Shafayat Abrar
Education
-
Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering, The University of Liverpool, UK —
Dissertation: Blind Channel Equalization and Instantaneous Blind Source Separation -
M.S. in Electrical Engineering, King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, Dhahran, KSA —
Thesis: Neural Networks Based Nonlinear Blind Equalization Schemes for QAM Signals (CGPA 3.7/4) - B.E. in Electrical Engineering, NED University of Engineering and Technology, Karachi, Pakistan
Research Interests
- Signal Processing
- Adaptive Filtering
- Optimization
- Channel Equalization
- Carrier Synchronization
- Target Tracking
- Detection and Estimation
- Sparse Filtering
- Bayesian Estimation
- Stochastic Integration Filtering
- Neural Networks
- Machine Learning
Biography
Dr. Shafayat Abrar has been Professor of Electrical Engineering at Habib University since December 2024, having served as Associate Professor there from January 2017. At Habib, he has developed and majorly revised courses including Digital Signal Processing and Statistics and Inferencing, served on the Board of Faculty and on curriculum-planning and faculty-hiring committees, and helped design the introductory Electrical and Computer Engineering course as well as new courses on Mobile Robotics and Statistical Sensor Data Fusion.
Prior to Habib, he was a Visiting Researcher at the Department of Electrical Engineering, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Thuwal, KSA (September–December 2016), and an Associate Professor and founding Head of the Department of Electrical Engineering at COMSATS Institute of Information Technology (CIIT), Islamabad (April 2011–May 2016), where he also headed the Communications and Signal Processing research group. He began his academic career as Assistant Professor at CIIT (2004–2011) and, earlier, as a post-graduate researcher (2007–2011) at the University of Liverpool, and as a Lecturer-B and Research Assistant at KFUPM (1998–2004).
Dr. Abrar continues to hold an active research grant from KFUPM (2022–2024) on enhanced phase-locked loop design, following earlier KFUPM-funded grants on adaptive blind channel equalization (2019–2022, 2003–2005). He has supervised one Ph.D. and eight M.S. theses, along with more than two dozen undergraduate capstone projects, and is a recipient of the IEEE Communications Society Heinrich Hertz Award for Best Communications Letters (2012).
Selected Publications
- S. Abrar, A. Zerguine, A.K. Nandi. “Blind adaptive carrier phase recovery for QAM systems.” Digital Signal Processing, 49, 2016.
- S. Abrar. “Sign algorithm for blind channel equalization.” Electronics Letters, 52(7), 2016.
- A. Ali, S. Abrar, A. Zerguine, A.K. Nandi. “Newton-like minimum entropy equalization algorithm for APSK systems.” Signal Processing, 101, 2014.
- S. Abrar, A. Ali, A. Zerguine, A.K. Nandi. “Tracking Performance of Two Constant Modulus Equalizers.” IEEE Communications Letters, 17(5), 2013.
- S. Abrar, A.K. Nandi. “Blind Equalization of Square-QAM signals: A Multimodulus Approach.” IEEE Transactions on Communications, 58(6), 2010.
- S. Abrar, A.K. Nandi. “Independent Component Analysis: Jacobi-Like Diagonalization of Optimized Composite-Order Cumulants.” Proceedings of the Royal Society A, 465(2105), 2009.
- Book: S. Abrar, Blind Equalization and Carrier Recovery: Adaptive Solutions and Analysis, Lambert Academic Publishing, 2016.
- Book Chapter: S. Abrar, A. Zerguine, A.K. Nandi, “Adaptive Blind Channel Equalization,” in Digital Communications, InTech, 2012.
Research Supervision
- Ph.D.: Syed S. Khalid, Adaptive and Robust Bayesian Filtering for Target Tracking, 2018
- M.S. (selected): Ateeq U. Rehman (2016), Sajid Sarwar (2016), Owais Khan (2015), Ejaz Ahmad (2015), Hamid U. Jan (2015), M.A. Qayyum (2015), Nadir Abbas (2015), Ali W. Azim (2014)
Honors & Awards
- IEEE Communications Society Heinrich Hertz Award for Best Communications Letters, 2012
- IEEE Communications Society Exemplary Reviewer Certificate, 2015
- UK Overseas Research Scholarship Award Scheme for Ph.D. studies, 2007–2010
- IEEE-INCC Best Paper Award and Premium at LUMS Lahore, 2004
- KFUPM Research Scholarship Award Scheme for M.S. studies, 1998–2000
- HEC-approved Ph.D. supervisor
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