Pau Closas

Associate Professor,  Electrical and Computer Engineering

Contact

Social Media

Office

  • 529 ISEC
  • 617.373.3778

Research Focus

Statistical and array signal processing; estimation and detection theory; Bayesian inference; stochastic filtering; robust statistics; and game theory, with applications to positioning systems (GNSS and indoor technologies); wireless communications, and mathematical biology

About

Pau Closas is an Associate Professor at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Northeastern University, Boston, MA, since 2016. He received his MS and PhD in Electrical Engineering from the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) in 2003 and 2009, respectively. He also holds a MS degree in Advanced Mathematics and Mathematical Engineering from UPC since 2014. In 2003, he joined the Department of Signal Theory and Communications, UPC, as a Research Assistant. In 2008 he was Research Visitor at the Stony Brook University (SBU), NY, USA. In 2009 he joined the CTTC, where he was Senior Researcher and Head of the Statistical Inference for Communications and Positioning Department. His primary areas of interest include statistical and array signal processing, estimation and detection theory, stochastic filtering, robust statistics, and game theory, with primary applications in positioning systems, target tracking and wireless communications.

He is the recipient of the EURASIP Best PhD Thesis Award 2014, the 9th Duran Farell Award for Technology Research, the 2016 ION Early Achievement Award, or the 2023 Harry Rowe Mimno Award, in recognition to his contributions to navigation systems and signal processing fields. He served in the organization committees of flagship conferences, for instance, as Publications Chair of the IEEE SSP 2016 and the IEEE ICASSP 2020 conferences. He is also Guest Editor of special issues in the IEEE Trans. on Vehicular Technologies, the Proceedings of the IEEE, and the IEEE Sig. Proc. Magazine. He is currently the Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine.

 

Education

  • MS (2014), Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Advanced Mathematics and Mathematical Engineering
  • PhD, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, 2009
  • MS (2003), Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Electrical and Computer Engineering

Honors & Awards

  • 2023 College of Engineering Faculty Fellow
  • 2023 Harry Rowe Mimno Award
  • Institute of Navigation Early Achievement Award
  • 2019 National Science Foundation CAREER Award
  • 2016 Best Paper Presentation Award, Institute of Navigation
  • 2016 Early Achievement Award, Institute of Navigation
  • 2014 EURASIP Best PhD Thesis Award
  • 2014 Duran Farell Award for Technology Research

Teaching Interests

Fundamentals of Linear Systems

Applied Probability

GNSS signal processing

Bayesian filtering and smoothing

Leadership Positions

Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine (07/2024-Present)

Co-director, Center for SPIRAL, Northeastern University (07/2021-07/2024)

Chief Scientist, Albora Technologies (07/2018-Present)

Professional Affiliations

  • Senior Member, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
  • Institute of Navigation (ION)
  • European Association for Signal Processing (EURASIP)

Research Overview

Statistical and array signal processing; estimation and detection theory; Bayesian inference; stochastic filtering; robust statistics; and game theory, with applications to positioning systems (GNSS and indoor technologies); wireless communications, and mathematical biology

Information Processing Lab

The lab research is somewhere in the frontiers of statistical signal processing and computational statistics. We are interested in practical problems in applications such as satellite-based navigation, indoor positioning and localization, wireless communications, and computational biology.

Information Processing Lab

Selected Research Projects

Research Centers and Institutes

Selected Publications

  • Elvira, Victor, Closas, Pau, Martino, Luca (2021). Importance Gaussian Quadrature. IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing, 69,474-488. 10.1109/TSP.2020.3045526
  • Li, Haoqing, Medina, Daniel, Vila-Valls, Jordi, Closas, Pau (2021). Robust Variational-based Kalman Filter for Outlier Rejection with Correlated Measurements. IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing, 69,357-369. 10.1109/TSP.2020.3042944
  • Medina, Daniel, Vilà-Valls, Jordi, Chaumette, Eric, Vincent, François, Closas, Pau (2021). Cramér-Rao bound for a mixture of real- and integer-valued parameter vectors and its application to the linear regression model. Signal Processing, 179,107792. 10.1016/J.SIGPRO.2020.107792
  • Medina, Daniel, Li, Haoqing, Vilà-Valls, Jordi, Closas, Pau (2021). Robust Filtering Techniques for RTK Positioning in Harsh Propagation Environments. Sensors, 21(4),1250. 10.3390/S21041250
  • Ortega, Lorenzo, Poulliat, Charly, Boucheret, Marie Laure, Aubault Roudier, Marion, Al-Bitar, Hanaa, Closas, Pau (2021). Low Complexity Robust Data Demodulation for GNSS. Sensors, 21(4),1341. 10.3390/S21041341
  • Ortega, Lorenzo, Vilà-Valls, Jordi, Poulliat, Charly, Closas, Pau (2021). GNSS data demodulation over fading environments: Antipodal and M ‐ary CSK modulations. IET Radar Sonar and Navigation, 15(2),113-127. 10.1049/RSN2.12017
  • Pastor, Francisco, Garcia-Gonzalez, Jorge, Gandarias, Juan M., Medina, Daniel, Closas, Pau, Garcia-Cerezo, Alfonso J., Gomez-de-Gabriel, Jesus M. (2021). Bayesian and Neural Inference on LSTM-based Object Recognition from Tactile and Kinesthetic Information. IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, 6(1),231-238. 10.1109/LRA.2020.3038377
  • Borsoi, Ricardo A., Imbiriba, Tales, Closas, Pau, Bermudez, Jose Carlos M., Richard, Cedric (2020). Kalman Filtering and Expectation Maximization for Multitemporal Spectral Unmixing. IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Letters, ,1-5. 10.1109/LGRS.2020.3025781
  • Espluga, Lorenzo Ortega, Aubault-Roudier, Marion, Poulliat, Charly, Boucheret, Marie Laure, Al-Bitar, Hanaa, Closas, Pau (2020). LLR approximation for fading channels using a Bayesian approach. IEEE Communications Letters, 24(6),1244-1248. 10.1109/LCOMM.2020.2978832
  • Vilà-Valls, Jordi, Linty, Nicola, Closas, Pau, Dovis, Fabio, Curran, James T. (2020). Survey on signal processing for GNSS under ionospheric scintillation: Detection, monitoring, and mitigation. Navigation, 67(3),511-536. 10.1002/NAVI.379
  • Vilà-Valls, Jordi, Vivet, Damien, Chaumette, Eric, Vincent, François, Closas, Pau (2020). Recursive Linearly Constrained Wiener Filter for Robust Multi-Channel Signal Processing. Signal Processing, 167,107291. 10.1016/J.SIGPRO.2019.107291
  • J. Vilà-Valls, M. Navarro, P. Closas, M. Bertinelli Synchronization Challenges in Deep Space Communications, IEEE Aerospace and Electronic Magazine, 2019, 34(1), 16-27
  • E. Arias-de-Reyna, P. Closas, D. Dardari, P.M. Djuric Crowd-based Learning of Spatial Fields for the IoT, IEEE Signal Processing Magazine, 35(5), 2018, 130-139
  • D. Borio, H. Li, P. Closas, Huber’s Non-Linearity for GNSS Interference Mitigation, Sensors, 18(7), 2018, 2217
  • P. Closas, A. Gusi-Amigó, Direct Position Estimation of GNSS Receivers, IEEE Signal Processing Magazine, 34(5), 2017, 72-84
  • J. Vilà-Valls, P. Closas, J.T. Curran, Multi-frequency GNSS Robust Carrier Tracking for Ionospheric Scintillation Mitigation, Journal of Space Weather and Space Climate, 7, 2017, A26
  • M.G. Amin, P. Closas, A. Broumandan, J.L. Volakis Vulnerabilities, Threats, and Authentication in Satellite- Based Navigation Systems [Scanning the Issue], Proceedings of the IEEE, 104(6), 2016, 1169-1173
  • D. Dardari, P. Closas, P. Djuric, Indoor Tracking: Theory, Methods, and Technologies, IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology, 64(4), 2015, 1263-1278

PhD

Jul 24, 2024

PhD Spotlight: Julian Gutierrez, PhD’24, Computer Engineering

Julian Gutierrez, PhD’24, computer engineering, focused research on the development of a new class of high-performance algorithms used in Global Navigation Satellite Systems. After graduating, he joined as a computer research engineer at the Safety Critical Avionics Systems Branch at NASA Langley Research Center.

PhD

Jul 24, 2024

PhD Spotlight: Haoqing Li, PhD’24, Electrical Engineering

Haoqing Li, PhD’24, electrical engineering, focused research on robust signal processing and statistical machine learning, with applications in satellite-based positioning systems and satellite-based image remote sensing. His technical contributions were published in more than two dozen peer-reviewed publications.

Faculty

Jul 02, 2024

Closas Elected Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine

The IEEE AESS Board of Governors selected ECE Associate Professor Pau Closas to serve as the Editor-in-Chief (EiC) for the IEEE Aerospace & Electronic Systems Magazine from July 2024 to June 2027.

Faculty

Jul 21, 2023

$1.4M NSF Award for Advancing Worldwide Navigation Security With Distributed AI

ECE Associate Professor Pau Closas and Assistant Research Professor Tales Imbiriba, in collaboration with Tampere University and the University of Vaasa in Finland, were awarded a $1.4 million NSF award for “Distributed AI for Enhanced Security in Satellite-aided Wireless Navigation (RESILIENT).”

Deniz Erdogmus

Faculty

May 24, 2023

Kostas Research Institute Receives $13M U.S. Army Contract for Wireless Research

The Kostas Research Institute (KRI) at Northeastern University has been awarded $13 million by the U.S. Army Research Laboratory for foundational research into Cognitive Distributed Sensing in Congested Radio Frequency Environments. KRI and five partner institutions will conduct innovative research to enable technologies in distributed machine learning, signal processing algorithms, and computational, sensing, and communication hardware infrastructure for distributed sensing and communication.

Faculty

May 08, 2023

Closas Receives Best Paper in Track Award at IEEE/ION PLANS 2023

ECE Associate Professor Pau Closas received the Best Paper in Track Award at the 2023 IEEE/ION Position, Location and Navigation Symposium (PLANS) for the work “Jammer Classification with Federated Learning*”, with electrical engineering students Peng Wu and Helena Calatrava, and Associate Research Scientist Tales Imbiriba.

Faculty

Nov 02, 2022

2022 Stanford University Annual Assessment of Author Citations

A group of COE professors are among the top scientists worldwide selected by Stanford University representing the top 2% of the most-cited scientists with single-year impact in various disciplines. The selection is based on the top 100,000 by c-score (with and without self-citations) or a percentile rank of 2% or above.

Faculty

Apr 13, 2022

Closas Receives AESS Harry Rowe Mimno Award

ECE Assistant Professor Pau Closas received the Harry Rowe Mimno Award from the IEEE Aerospace and Electronic Systems Society (AESS) for his paper “State Estimation Methods in Navigation: Overview and Application.” This award recognizes and fosters excellence in clear communications of technical material of widespread interest to AESS members, and in doing so, to honor […]

Faculty

Dec 23, 2021

COE Professors Selected in Stanford University List of Top 2% Scientists Worldwide

The following COE professors are among the top scientists worldwide selected by Stanford University representing the top 2 percent of the most-cited scientists with single-year impact in various disciplines. The selection is based on the top 100,000 by c-score (with and without self-citations) or a percentile rank of 2% or above. The list below includes […]

In the Media

Jun 14, 2021

Research Roundup: Advanced High-Precision GNSS

ECE Assistant Professor Pau Closas’s research was featured in the GPS World article “Research Roundup: Advanced High-Precision GNSS“.

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