IIT Roorkee Homepage
Abhay Kumar Sah

Abhay Kumar Sah

Assistant Professor

abhaysah[at]ece.iitr.ac.in
01332-284943
My Website

Wireless Communication, 5G and beyond Systems, Next Generation Massive MIMO Systems, Intelligent Wireless Systems, Applications of AI and Deep Learning

From To Designation Organisation
Mar 2020 Present Assistant Professor Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee
Sep 2019 Mar 2020 Lead Architect Radisys India Pvt. Ltd. Bangalore
Jan 2018 Sep 2019 Senior Software Engineer Samsung R&D Institute Bangalore
Award Institute Year Awarded
Samsung Citizen Award Samsung R&D Institute Bangalore 2019
Samsung Spot Award Samsung R&D Institute Bangalore 2018
Best PhD Thesis (Top-15) Indian National Academy of Engineering (INAE), New Delhi 2018
DST Inspire Faculty Fellowship Department of Science and Technology, New Delhi 2017
TCS Research Fellowship Tata Consultancy Services 2013
Best Teaching Assistant Award Dept. of Electrical Engineering, IIT Kanpur 2012
VC Gold Medal Jaypee University of Engineering & Technology, Guna 2012
Certificate of Excellence District Magistrate, Katihar 2018
Merit Award (10th) District Magistrate, Katihar 2003
MathWorks Research Award The MathWorks, Inc. 2023
MathWorks Research Award MathWorks Inc. USA 2023
Degree Subject University Year Studied
Ph.D. Electrical Engineering Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur 2017
B.Tech. Electronics & Communication Engineering Jaypee Institute of Engineering & Technology, Guna (M.P.) 2010
From To Designation Organisation Level
Feb 2021 Dec 2021 Member Departmental Faculty Search Committee (DFSC)
Aug 2021 Present Member Departmental Academic Program Committee (DAPC)
Aug 2021 Present Faculty In-charge (FIC) Communication System Lab
Aug 2021 Present Faculty In-charge (FIC) Placement & Internship (PIC)
Aug 2023 Present Faculty In-charge (FIC) SDR Lab
Scheme Sponsoring Agency Other Faculties Year Sponsored
Faculty Initiation Grant SRIC, IIT Roorkee NA 2021
Startup Research Grant Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB) NA 2021
Karyashala (Accelerate Vigyan) Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB) E. Sharma, A. Jaiswal, and M. Rawat 2023
Vritika (Accelerate Vigyan) Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB) NA 2023
SMILE, IIT Roorkee SRIC, IIT Roorkee N. Pathak, D. Singh, A. Patnaik, M. Rawat, D. Bhat, E. Sharma et. al. 2022
Chips to Startup (C2S) Programme Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology, New Delhi S. Dasgupta, A. Bulusu, B. Das, D. Bhat, E. Sharma, S. Kumar et. al. 2023
MathWorks Research Award The MathWorks, Inc. NA 2023
Membership Details
Review Editor, Communication Theory, Frontiers in Communications and Networks
Senior Member, IEEE
IEEE Communication Society
Title Course Code Course Semester
Linear Algebra and Random Processes ECN-511 M.Tech. + Ph.D. Autumn (2020-21)
Wireless Communication Systems ECN-611 B.Tech. (Final Year) + M.Tech. + Ph.D. Spring (2020-21)
Linear Algebra and Random Processes ECN-511 M.Tech. +Ph.D. Autumn (2021-22)
Wireless Technologies: 5G and Beyond ECN-618 B.Tech. (Final Year) + M.Tech. + Ph.D. Spring (2021-22)
Advanced Wireless Communication ECN-620 B.Tech. (Final Year) + M.Tech. + Ph.D. Spring (2021-22)
Signals and Systems ECN-203 B.Tech. (Second Year) Autumn (2022-23)
Advanced Wireless Communication ECN-620 B.Tech. (Final Year) + M.Tech. + Ph.D. Spring (2022-23)
Wireless Technologies: 5G and Beyond ECN-618 B.Tech. (Final Year) + M.Tech. + Ph.D. Spring (2022-23)
Wireless Communication Systems ECN-519 B. Tech. (Final Year) + M.Tech. + Ph.D. Autumn (2023-24)
Topic Scholar Name Status of PhD Registration Year
Wireless Communication Santosh Kumar Singh Ongoing 2020
Wireless Communication Himanshu Kumar Shekhar Ongoing 2021
Wireless Communication Hari Shankar O K Ongoing 2021
Wireless Communication Debajit Choudhury Ongoing 2021
Wireless Communication Shweta Rai Ongoing 2022
Wireless Communication Chaitanya Bhardwaj Ongoing 2023
Wireless Communication Shaifali Gupta Ongoing 2023
Wireless Communication Hari Kishan Repala Ongoing 2023
Course Name Sponsored By Date Participated
Advanced Topics in Coding Theory BITCOE, IIT Kanpur Oct. 2016
A Short Course on Communication CDTE, IIT Kanpur Apr. 2012
Cognitive Radio: The Next Frontier in Wireless Communications BITCOE, IIT Kanpur Nov. 2010
Title Place Date Delivered
Technologies Enabling 5G Communications Dept. of Electronics Engg., ZHCET, Aligarh Muslim University Feb 2019
MATLAB Examples Addressing Key Realization Issues for 5G Systems Dept. of Electronics Engg., ZHCET, Aligarh Muslim University Feb 2019
Low Complexity Detection in Massive MIMO Systems: A MATLAB Implementation IIT Kanpur Jan 2017
Massive MIMO: Its Journey, Reality, and Future IIT Kanpur (Via Zoom) Dec 2020
MASSIVE MIMO: The key enabler for 5G & beyond 5G systems NIT Jalandhar (Via Google Meet) Jan 2021
Intelligent Massive MIMO Samsung R&D Institute Bangalore (Via MS Teams) Feb 2021
Intelligent Massive MIMO for beyond 5G Systems IIIT Bangalore Aug 2021
An Introduction to Cell-Free Massive MIMO Systems NIT Delhi Oct 2021
The Downlink Signal Processing in 5G System MLRIT Hyderabad (AICTE Sponsored FDP) Feb 2022
Motivation as backbone of 5G communication, Multi-carrier modulated system EICT Academy, IIT Roorkee Aug 2022
OFDM system & its Realization Challenges EICT Academy, IIT Roorkee Aug 2022
MATLAB Session on Error Performance of OFDM System EICT Academy, IIT Roorkee Aug 2022
MATLAB Session on PAPR Performance of OFDM System EICT Academy, IIT Roorkee Aug 2022
An Introduction to MIMO Systems NIT Delhi Nov 2022
An introduction to deep neural networks NIT Trichy Dec 2022
DNN for beyond Massive MIMO Systems NIT Trichy Dec 2022
Cell-free Massive MIMO Systems VIT Vellore Jan 2023
Deep Learning for beyond 5G Networks TRAI Dehradun Feb 2023
Signal Detection in Cell-free Massive MIMO Systems IIT Ropar Feb 2023
Name Place Sponsored By Date
National Conference on Communications IIT Madras Dept. of EE, IIT Kanpur Feb. 2017
Shannon's Centenary Day IIT Kanpur BITCOE, IIT Kanpur Oct. 2016
IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC) Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia IIT Kanpur May 2016
International Workshop on 5G RAN Design Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia IIT Kanpur May 2016
International Conference on COMmunication Systems and NETworkS (COMSNETS) Bangalore, India Organizer Jan. 2016
IEEE Global Communications Conference (GLOBECOM) San Diego, California Tata Consultancy Services Dec. 2015
IEEE Signal Processing and Communications (SPCOM) Bangalore, India Tata Consultancy Services July 2014
National Conference on Communications IIT Kanpur BITCOE, IIT Kanpur Feb. 2014
IEEE Signal Processing and Communications (SPCOM) Virtual (Online) Complementary July 2020
National Conference on Communications Virtual (Online) Complementary July 2021
IEEE India Council International Conference (INDICON) IIT Guwahati (Virtual) Complementary Dec 2021
IEEE Wireless Communications and Networking Conference (WCNC) Austin, TX, USA (Hybrid) IIT Roorkee Apr 2022
IEEE International Symposium on Personal, Indoor and Mobile Radio Communications (PIMRC) Virtual (Online) IIT Roorkee Sep 2022

Patents (Global):


6. S.K. Vankayala, R. Gundeti, Abhay Kumar Sah, A. Nigam, G.S.V. Umakishore, A. Kaithara, Joseph, S. Yoon, “Method and system for hierarchical decoding of data packets in cellular communication system” (WO2021080383A1).

5. S.K. Vankayala, R. Gundeti, Abhay Kumar Sah, I. Kommineni, A. Nigam, S. Shetty, and G.S.V. Uma, “Methods and systems for optimizing computation of log-likelihood ratio (LLR) for decoding modulated symbols” (WO2021201651A1).

4. S.K. Vankayala, Abhay Kumar Sah, A. Nigam, G.S.V. Uma, and T. Mittra, “Method and apparatus for enabling optimized decoding of data packet in harq based communication” (WO2021075888A1).

3. S.K. Vankayala, S. Madhurapantula, A. Nigam, A. Bhat, Abhay Kumar Sah, and Sudharsan Parthasarthy, “Method and system for channel quality status prediction in wireless network using machine learning” (US20220278728A1).

2. S.K. Vankayala, J. Akhtar, Abhay Kumar Sah, N. Srinivasan, G.S.V. Uma, and R. Gundeti, “Methods and Systems for Detecting Primary Synchronization Signal (PSS) in a Wireless Network” (US20200313783A1).

1. S.K. Vankayala, J. Akhtar, Abhay Kumar Sah, N. Srinivasan, G.S.V. Uma, and R. Gundeti, “Methods and Systems for Detecting Primary Synchronization Signal (PSS) in a Wireless Network” (EP3949181A4).


Patents (National):


12. Abhay Kumar Sah and Debajit Choudhury, "A Methods for automatic modulation selection and recognition for the modern radio access networks" (To file)

11. Abhay Kumar Sah and Santosh K. Singh, “A grant-free random access method for cell-free networks” (202311045133).

10. Abhay Kumar Sah and S.K. Awasthi, “A system and method for estimating the location of a base station using RSSI available on the mobile station” (202211054392).

9. S.K. Vankayala, Abhay Kumar Sah, and G.S.V. Uma, “Hierarchical Coordinated Multi-point Processing for Uplink in 4G/5G/VRAN Systems” (201941043247).

8. Abhay Kumar Sah, S.K. Vankayala, and G.S.V. Uma, “Power Efficient and Low Complexity Receiver for a Wireless Communication and its Operating Method Thereof” (202041013448/482643).

7. S.K. Vankayala, R. Gundeti, Abhay Kumar Sah, I. Kommineni, A. Nigam, S. Shetty, and G.S.V. Uma, “A Novel Iterative Method for LLR” (202041014792/475774).

6. S.K. Vankayala, Abhay Kumar Sah, A. Nigam, G.S.V. Uma, and T. Mittra “Method for Optimal HARQ Chase Combining for 4G/5G/VRAN/CRAN Systems” (201941042232).

5. S.K. Vankayala, S. Madhurapantula, A. Nigam, A. Bhat, Abhay Kumar Sah, and Sudharsan Parthasarthy, “Base Station CQI prediction using ML” (201941047831/483330).

4. Abhay Kumar Sah, S. K. Vankayala, Uma Kishore Godavarti, and Ashok K. Reddy Chavva, “Method and system for combining incoming signals” (202041004871). 

3. S.K. Vankayala, J. Akhtar, Abhay Kumar Sah, N. Srinivasan, G.S.V. Uma, and R. Gundeti, “Methods and Systems for Detecting Primary Synchronization Signal (PSS) in a Wireless Network” (201941013045).

2. Abhay Kumar Sah and A.K. Chaturvedi, “Low Complexity Detection in Multiple Input Multiple Output Systems” (201811029113/518912).

1. Abhay Kumar Sah and A.K. Chaturvedi, “A Neighborhood Search based Large Multiple Input Multiple Output Detector” (201811029143/478273).


Journal Publications (in reverse chronology):


15. Santosh K. Singh and Abhay Kumar Sah, "Distributed Beam combining in Cell-Free Massive MIMO Networks", IEEE Transactions on Communications. (Under revision)

14. Debajit Choudhury and Abhay Kumar Sah, "Joint Transmit and Reflect Beamforming for Hybrid-RIS aided Massive MIMO System under Hardware Impairments", IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications. (Under review)

13. Hunny Saini, Santosh K. Singh, and Abhay Kumar Sah, "Minimizing Churn Rate in Network-Controlled D2D Communications under Multiple QoS Constraints", IEEE Transactions on Communications. (Under revision)

12. Debajit Choudhury and Abhay Kumar Sah, "Enhancing the Energy Efficiency Quotient of RIS-aided Cell-Free Massive MIMO Networks", IEEE Communications Letters. (Under revision)

11. Hari Shanker O K and Abhay Kumar Sah, "Multi-User Pairing for NOMA Enabled VLC System", IEEE Communications Letters. (Accepted)

10. Santosh K. Singh, Yallammagari Chakravarthy and Abhay Kumar Sah, "An Interference Aware User-Group Pilot Assignment for Cell-Free Massive MIMO Systems", IEEE Wireless Communications Letters, vol. 12, no. 7, pp. 1169-1173, July 2023.

9. R. Gupta, K. Lakshmanan, and Abhay Kumar Sah, “Beam alignment for mmWave using non-stationary bandits”, IEEE Communications Letters, vol. 22, no. 10, pp. 2619-2622, Nov. 2020.

8. Shyam Gadhai, Abhay Kumar Sah, A.K. Singh, R. Budhiraja, and A.K. Chaturvedi, “New Block-based Spatial Modulation”, IEEE Communications Letters, vol. 22, no. 10, pp. 2016-2019, Oct. 2018.

7. Pushpender Mann, Abhay Kumar Sah, R. Budhiraja, and A.K. Chaturvedi, “Bit-level Reduced Neighborhood Search for Low-complexity Detection in Large MIMO Systems”, IEEE Wireless Communications Letters, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 146-149, Apr. 2018.

6. Abhay Kumar Sah and A.K. Chaturvedi, “Sequential and Global Likelihood Ascent Search based Detection in Large MIMO Systems”, IEEE Transactions on Communications, vol. 66, no. 2, pp. 713-725, Feb. 2018. 

5. Saksham Agarwal*, Abhay Kumar Sah*, and A.K. Chaturvedi, “Likelihood Based Tree Search for Low Complexity Detection in Large MIMO Systems”, IEEE Wireless Communications Letters, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 450-453, Aug. 2017. (* equal contribution)

4. Abhay Kumar Sah and A.K. Chaturvedi, “An Unconstrained Likelihood Ascent based Detection Algorithm for Large MIMO Systems”, IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications, vol. 16, no. 4, pp. 2262-2273, Apr. 2017.

3. Abhishek*, Abhay Kumar Sah*, and A.K. Chaturvedi, “An MMP based Approach for Detection in Large MIMO Systems using Sphere Decoding”, IEEE Wireless Communications Letters, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 158-161, Apr. 2017. (* equal contribution)

2. Abhay Kumar Sah and A.K. Chaturvedi, “Quasi-Orthogonal Combining for Reducing RF Chains in Massive MIMO Systems”, IEEE Wireless Communications Letters, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 126-129, Feb. 2017.

1. Abhay Kumar Sah and A.K. Chaturvedi, “Stopping Rule based Iterative Tree Search for Low-Complexity Detection in MIMO Systems”, IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications, vol. 16, no. 1, pp. 169-179, Jan. 2017.


Conference Publications (in reverse chronology):


17. Santosh K. Singh, Ankit Kumar, Aryan Dhiman, and Abhay Kumar Sah, "Self-Interference Cancellation in a Full-Duplex MIMO Relay under Non-Linear Hardware Impairments", IEEE International Conference On Electrical Electronics Communication and Computers (ELEXCOM), Roorkee, India, Aug. 2023. (To appear)

16. Hunny Saini, Santosh K. Singh, Abhay Kumar Sah, and S.K. Vankayala, "Churn Rate Aware Interference Management for Device-to-Device Communications in SDNs", IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC), Rome, Italy, May 2023.

15. Santosh. K. Singh, Abhay Kumar Sah, S.K. Vankayala, S. Parthasarthy, G.S.V. Uma, and S. Yoon, "Beam-combining in 5G-Open RAN Systems", National Conference on Communications (NCC), Guwahati, India, Feb. 2023.

14. Abhay Kumar Sah, Santosh. K. Singh, S.K. Vankayala, S. Parthasarthy, G.S.V. Uma, and S. Yoon, "Low-cost Beam-combining Architecture for RUs in mmWave Massive MIMO based 5G-CRAN System", IEEE Global Communications Conference (GLOBECOM), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Dec. 2022. [Hybrid]

13. Yatharth Bansal and Abhay Kumar Sah, "An Untrained DNN Denoiser for Uplink Channel Estimation in Multicell Massive MIMO System", IEEE 33rd Annual International Symposium on Personal, Indoor and Mobile Radio Communications (PIMRC), Kyoto, Japan Sep. 2022. [Hybrid]

12. Sahaj Kumar Jha, Abhay Kumar Sah, and Sonia Aïssa, "Beam Combining in Massive MIMO System under Non-Linear Hardware Impairments", IEEE Wireless Communications and Networking Conference (WCNC), Austin, TX, USA, Apr. 2022.

11. S.K. Vankayala*, R. Gundeti, K.G. Shenoy, Abhay Kumar Sah, Swaraj K., and S. Yoon, "A Framework for Exploiting Hard and Soft LLRs for Low Complexity Decoding in VRAN Systems", Proc. IEEE Wireless Communications and Networking Conference (WCNC), Nanching, China, Mar. 2021. 

10. S. Parthasarthy*, Abhay Kumar Sah, and S.K. Vankayala, "Analysis of Downlink NOMA in Full Duplex-Half Duplex Mixed Cell PPP System with Interference", Proc. IEEE International Conference on Advanced Networks and Telecommunications Systems (ANTS), New Delhi, India, Dec. 2020. [Virtual] 

9. S.K. Vankayala*, Javed Akhtar, Ashok Krishnan, and Abhay Kumar Sah, “Accelerated Detection Schemes for PSS in 5G-NR”, Proc. IEEE 3rd 5G World Forum (5GWF), Bangalore, India, Sep. 2020 [Virtual].

8. Shyam Gadhai, Abhay Kumar Sah, R. Budhiraja, and A.K. Chaturvedi, “Generalized Block-Based Spatial Modulation and Space Shift Keying”, Proc. 20th IEEE International Workshop on Signal Processing Advances in Wireless Communications (SPAWC 2019), Cannes, France, Jul. 2019.

7. Abhishek, Abhay Kumar Sah, and A.K. Chaturvedi, “Improved Sparsity Behaviour and Error Localization in Detectors for Large MIMO Systems”, Proc. IEEE Global Communications Conference (GLOBECOM), Washington DC, USA, Dec. 2016.

6. Abhay Kumar Sah and A.K. Chaturvedi, “Beyond Fixed Neighborhood Search in the Likelihood Ascent Algorithm for MIMO Systems”, Proc. IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC), Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, May 2016.

5. Vipul Gupta, Abhay Kumar Sah, and A.K. Chaturvedi, “Iterative Matrix Inversion Based Low Complexity Detection in Large/Massive MIMO Systems”, Proc. IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC), Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, May 2016.

4. Abhay Kumar Sah and A.K. Chaturvedi, “Improving the Reliability of Receivers for 5G Networks”, Proc. Eighth International Conference on COMmunication Systems and NETworkS (COMSNETS), Bangalore, India, Jan. 2016. (Short Paper)

3. Abhay Kumar Sah and A.K. Chaturvedi, “Reduced Neighborhood Search Algorithms for Low Complexity Detection in MIMO Systems”, Proc. IEEE Global Communications Conference (GLOBECOM), San Diego, California, USA, Dec. 2015.

2. Abhay Kumar Sah and A.K. Chaturvedi, “An Upper Bound on the Performance of K-best Detection for MIMO Systems”, Proc. IEEE Signal Processing and Communications (SPCOM), 22-25 July 2014.

1. Ravi Kumar, Rajiv Saxena, Abhay Sah, Saroj Gupta, and Tapesh Chandgothia, “Performance of Dynamic MIMO Systems in Presence of Nakagami Fading Channel”, Proc. IEEE Computational Intelligence, Communication Systems and Networks (CICSyN), Liverpool, UK, 28-30 July 2010.