Ruiz
First Prize (MSWC-2022)
Zubair Akhter was my mentor during my time in the Microelectronics Winter Camp 2022 at KAUST. He monitored my progress while explaining to me theoretical concepts related to the project that we were working on. During my stay at KAUST, he also introduced me to different and novel applications for microwave resonance-based technology with patience and creative explanations.
Without any hesitation, I recommend Zubair's mentoring, because he behaved with respect and gave considerable attention to me answering all of my questions related to the project.
Monika Rasz
First Prize (MSWC-2022)
Zubair Akhter was my mentor during my time in the Microelectronics Winter Camp 2022. We worked on developing a battery-less tag for detecting food adulteration in a non-contact and non-invasive way. We won the first prize for our project where students from various international universities participated.
Abdullah Hamiduddin
Second Prize (SSI--2022)
Zubair is an excellent mentor who worked with me during the SSI program at KAUST. He helped guide me through the journey, along with providing advice and practical guidance for my future endeavors. Under his supervision, I completed our antenna design project and was able to gain valuable professional experience, thanks to his knowledge and experience. I’m fortunate to have had the time I did with him, and I will always recommend Zubair to any one interested in working with antennas.
Reflections on supervision
LET’S CONNECT
King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST)
dr.zakhter[AT]gmail.com
"Life is like riding a bicycle, to keep your balance, you must keep moving”