Rana Ahmad Bilal Khalid
DC2, Aston University
Short Bio:
Rana Ahmad Bilal Khalid is from Islamabad, Pakistan. He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from the National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST) in 2017. He went on to complete his MSc in Smart Telecom and Sensing Networks (SMARTNET) from Aston University in 2020 on an Erasmus+ scholarship. He has worked as a freelance Machine Learning (ML) and High-Performance Computing (HPC) engineer for the last three years. Prior to that, he served as an Assistant Manager (Wireless Networks) at Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL). As part of the NESTOR project, his research will focus on the application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) techniques to improve the energy efficiency of B5G/6G wireless networks. With strong interests in machine learning, AI, wireless communication, and optical systems, he is thrilled to have the opportunity to pursue research in a field he is deeply passionate about.
Research Topic: "Low-complexity DSP techniques for beyond 5G X-haul"
Project Summary: Develop energy-efficient transceiver technologies for X-haul in RANs. Investigate generative-AI-enabled semantic communication systems in terms of robustness and complexity. Additionally, explore ML-based methods for nonlinearity mitigation in analog RoF systems to address key challenges in optical fronthaul.
| Host Institution: | Aston University Aston Institute of Photonic Technologies https://www.aston.ac.uk/research/eps/aipt |
| Supervisors: | Prof Sergei Turitsyn, Dr Yaroslav Prylepskiy, Dr Pedro Freire |
| Secondments planned: | Ericsson Italy BT Group / British Telecom |
| PhD Enrolment Institution: | Aston University |
| Industrial Mentor: | Dr Fabio Cavaliere (Ericsson) Prof Andrew Lord (BT Group) |
- Khalid, Rana Ahmad Bilal, Efficient and Robust Semantic Image Communication via Stable Cascade, International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML), Vancouver, 2025. Zenodo OA: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17281324
The secondment programme for Bilal includes two visits:
- A visit to the Ericsson team in Pisa, Italy, to work on the development of lightweight neural network models for non-linearity mitigation in analogue radio-over-fibre systems (Spring 2026).
- A 2-month secondment at BT Group (British Telecom) in the second half of 2026.
Further details on the objectives, progress, and outcomes of the secondments will be made available in due course.