Dr. Sander Stepanov
Design Engineer
Broadcom

A new approach to analyzing and decoding MIMO signaling has been developed for the regular model of non-Gaussion noise, consisting of background and impulse noise named ε - noise. It has been shown that non-Gaussion noise performance is significantly worse than Gaussion noise performance. Simulation results support the suggested theory. Robust in a statistical sense detection rule is suggested for such kind of noise, featuring a much better robust detector performance than the detector designed for Gaussian noise in an impulsive environment, but marginally less effective in background noise. The performance of the proposed approach is comparable with the developed potential bound. The proposed tool is a crucial issue for the MIMO communication system design, since a real noise environment has an impulsive character that contradicts the widely used Gaussian model. Therefore, the real MIMO performance for Gaussian and non-Gaussian noise models is entirely different.

In 1988, Dr. Sander Stepanov completed the Master’s degree program in Electrical Engineering at Saint Petersburg University; he graduated with distinction. Stepanov’s thesis was about homomorphic signal processing. For the next two years, he worked for Moscow Communication Hub in the data communication department as an Engineer, and then in the Communication Systems Network Laboratory from 1989 until 1990.

After working in the field for two years, he had a strong calling to further his studies. At that point, he decided to enroll in the Ph.D. program at Rubin Saint Petersburg Institute of Communication Systems. Sander made sure that his level of professional was duly noted; his thesis was called "statistical synthesis robust detection and decoding for communication channels with inter-symbol interference and impulse noise". In 1994, he completed the doctorate degree, and ever since, he has had acclaim.

Wanting to share his knowledge, he then taught several university courses, such as “Linear Circuit Theory”, “Non-Linear Circuit Theory”, “Communication Systems” and “ DSP and Microprocessors” for graduate and undergraduate students in Russia and Israel.

During 1997-1998, he worked for The Communication Committee of Russia as Senior Engineer. From 2000 to 2002, he worked as a Senior Algorithm Designer in the Physical Layer Base Band Modem group for the 3G.com company. Four years later, he worked as a Researcher with Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in area of Optical Communication Systems and Radar Identification.