Sergio Barrachina-Muñoz (Barcelona, 1991) holds a PhD in Information and Communication Technologies (2021) by Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF), Barcelona, Spain. Previously, he received his BSc Degree in Telematics Engineering (2015) and MSc in Intelligent Interactive Systems (2016), also from UPF. Sergio joined the Wireless Networking Research Group at UPF as an intern in 2015, where he worked under the supervision of Dr. Boris Bellalta in the context of ENTOMATIC, a European project devoted to the development of an IoT wireless network to monitor and execute anti-plague methods. During the PhD, Sergio made a 4-months research stay at the Rice Networks research group in Rice University (HOU, USA), where he developed the Wi-Fi All Channel Analyzer (WACA) platform with Prof. Edward Knightly. Such a platform was later used to create a dataset with unique measurement campaigns like a sold-out game in Futbol Club Barcelonas stadium. Besides, Sergio has been a recipient of a FI grant from the Generalitat de Catalunya. As for his thesis, his work focused on developing autonomous machine learning techniques for improving next-generation Wi-Fi networks through efficient spectrum access.
Apart from his thesis work, Sergio also contributed to other areas during the PhD including wireless sensor networks, spatial reuse, and software-defined networking (SDN). Sergio is also one of the creators of Komondor, an open-source IEEE 802.11ax network simulator. The outcomes of his research to the date are 11 journal papers and 8 conference papers, with one runner-up best paper award. Apart from research, Sergio has been involved in teaching undergraduate courses since 2015, with subjects mainly related to computer networks both in UPF and Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC).
After successfully defending the PhD with cum laude mention, Sergio worked for 3 months in the Wi-Fi industry as a quality assurance expert for Orange in Barcelona, where his duties dealt with designing and executing test plans for validating the performance of customer premises equipment (CPE) devices. Then, Sergio joined the Smartech department at Centre Tecnològic de Telecomunicacions de Catalunya (CTTC) as a researcher in March 2021. His work there focuses on contributing to 5G/6G-related topics like network function virtualization (NFV) and multi-access edge computing (MEC) in the context of MARSAL, a project that targets the development of novel cell-free based solutions empowered with an elastic virtual infrastructure. In addition, Sergio contributes to the PARADIGM testbed, where multiple European projects besides MARSAL are being evaluated, including MonB5G, 5GSOLUTIONS, and 5G-MediaHUB.
Sergio’s research interests include a wide range of topics related to wireless networking, both theoretical and practical (or testbed-related), including 5G/6G networks, reinforcement learning, federated learning, NFV, MEC, and network slicing orchestration.
*Find my academic CV here.
Keywords: Wi-Fi, IEEE 802.11ax, Machine Learning, Spectrum management, Reinforcement Learning, channel bondig, Wireless Networks
Barrachina, S., Adame, T., Bel, A., & Bellalta, B. (2015, September). GOAT: A Tool for Planning Wireless Sensor Networks. In International Workshop on Multiple Access Communications (pp. 147-158). Springer, Cham.
Barrachina-Muñoz, S., Bellalta, B., Adame, T., & Bel, A. (2017). Multi-hop communication in the uplink for LPWANs. Computer Networks, 123, 153-168.
Barrachina-Muñoz, S., & Bellalta, B. (2017, October). Learning optimal routing for the uplink in LPWANs using similarity-enhanced e-greedy. In 2017 IEEE 28th Annual International Symposium on Personal, Indoor, and Mobile Radio Communications (PIMRC) (pp. 1-5). IEEE.
Wilhelmi, F., Cano, C., Neu, G., Bellalta, B., Jonsson, A., & Barrachina-Muñoz, S. (2019). Collaborative Spatial Reuse in Wireless Networks via Selfish Multi-Armed Bandits. Ad Hoc Networks 88 (2019): 129-141.
Adame Vázquez, T., Barrachina-Muñoz, S., Bellalta, B., & Bel, A. (2018). HARE: Supporting efficient uplink multi-hop communications in self-organizing LPWANs. Sensors, 18(1), 115.
Wilhelmi, F., Barrachina-Muñoz, S., Bellalta, B., Cano, C., Jonsson, A., & Neu, G. (2019). Potential and pitfalls of multi-armed bandits for decentralized spatial reuse in WLANs. Journal of Network and Computer Applications, 127, 26-42.
Barrachina-Muñoz, S., Wilhelmi, F., & Bellalta, B. (2019). Dynamic channel bonding in spatially distributed high-density WLANs. IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing, 19(4), 821-835.
Barrachina-Muñoz, S., Adame, T., Bel, A., & Bellalta, B. (2019, April). Towards energy efficient LPWANs through learning-based multi-hop routing. In 2019 IEEE 5th World Forum on Internet of Things (WF-IoT) (pp. 644-649). IEEE.
López-Raventós, Á., Wilhelmi, F., Barrachina--Muñoz, S., & Bellalta, B. (2019). Combining Software Defined Networks and Machine Learning to enable Self Organizing WLANs. In 2019 International Conference on Wireless and Mobile Computing, Networking and Communications (WiMob) (pp. 1-8). IEEE.
Barrachina-Muñoz, S., Wilhelmi, F., & Bellalta, B. (2019). To overlap or not to overlap: Enabling channel bonding in high-density WLANs. Computer Networks, 152, 40-53.
Barrachina-Muñoz, S., Wilhelmi, F., Selinis, I., & Bellalta, B. (2019, April). Komondor: a Wireless Network Simulator for Next-Generation High-Density WLANs. In 2019 Wireless Days (WD) (pp. 1-8). IEEE.
Barrachina-Muñoz, S., Wilhelmi, F., & Bellalta, B. (2019). Online Primary Channel Selection for Dynamic Channel Bonding in High-Density WLANs. IEEE Wireless Communications Letters, 9(2), 258-262.
Wilhelmi, F., Barrachina-Muñoz, S., & Bellalta, B. (2019, October). On the Performance of the Spatial Reuse Operation in IEEE 802.11 ax WLANs. In 2019 IEEE Conference on Standards for Communications and Networking (CSCN) (pp. 1-6). IEEE.
Wilhelmi, F., Barrachina-Munoz, S., Bellalta, B., Cano, C., Jonsson, A., & Ram, V. (2020). A Flexible Machine-Learning-Aware Architecture for Future WLANs. IEEE Communications Magazine, 58(3), 25-31.
Barrachina-Muñoz, S., Bellalta, B., & Knightly, E. (2020, September). Wi-Fi All-Channel Analyzer. In Proceedings of the 14th International Workshop on Wireless Network Testbeds, Experimental evaluation & Characterization (pp. 72-79).
Wilhelmi, F., Barrachina-Muñoz, S., Cano, C., Selinis, I., & Bellalta, B. (2021). Spatial Reuse in IEEE 802.11ax WLANs. Computer Communications 170, 65-83.
Barrachina-Muñoz, S., Chiumento, A., & Bellalta, B. (2021). Multi-Armed Bandits for Spectrum Allocation in Multi-Agent Channel Bonding WLANs.IEEE Access..
Barrachina-Muñoz, S., Bellalta, B., & Knightly, E. (2020, September). Wi-Fi All-Channel Analyzer. IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking.
Barrachina-Muñoz, S., Chiumento, A., & Bellalta, B. (2021). Stateless Reinforcement Learning for Multi-Agent Systems: the Case of Spectrum Allocation in Dynamic Channel Bonding WLANs. IEEE 2021 Wireless Days (WD).
Wilhelmi, F., Barrachina-Muñoz, S., & Dini, P. (2022). End-to-End Latency Analysis and Optimal Block Size of Proof-of-Work Blockchain Applications. arXiv preprint arXiv:2202.01497.
Conference at IEEE 5th World Forum on Internet of Things, Helsinki, Finland
Poster at 5th EITIC Doctoral Student Workshop, Barcelona, Spain
Conference at PIMRC, Montreal, Canada
Poster at 6th EITIC Doctoral Student Workshop, Barcelona, Spain
Dissemination at Research stay at the Rice Networks Group (Rice University), Houston, United States
Dissemination at Research stay at the Rice Networks Group (Rice University), Houston, United States
Conference at IEEE 5th World Forum on Internet of Things, Limerick, Ireland
Conference at Workshop on Next-Generation Wireless with ns-3, Florence, Italy
Conference at IEEE Conference on Standards for Communications and Networking (CSCN), GRANADA, Spain, Granada, Spain
Conference at Wireless Days, Paris, France (remote)