On October 2, 6G@UT Faculty welcomed Erik Ekudden, Ericsson’s Chief Technology Officer (CTO), and Dr. Eric Wang, Research Leader of Ericsson Silicon Valley, to the University of Texas at Austin campus. The group discussed 6G and the future of mobile extended reality (XR) applications in the 2030 timeframe.
Ekudden joined Ericsson in 1993 as a researcher after graduating with his Master of Science from the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden. His team conducted early work on virtual and augmented reality for mobile systems and played a key role in the launch of 3G, 4G, and 5G global mobile systems. In 2017, he became Group CTO at Ericsson Headquarters in Kista, Sweden. He became a member of the Broadband Commission for Sustainable Development in 2020.
Wang, who graduated with his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from The University of Michigan, joined Ericsson in 1995. His research areas include 6G and 5G-advanced radio access technologies and machine-type communications. He also co-authored Cellular Internet of Things: From Massive Deployments to Critical 5G Applications.
In addition to technical discussions, Ekudden and Wang toured Dr. Al Bovik’s Laboratory for Image and Video Engineering (LIVE) to witness a demonstration of LIVE’s virtual reality quality assessment experiments.
Dr. Jeff Andrews “It was exciting to hear Mr. Ekudden’s thoughts on the global importance of cellular networks to so many different technology sectors, and to understand better how their evolution looks from the standpoint of one of the most important 5G and 6G vendors and innovators. It is clear that 6G will be defined less by the communication standard itself, than by the fusion of several technologies such as wireless, sensing, machine learning, and edge cloud computing.”
Dr. Todd Humphreys "It was a distinct privilege to welcome Erik Ekudden, CTO of Ericsson, to UT for a discussion on the future of wireless and extended reality. He and others in Ericsson leadership are clearly committed to creating the 6G future not only to enable better connectivity and sensing but also to cultivate and expand general engineering expertise across the globe. That's music to the ears of an engineering professor!"
6G@UT will be welcoming Ekudden and Wang, along with other Ericsson representatives and industry peers, back to UT Campus in April 2024 to participate in the 6G@UT Forum.