I am an Assistant Professor at the National University of Singapore.
I am bootstrapping WEISER group, consisting of curiosity driven group of students, engineers and researchers interested in Wireless, Embedded systems, Intelligence, Sensing and Emerging Technologies in Real World (WEISER). We are systems researcher, and work commonly at intersection of areas of electronics, communication and computer science. We work on problems with a strong engineering component, and potential for real-world impact.
I am located at Computing 3(COM3). My address is: #02-25, Computing 3, School of Computing, 11 Research Link, Singapore 119391. Email: ambujv@nus.edu.sg, Phone: +65 - 86706948
For scheduling and other general queries, you may email my personal assistant: Joy
Ambuj Varshney, a Swedish citizen, is an Assistant Professor at the National University of Singapore. Previously, he was a postdoctoral scholar at the Department of EECS of the University of California, Berkeley. He was also a visiting researcher (three months) at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH). He completed his doctoral studies at Uppsala University, Sweden. As a PhD student, he was also closely associated with Swedish Institute of Computer Sciences (SICS) (Now called RISE). And even before, he was a software engineer (firmware) at NXP Semiconductors.
Ambuj Varshney’s interests over the past decade have centered around embedded systems, wireless, and mobile computing. He has tackled the problem of energy asymmetry among components of embedded systems, which is a pressing problem hindering their widespread deployment. Varshney has designed novel low-power wireless transmitters that achieve hundreds of meters of range at tens of microwatts of power consumption, which is orders of magnitude lower than widely used commercial transmitters. His research has led to awards, accolades, and research grants, and his doctoral dissertation was awarded the 2019 ABB Research Award in Honour of Hubertus von Gruenberg (with an endowment of 300,000 USD hosted at the University of California, Berkeley). Several of Varshney’s students have also received significant honors and accolades, including winning the ACM Student Research Competition at ACM MobiCom 2017. Varshney has served as a jury member, program committee member, and in organizational roles for several important scientific events.
You can also read more about me here: (ABB Featured artice)(English)(Swedish)
Our vision is to seamlessly integrate digital and physical worlds, thus providing tools for exploring and better understanding our world and reality. In pursuit of our vision, we are focused on two directions: STICORS and BeyondRF.
STICORS: This research directions aims to develop a framework for general purpose, flexible form factor, and long-lasting computers. Unlike traditional sensor platforms, these computers will not just sense and transmit information. They will be able to sense the physical world, actuate the environment, interact with users, process, store, and infer information, and transmit wirelessly. Based on our previous systems, such as LoRea (ACM SENSYS 2017) and Judo (ACM MOBISYS 2022), these computers will be able to communicate over long distances.
BEYOND RF: We are developing alternative wireless communication methods for Internet of Things (IoT) devices. The increasing number of IoT devices has led to challenges with energy and spectrum usage. To address these challenges, our projects focus on using; 1) visible light (LiFi) for communication to avoid using the RF spectrum altogether (VLCS 2016) (VLCS 2017) (MOBICOM 2019) (MOBISYS 2020) 2) Tunnel diode and backscatter transmitters that use orders of magnitude less energy than commercial transmitters (MOBICOM 2019) (MOBICOM 2020) (MOBISYS 2022); Previously, we have also investigated, 3) Electronically steerable directional atennas in IoT devices for spectrum efficient communication and sensing (IPSN 2015) (SENSYS 2015)
Mentored the following students (formally):
Collaborated with the following students:
Served as a member of jury or other significant roles in the following events:
Part of jury for 2022 ABB Research Award in Honour of HvG. Other members were:
Involved in the organizational role of the following events:
Part of the technical program committee (TPC) of the following scientific conferences:
Involved in reviewing of articles for the following journals:
Publication numbers are for reference only and not for the purpose of bean counting.
POSTER: Enabling L3: Low Cost, Low Complexity and Low Power Radio Frequency Sensing using Tunnel Diodes
Authors: Wenqing Yan, Ambuj Varshney
The Twenty Eight Annual International Conference On Mobile Computing And Networking (ACM MobiCom 2022)
Making Low-power and Long-range Wireless Backscatter Transmitters
Author: Ambuj Varshney
ACM GetMobile: Mobile Computing and Communications (Maker Edition) 2022
(Featured in editorial by Landon Cox (Microsoft Research)) Read the editorial here
Securing Battery-free Backscatter Tags through Fingerprinting
Authors: Revathy Narayanan, Ambuj Varshney, et al.
The Twentieth ACM Workshop on Hot Topics in Networks (ACM HotNets 2021)
Radio frequency communication device for low power communication
Ambuj Varshney (Only inventor)
[PCT/Patent Application] [WO2021040594A1]
Connecting Battery-free IoT Tags Using LED Bulbs
Authors: Domenico Giustiniano, Ambuj Varshney, Thiemo Voigt
The Eighteenth ACM Workshop on Hot Topics in Networks (ACM HotNets 2019)
Demonstration: Towards Battery-free Radio Tomographic Imaging
Authors: Abdullah Hylamia, Ambuj Varshney, Andreas Soleiman, et al.
The Eleventh ACM Conference on Security and Privacy in Wireless and Mobile Networks (ACM WiSec-2018)
Best demonstration award
Battery-free 802.15.4 Receiver
Authors: Carlos Perez Penichet, Claro Noda, Ambuj Varshney, Thiemo Voigt
The Seventeenth ACM/IEEE Conference on Information Processing in Sensor Networks.(ACM/IEEE IPSN 2018)
Enabling Sustainable Networked Embedded Systems
Ambuj Varshney, Doctoral dissertation
Awarded the 2019 ABB Research Award in Honour of HvG (with grant of 300k USD)
Press release from Uppsala University
Press release from ABB
LoRea: A Backscatter Architecture that Achieves a Long Communication Range
Authors: Ambuj Varshney, Oliver Harms, Carlos Penichet, Christian Rohner , Frederik Hermans, Thiemo Voigt
Fifteenth ACM Conference on Embedded Networked Sensor Systems (ACM SENSYS 2017)
2019 ABB Research Award Winner
Battery-free Visible Light Sensing
Authors: Ambuj Varshney, Andreas Soleiman, Luca Mottola, Thiemo Voigt
ACM VLCS (Co-located with ACM MobiCom) 2017
Best Paper Award
ACM Student Research Competition Winner (Graduate, MobiCom) (Mentored student)
Towards wide-area backscatter networks
Authors: Ambuj Varshney, Carlos Perez Penichet, Christian Rohner, Thiemo Voigt
ACM HotWireless (Co-located with ACM MobiCom) 2017
modBulb: A Modular Light Bulb for Visible Light Communication
Authors: Kasun Hewage, Ambuj Varshney, Abdalah Hilamia, Thiemo Voigt
ACM VLCS (Co-located with ACM MobiCom) 2016
Augmenting IoT Networks with Backscatter-Enabled Passive Sensor Tags
Authors: Carlos Perez Penichet, Frederik Hermans, Ambuj Varshney, Thiemo Voigt
ACM HotWireless (Co-located with ACM MobiCom) 2016
My first computer was an IBM PC XT back in 1992. Since 1998, I have been a supporter of the free and open-source software movement and Linux. In 2000-2001, I contributed to the IndLinux project and translated many applications to Hindi. After finishing high school, I created and maintained a popular Linux blog that was ranked in the top 10 in its genre. I used the revenue from advertisements (Google Adsense) to partially fund my undergraduate education.