Pekka Ranta

Background

I currently work as a Senior Manager in Nokia Research Center's Strategy Team in Helsinki, Finland.  I am focused to the research strategy work of our Core Technology Center including radio and internet technologies, human interaction and device architecture.

I have strong research background myself as I used to work several years as a Principal Scientist in Radio Technologies Laboratory of Nokia Research Center. I hold Doctor of Science degree in Communications Engineering from Helsinki University of Technology obtained in 1999.

During late 2006 and early 2007 I led Nokia's UWB chip supplier selection process within Nokia Technology Platform unit in Farnborough, England. This provided me a deep technology insight to several semiconductor vendor's UWB solutions and wider understanding of productization of a leading edge radio technology. From 2003 till July 2005 I led ultra wideband research and standardization activities in Nokia as a program manager. After that I continued as Nokia's representative in Wimedia's Board of Directors which still holding and led UWB single chip research project in NRC in 2006. 

During my early years with Radio Technologies Laboratory, I have worked various air-interface design and performance related topics for 2G and 3G systems. In 1997, I was a member of Nokia's ETSI SMG2 delegation working for UMTS air-interface selection. My research interest  was mainly concentrating on the transceiver algorithms such as cochannel interference suppression, channel coding, equalisation and antenna diversity techniques. Single Antenna Interference Cancellation was finally adopted in GSM standard to which our research team made significant contribution for algorithms in products. It was also the topic of my Doctorate research during 1994-1999.

Professional Activities

• Member of IEEE (since 1992)

Projects

• UWB chip supplier selection late 2006 - early 2007
• Single chip UWB design research project 2006  
• Ultra wideband research and standardization 2003-2005
• Antenna diversity for  GSM, WCDMA, HSDPA  and CDMA2000 terminals research 2001-2003
• GSM and EDGE air-interface research and development 1994-2002
• UMTS air interface design research and standardization 1996-1997
• Advanced TDMA Mobile Access (EU's RACE II project) 1992-1995

Patents & Patents Pending

15 international patents

Publications

Sassan Iraji, Nikolai Nefedov, Heikki Berg, Timo Lunttila and Pekka A. Ranta,

"Performance of Zigzag codes in a Multi-Band OFDM Ultra-Wideband System," Proceedings of Softcom 2005 conference, Split, Croatia, 15-17 September 2005.

Pekka A. Ranta,

"Is UWB interference or provides new interconnectivity?", Presentation in Ultrawideband Europe Conference, Organizer IQPC, March, 2005, London.

Wylie-Green, M.P., Ranta, P.A., Salokannel, J.,

"Multi-band OFDM UWB solution for IEEE 802.15.3a WPANs", Proceedings of IEEE/Sarnoff Symposium on Advances in Wired and Wireless Communication, April 18-19, 2005, pp.102-105.

Timo Lunttila, Juha Salokannel, Arto Palin, and Pekka Ranta,

"Nopeat laiteyhteydet langattomiksi," Prosessori ES, Marraskuu 2004 (in Finnish only).

Pukkila, M., Mattellini, G.P., and Ranta, P.A.,

"Cochannel interference suppression for constant modulus signals", Proceedings of 2004 IEEE International Conference on Communications, Vol. 5, 20-24 June 2004, pp. 2548-2552.

Ranta, P.A., Berg, H., Tuomaala, E., and Uykan, Z.,

"Dual antenna diversity reception for EGPRS terminals", Proceedings of Vehicular Technology Conference, 2004 (VTC 2004-Spring), 17-19 May 2004, Milan, pp. 510 - 514 vol.1.

Pukkila, M., Mattellini, G.P., and Ranta, P.A.,

"Constant modulus single antenna interference cancellation for GSM", Proceedings of Vehicular Technology Conference, 2004 (VTC 2004-Spring), Vol. 1, 17-19 May 2004, Milan, pp. 584 - 588.

Ventola, M., Tuomaala, E., and Ranta, P.A.,

"Performance of dual antenna diversity reception in WCDMA terminals", Proceedings of Vehicular Technology Conference, 2003 ( VTC 2003-Spring), Vol. 2, 22-25 April 2003, pp. 1035-1040.

Pukkila, M., Heikkila, M.J., and Ranta, P.A.,

"Space-time trellis coding with turbo equalisation for the EGPRS system", Proceedings of Personal, Indoor and Mobile Radio Communications, 2001 (PIMRC 2001), Vol.1, 30 Sept.-3 Oct. 2001 pp. D129-D133.

Kuchi, K., Pirhonen, R., and Ranta, P.,

Down link diversity for GSM-EDGE", 2001 IEEE Emerging Technologies Symposium on Broadband Communications for the Internet Era Symposium digest, 10-11 Sept. 2001 pp. 92 - 96.

Mattellini, G.P., Kuchi, K., and Ranta, P.A.,

"Space time block code for EDGE", Proceedings of Vehicular Technology Conference, 2001 ( VTC 2001 Fall), 7-11 Oct. 2001, pp.1235-1239 vol.2.

Ranta. P. A.,

"Cochannel interference cancellation in the GSM system", Ph.D. Thesis, Acta Polytechnica Scandinavica, Electrical Engineering Series No. 97, Espoo 1999, 71 pp., Published by the Finnish Academy of Technology. ISBN 951-666-507-1. ISSN 0001-6845.

Pekka A. Ranta and Markku Pukkila,

"Inter-cell interference suppression by joint demodulation of cochannel signals", published in the book: GSM: Evolution towards 3rd generation, Kluwer Academic publishers, Boston, 1999, pp. 153-186.

Raitola, M. and Ranta, P.,

"Neighbour cell monitoring in a 3rd generation TDMA systems", Proceedings of Vehicular Technology Conference 1998 (VTC'98), vol. 2, pp. 1405 -1408.

Markku Pukkila and Pekka A. Ranta,

"Channel estimator of multiple cochannel demodulation", in Proceedings of European Mobile and Personal Communications Conference (EMPCC'97), Bonn, Germany, 30 Sep. - 2 Oct. 1997, pp. 327-333.

Pekka A. Ranta and Marko Escartin,

"Dominant Interference Suppression by Adaptive antennas in GSM", in Pproceedings of Personal Indoor Mobile and Radio Communications Conference (PIMRC'97), Helsinki, 1-4 Sept, 1997.

Pekka A. Ranta, Markku Pukkila,

"Co-channel Interference Suppression by Joint Detection in GSM", presented in Seminar and Demonstration on Adaptive antennas and Diversity, Aalborg, 19 June, 1997.

Pekka A. Ranta and Markku Pukkila,

"Recent results of Co-channel Interference Suppression by Joint Detection in GSM", in Proceedings of 6th International Conference on Advances in Communications and Control, Corfu, Greece, 23-27 June 1997.

Pekka A. Ranta and Antti Lappeteläinen,

"Application of dominant interference cancellation in street microcells", in Proceedings of IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC'97), Montreal, Canada, June 8-12, 1997, pp. 964-968.

Marko I. Silventoinen, Pekka A. Ranta and Mika Raitola,

"Fast Power Control for GSM HBS using training sequences", in Proceedings of 1997 IEEE Vehicular Technology Conference (VTC'97), May 5-7, 1997, Phoenix, Arizona, USA

Tero Ojanperä, Pekka A. Ranta, Seppo Hämäläinen, and Antti Lappeteläinen,

"Analysis of CDMA and TDMA for 3rd generation mobile radio systems?, Proceedings of 1997 IEEE Vehicular Technology Conference (VTC'97), May 5-7, 1997, Phoenix, Arizona, USA.

Marko Escartin and Pekka A. Ranta,

"Interference Rejection with a Small Antenna Array at the Mobile Scattering Environment", in Proceedings of First IEEE Signal Processing Workshop on Signal Processing Advances in Wireless Communications (SPAWC), La Bastille, Paris, April 16-18th, 1997, pp. 165-168.

Riku Pirhonen and Pekka A. Ranta,

"Single Slot 14.4 kbit/s Service fo GSM", in proceedings of 7th IEEE International Symposium on Personal, Indoor and Mobile Radio Communications (PIMRC?96), Oct. 15-18th, 1996, Taipei, Taiwan.

Riku Pirhonen and Pekka A. Ranta,

"Single Slot 14.4 kbit/s Service fo GSM", Seventh Nordic Conference on Digital Mobile Radio Communications, Oct. 2nd-4th, 1996, Copenhagen.

Marko I. Silventoinen, Maija Kuusela and Pekka A. Ranta,

"Analysis of a New Channel Access Method for Home Base Station", in proceedings of IEEE International Conference on Universal Personal communications (ICUPC?96), Sept. 29- Oct. 2, 1996, Cambridge, MA.

P. A. Ranta, A. Lappeteläinen, Z. C. Honkasalo,

"Interference Cancellation by Joint Detection in Random Frequency Hopping TDMA networks", in Proceedings of IEEE International Conference on Universal Personal communications (ICUPC?96), Cambridge, MA, Sept. 29- Oct. 2, 1996, pp. 428-432.

Mika Raitola and Pekka A. Ranta,

"Comparison of Diversity Combining Techniques for GSM", in Proceedings of IEEE International Conference on Telecommunications (GLOBECOM'96), London, UK, Sep. 18-22, 1996, pp. 1820-1824.

Mika Raitola and Pekka A. Ranta,

"Predetection diversity receiver for GSM", proceedings of IEEE Nordic Signal Processing Symposium (NORSIG) 1996, Helsinki September 24-26th, 1996.

Marko Escartin and Pekka A. Ranta,

"Performance of the Vector MLSE Technique for the Antenna Arrays in TDMA Mobile Systems", in proceedings of IEEE Nordic Signal Processing Symposium (NORSIG'96), Helsinki, September 24-26th, 1996.

Markku Pukkila and Pekka A. Ranta,

"Simultaneous Channel Estimation for Multiple Co-channel Signals in TDMA Mobile Systems", in proceedings of IEEE Nordic Signal Processing Symposium (NORSIG'96), Helsinki 24-26th Sept, 1996.

Marko I. Silventoinen, Maija Kuusela and Pekka A. Ranta,

"Total Frequency Hopping for Home Base Stations", IEEE Int. Conf. on Personal Wireless Comm. (ICPWC'96), New Delhi, India, 9th-21st February, 1996, in proceedings pp.257-261.

P. A. Ranta, Z. C. Honkasalo and J. Tapaninen,

"TDMA Cellular Network Application of an Interference Cancellation Technique, in Proceedings of 1995 IEEE Vehicular Technology Conference (VTC'95), Chicago, USA, July 25-28, 1995, pp. 296-300.

P. A. Ranta, A. Hottinen, Z. C. Honkasalo,

"Co-channel interference cancelling receiver for TDMA mobile systems", in Proceedings of IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC'95), Seattle, USA, June 18-22, 1995, pp. 17-21.

K.David, P. Blanc, J. Irvine, T. Kassing, M.I. Lopez-Carillo, R. Maddalena, W. Mohr, and P. Ranta,

"First Results of ATDMA's Test Campaigns", RACE Mobile Telecommunications Summit, Cascais, Portugal, Nov 22nd-24th, 1995 in proceedings pp. 468-472.

C. Mourot, J. De Vile, P. Ranta, P. Diaz, and M.E. Gerboles,

"Low delay data transmission over the ATDMA air interface", RACE Mobile Telecommunications Workshop, Amsterdam, Netherlands, May 17th-19th, 1994 in proceedings.

C. Mourot, J. De Vile, R. Hopper, and P. Ranta,

"The ATDMA equaliser design and implementation", RACE Mobile Telecommunications Workshop, Amsterdam, May 17-19, 1994 in proceedings.

P. Ranta and E. Malkamäki,

"Adaptive training sequence structure for TDMA based mobile radios", URSI XIX Convention on Radio Science, Otaniemi, 25-26 October, 1993, pp.27-28.

E. Malkamäki and P. Ranta,

"Modulation methods for the ATDMA air interface", URSI XIX Convention on Radio Science, Otaniemi, 25-26 October, 1993, pp.21-22.

Research Interests

• Research Strategy and Innovations
• Organisational Development 
• Ultrawideband technology
• RFIC technology
• Physical layer design