“My girlfriend works here in Eindhoven at Philips now”, says Huang. “I searched the Internet for an interesting research topic related to my studies, Electromagnetics and Antenna design. And so I found out the Department of Radio Communication, here, had a very interesting research topic on 60 GHz antenna design.” Huang applied for this postdoc project and they chose him.

“60 GHz antennas are used for indoor wireless communication and they are really small, around 2.5 millimeters”, he explains. “One single antenna is not enough. You need an antenna array, for example in a very small circle of six to eight antennas in the array.” The big advantage of communication via those 60 GHz antennas is that communication is really fast. “You can send uncompressed high-definition video stream really fast.” Huang adds: “If you need to download 120 minutes of a DVD movie at 54 Mb/s, it takes about ten minutes. But if you use this 60 GHz multi-gigabit-per-second wireless technology, it takes only seconds to finish downloading.”

In his research Huang focuses on investigation of the advanced antenna array concepts. “The signal is easily interrupted by people walking around. You need to steer your antenna beam to find the optimal pointing angle between the transmitter at the set top box and the receiver at your television.” Huang: “To improve this we design and evaluate different antennas, which can adapt to different ways a radio signal spreads in a room. Think of a signal which is partly blocked by people walking by or reflected by a wall or a ceiling. Another aspect is to integrate the array of antennas with an electronic component like an amplifier, which strengthens the signal, in order to achieve a low-cost 60 GHz wireless system.”

Research abroad
When asked how it is to do research abroad, Huang answers: “You have to make extra efforts to do research abroad. First you have to master English, because it is the scientific language. And second you need to know about the culture. In a new environment, you need to be a good observer.”

Huang lives at the campus in a space cabin: “It is rather convenient for me. The best thing: it is very near to both my work and the Sports Center.” Huang plays football and swims. “There is a very nice swimming pool and I joined the Chinese football team. They play at 14.00 o’clock on Sunday afternoon at the Sportpark Tongelreep. Many of the 24 players study or work at the TU/e or they graduated there. It’s a nice informal environment. We have a lot of things in common to talk about.”

He also met some other Chinese researchers at the TU/e in his leisure time and on the Introduction Day which was organized by DPO. Huang: “I got a lot of information on the Netherlands, Eindhoven, Dutch people and Dutch culture.”

Huang stresses: “Of course you can not only talk to Chinese people, especially not at work. You need to cooperate with all your colleagues and learn from each other. That is very important. That is why many universities don’t want their PhDs to do a postdoc in the same university. They want you to integrate with people from other countries. You can teach them new things and they can give you new insights. If you stay in the same place for a few years, your mind will get fixed as well. Your thinking will change from contacts with others. It will give you a new perspective.”/.