Roberto Gaudino

Roberto Gaudino focuses his research on several aspects related to optical fiber high speed communications.  He received the Laurea in Ingegneria Elettronica (summa cum laude) from Politecnico di Torino, Turin, Italy, in 1993, and the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering (optical communications) in 1998. He is now Full Professor at Politecnico di Torino.

A full list of his publications can be found on the POLITO Publication repository.

MAIN RESEARCH PROJECTS (in reverse chronological order, starting from the most recent projects)

He is currently the Scientific Coordinator of the PhotoNext Center, one of the 11 large Inter-Departmental research centers that Politecnico di Torino financed starting in Summer 2017. PhotoNext is the POLITO Inter-Dipartimental Center for Applied Photonic technologies, which is focused on experimental and applied research in three key areas: optical fiber ultra-high speed communication systems, optical sensors and optical components for industrial applications.

Starting from 2019, in a collaboration with Politecnico di Milano, he is working on innovative solution to use installed fibers in access networks also for sensing and monitoring purposes (vibrations, stress, etc.)

Starting from 2016, thanks to a series of (ongoing) research contracts with CISCO Photonics, he worked on ultra-high speed optical transmission solutions for short-reach links in data-center applications, on several topics such as:

• optimization of modulation formats and adaptive equalization for 100+ Gbps transmission over distances up to 2km
• investigation on coherent transmission solutions for the data center
• polarization tracking in polarization-multiplexed PM-PAM4 systems

The work on short-reach, ultra high speed transmission involves both theory, simulation and experiments, which are carried out in the PhotoNext center, and led to several publications and conferences presentations.

Starting from 2010, thanks to a series of (ongoing) research contracts with Telecom Italia (TIM) Labs, he worked on next generation optical access networks, on several topics such as:

• WDM reflective PON (2014-2017)
• contributions to the standardization of NG-PON2 ITU-T reccomendations (2016-2018)
• detailed study on 25G, 50G PON for the new ITU-T standards on ultra-high bit rates (2018-2020)
• evolution towards 100G PON (from 2020)

The work on access network involves both experimental and theoretical works. The collaboration with TIM led to contributions to international standardization for NG-PON2 (ITU-T G.989.2) and to the ongoing standardization for the future generation PON, today (2018) indicated as High-Speed PON (HS-PON in G.sup.64 ).

Starting in October 2012, he was the Scientific Coordinator of the EU project FABULOUS, a 3-year EU project on FDMA-based optical access networks based on PON. The project involved both system level research, aimed at the optimization of optical transmission techniques, and component research, focused on silicon-photonic platforms integration.

In 2006-2011, he was the Coordinator of two consecutive EU projects titled POF-ALL (2006-2008, a STREP in FP7) and POF-PLUS (2008-2011,  a STREP in FP6), both on low-cost transmission technologies on Plastic Optical Fibers (POF), an interesting and alternative solution to glass fibers in next-generation home networking and industrial automation applications. The activity on the POF area was very broad in terms of coordination, experimental activities and theoretical studies, and led to the first demonstration of a full-fledged pre-engineered prototype of a media converter at 1 Gbps running over SI-POF. On similar topics, he also participated in standardization activities in VDE/DKE and in the EU project ALPHA (2008-2010, an IP in FP7) and E-PhotonOne (2005-2008, FP6, where he acted as the coordinator of the WP on “Short Reach Communications”). This work led to contributions to international standards, and in particolar to the section dedicated to SI-PON in ITU-T G.9960 "Unified high-speed wireline-based home networking transceivers – System architecture and physical layer specification".

In 1998-2006 he actively participated in three consecutive PRIN projects (titled RINGO, WONDER and OSATE, for which he also acted as a research unit coordinator) on all-optical packet networks. This activity was mostly experimental, and led to different versions of network prototypes based on all-optical broadcast and select architectures.

From 1998 to 2003, he was in the core development team for the commercial software OptSim, one of the most advanced software for the physical layer simulation of optical transmission systems. Here, he focused on modelling of fiber nonlinear effects and on performance evaluation, with applications to long-haul DWDM systems. In particular, he focused on a nonlinear effect called “Parametric Gain” and on its impairments in transmission systems.

In 1997, he spent one year the Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, as a visiting researcher in the OCPN group led by Prof. D. Blumenthal, where he worked in the realization of the MOSAIC optical network testbed, a prototypal version of wavelength routed optical networking.

During his PhD (1995-1998) he worked on optical transmission systems based on polarization modulation (POLSK), developing theoretical models for the evaluation of practical POLSK receivers, and a first experimental demonstration of a POLSK transmission systems.

STATISTICS ON PUBLICATIONS AND SCIENTIFIC ACTIVITY

Prof. Gaudino is co-author of more than 280 papers, among which approximately 85 international journal papers. On the well-know international paper database SCOPUS, he appears today (beginning of 2021) as author of 253 pubblications that received approx. 1900 citations (excluding self-citations) and he has an h-index equal to 27. On Google Scholar, he has an h-index equal to 31.

A full list of his publications can be found on the POLITO Publication repository.

He is currently an Associate Editor for IEEE/OSA Journal of Optical Communication and Networking (JOCN) for a second 3-year mandate (he started this activity in 2014).

He is (or was) member of the Technical Program Committees (TPC) of the following international conferences:

• ECOC, Access network track, from 2011 onwards. In 2018, he will be the Subcommitte Chair for Subcommitte 8 on 5G, Access, Local Area and Indoor Networks
• ICOP (previously titled FOTONICA): from 2011 onwards he is a Member of the Steering Committee of the conference. He was the General Chairman and main organizer of the Turin edition in 2015. 
• ICC ONS (Optical Networks and Systems), from  2011 onwards
• GLOBECOM 2011, Optical Network and System Symposium (2011)
• International Conference on Plastic Optical Fibers, from  2006 onwards. He was the General Chairman and main organizer of the Turin edition in 2007.
• Future Networks and Mobile Summit (2010)
• Optical Network Design and Modelling (ONDM),  from  2010 onwards

He is IEEE senior member from 2010.

DIDACTICAL AND ACADEMIC ACTIVITIES

Starting from 1998, Prof. Gaudino has always been involved in didactical activities at Politecnico di Torino, teaching courses in digital transmission, signal theory and optical communications. From 2005 to 2012, he was appointed as Coordinator of the Telecommunication Bachelor and Master degrees, and on the Master in Optical Communication and Photonic Technologies, again ad Politecnico di Torino. He is also active in professional lecturing for continuing education companies.

From 2006, he is member in the “Nucleo di Valutazione” (main internal evaluation body) at Politecnico di Milano. From 2007, he is the Director delegate at the POLITO Electronic and Telecommunication Department for external relations.

Currently (Fall 2018), he is the vice-Coordinator of:

• “Collegio Elettronica, Telecomunicazioni e Fisica” (the POLITO School for Bachelor and Master courses in Electronic, Telecommunication and Physics) at Politecnico di Torino
• The PhD School in Electrical, Electronic and Telecommunication Engineering at Politecnico di Torino