Dr. Julian Cheng, P. Eng.

Educational Background

PhD -- Electrical Engineering (Alberta)
MSc (Eng) -- Mathematics & Engineering (Queen’s)
BEng -- Electrical Engineering (Victoria)

General Background

Julian Cheng received the B. Eng. Degree (First Class) in electrical engineering from the University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, Canada in 1995, the M.Sc. (Eng.) degree in mathematics and engineering from Queen’s University, Kingston, ON, Canada in 1997, and the PhD degree in electrical engineering from the University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada, in 2003.

In July 2006, He joined the School of Engineering, The University of British Columbia, Okanagan campus, in Kelowna, BC, Canada as an Assistant Professor. In July 2011, he was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure in the same School. Previously, Dr. Cheng worked for Bell Northern Research (BNR) and Northern Telecom (later known as NORTEL Networks), and taught at both University of Alberta and Lakehead University. His current research interests include digital communications over wireless channels, orthogonal frequency division multiplexing, spread spectrum communications, statistical signal processing for wireless applications, and wireless optical communications.

Dr. Cheng was the recipient of numerous scholarship during his undergraduate and graduate studies, which included a President Scholarship from the University of Victoria and a postgraduate scholarship from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC). He was also a winner of the 2002 NSERC Postdoctoral Fellowship competition.

Dr. Cheng held an Adjunct Professor position with the University of Alberta (2005-2010). He is a registered Professional Engineer in British Columbia.

Courses Taught at UBC

APSC 172 Engineering Analysis I (2007)
APSC 250 Dynamic Systems Analysis (2006,2007,2008)
ENGR 350 Linear Circuit Theory (2011)
ENGR 361 Signals and Communication Systems (2007)
ENGR 460 Probability and Stochastic Processes for Engineers (2009,2010,2011)
ENGR 461 Digital Communications (2009,2010)
ENGR 560 Probability and Stochastic Processes for Engineers (2009,2010,2011)
ENGR 562 Information Theory (2009)
ENGR 564 Fundamentals of Digital Communications (2009,2011)
APSC 598 Wireless Communications (2008)

Research Interests

Wireless Digital Communications Theory
Wireless Optical Communications Theory

Work Under Submission

M. Niu, J. Cheng, and J. F. Holzman, ``A Novel MIMO Architecture for Coherent Wireless Optical Communications," Submitted to IEEE Photonics Technology Letters.
X. Song and J. Cheng, ``Optical Communication Using Subcarrier Intensity Modulation in Strong Atmospheric Turbulence," Submitted as a Regular Paper to IEEE/OSA Journal of Lightwave Technology.
N. Wang, X. Song, and J. Cheng, ``Generalized Method of Moment Estimation of the Nakagami-m Fading Parameter," Submitted as a Full Paper to IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications.
X. Li and J. Cheng, ``An Alternative Series Representation of the Marcum Q-function and Its Application," Submitted as a Letter Item to IEEE Transactions on Communications. (minor revision required)
M. Niu, X. Song, J. Cheng, and J. F. Holzman, ``Performance Analysis of Coherent Wireless Optical Communications with Atmospheric Turbulence," Submitted as a Regular Paper to Optics Express.

Refereed Journal Publications

X. Song, M. Niu, and J. Cheng, ``Error Rate of Subcarrier Intensity Modulations for Wireless Optical Communications," Accepted for publication in IEEE Communications Letters.
X. Li and J. Cheng, ``Asymptotic Error Rate Analysis of EGC over Generalized Correlated Nakagami-m Channels," Accepted for publication in IEEE Communications Letters.
N. Wang, J. Cheng, and C. Tellambura, ``On Statistics of Log-Ratio of Arithmetic Mean to Geometric Mean for Nakagami-m Fading Power," IEICE Transactions on Communications,vol. E95-B, no. 2, pp. 647-650, February 2012.
M. Niu, J. Schlenker, J. Cheng, J. F. Holzman, and R. Schober, ``Coherent Wireless Optical Communications with Predetection and Postdetection EGC over Gamma-Gamma Atmospheric Turbulence Channels," IEEE/OSA Journal of Optical Communications and Networking, vol. 3, pp. 860-869, November 2011.
M. Niu, J. Cheng, and J. F. Holzman, ``M-ary Coherent Free-Space Optical Communication Systems with K-distributed Turbulence," IEEE Transactions on Communications, vol. 59, pp. 664-668, March 2011.
Z. Du, X. Song, J. Cheng, and N. C. Beaulieu, ``Maximum Likelihood Based Channel Estimation for Macrocellular OFDM Uplinks in Dispersive Time-Varying Channels," IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications, vol. 10, pp. 176-187, January 2011.
Z. Mao and J. Cheng, ``Statistical Characteristics of OFDM Systems over Frequency-Selective Rician Fading Channels and Its Applications to BER Study," IEICE Transactions on Communications,vol. E94-B, no. 9, pp. 2565-2573, September 2011
M. Niu, J. Cheng, and J. F. Holzman, ``Exact Error Rate Analysis of Equal Gain and Selection Diversity for Coherent Free-Space Optical Systems on Strong Turbulence Channels," Optics Express, vol. 18, 13915-13926, June, 2010.
N. Wang and J. Cheng, ``Moment-Based Estimation for the Shape Parameters of the Gamma-Gamma Atmospheric Turbulence Model," Optics Express, vol. 18, pp. 12824-12831, June, 2010.
S. Liu, J. Cheng, and N. C. Beaulieu, ``Asymptotic Error Analysis of Diversity Schemes on Arbitrarily Correlated Rayleigh Channels," IEEE Transactions on Communications, vol. 58, pp. 1351-1355, May, 2010.
C. M. Collier, X. Jin, J. F. Holzman, and J. Cheng, ``Omni-Directional Characteristics of Composite Retroreflectors," Journal of Optics A: Pure and Applied Optics, vol. 11, 085404(1-10), May, 2009.
Z. Du, J. Cheng, and N. C. Beaulieu, "Asymptotic Error Rate Analysis of Dual-Branch Diversity Over Correlated Rician Channels," IEEE Transactions on Communications, vol. 56, pp. 527-530, April 2008.
Z. Du, J. Cheng, and N. C. Beaulieu, "BER Analysis of BPSK Signals in Ricean-Faded Cochannel Interference," IEEE Transactions on Communications, vol. 55, pp. 1994-2001, October 2007.
Z. Du, J. Cheng, and N. C. Beaulieu, "Accurate Error Rate Performance Analysis of OFDM on Frequency-Selective Nakagami-m Fading Channels," IEEE Transactions on Communications, vol. 54, pp. 319-328, February 2006.
J. Cheng and N. C. Beaulieu, "Error Rate of Asynchronous DS-CDMA in Nakagami Fading," IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications, vol. 4, pp. 2674-2676, November 2005.
Y. Song, S. D. Blostein, and J. Cheng, "Outage Probability Comparisons for Diversity Systems with Cochannel Interference in Rayleigh Fading," IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications, vol. 4, pp. 1279-1284, July 2005.
J. Cheng, N. C. Beaulieu, and X. Zhang, "Precise BER Analysis of Dual-Channel Reception of QPSK in Nakagami Fading and Cochannel Interference," IEEE Communications Letters, vol. 9, pp. 316-318, April 2005.
J. Cheng, C. Tellambura, and N. C. Beaulieu, "Performance of Digital Linear Modulations on Weibull Fading Channels," IEEE Transactions on Communications, vol. 52, pp. 1265-1268, August 2004.
N. C. Beaulieu and J. Cheng, "Precise Error Rate Analysis of Bandwidth Efficient BPSK in Nakagami Fading and Cochannel Interference," IEEE Transactions on Communications, vol. 52, pp. 149-158, January 2004.
Y. Song, S. D. Blostein, and J. Cheng, "Exact Outage Probability for Equal Gain Combining with Cochannel Interference in Rayleigh Fading," IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications, vol. 2, pp. 865-870, September 2003.
D. P. Wiens, J. Cheng, and N. C. Beaulieu, "A Class of Method of Moments Estimators for the Two-Parameter Gamma Family," Pakistan Journal of Statistics, vol. 19, pp. 129-141, 2003.
J. Cheng and N. C. Beaulieu, "Generalized Moment Estimators for the Nakagami Fading Parameter," IEEE Communications Letters, vol. 6, pp. 144-146, April 2002.
J. Cheng and N. C. Beaulieu, "Accurate DS-CDMA Bit Error Probability Calculation in Rayleigh Fading," IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications, vol. 1, pp. 3-15, January 2002.
J. Cheng and N. C. Beaulieu, "Maximum-Likelihood Based Estimation of the Nakagami m Parameter," IEEE Communications Letters, vol. 5, pp. 101-103, March 2001.
J. Cheng, M. A. Stuchly, C. DeWagter, and L. Martens, "Magnetic Field Induced Currents in a Human Head from Use of Portable Appliances," Physics in Medicine and Biology, vol. 40, pp. 495-510, April 1995.

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Last reviewed 2/3/2012 3:26:36 PM

Julian Cheng
Associate Professor
Office: EME 4277
Tel: 250.807.8800
Fax: 250.807.9850
E-mail: julian.cheng@ubc.ca

Mailing Address
School of Engineering
3333 University Way
Kelowna, BC
Canada V1V 1V7

WC 2012
I am chairing the 2012 Wireless Communications (WC 2012), which will be held July 3-5, 2012 in Banff, Canada.

CWIT 2011
I co-chaired the 12th Canadian Workshop on Information Theory (CWIT 2011), which was held May 18-22, 2011 on UBC Okanagan campus.