Brief Bio
I have been with the Department of Electrical, Computer and Systems Engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) since Fall 2002. I obtained the Ph.D. degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Maryland, College Park in 2002, and the M.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from the same university in 1999. I received the B.Tech. degree in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, India, in 1997. I have also held visiting research positions at Bell Laboratories, NJ, and IBM TJ Watson Research Center, NY.
My core specialization is in control and optimization of networks and networked systems, with special focus on communication networks and energy flow networks. More details on my research, teaching and other professional acitivities can be found below.
Research
Most of my research has been in the field of computer and communication networks - in particular on performance modeling, analysis and optimization questions for the Internet as well as wireless networks. At a high level, a unifying theme that characterizes much of my research activities in this context is the design and analysis of solution approaches that can optimize usage of critical resources like bandwidth and energy in wired and wireless networks, with the goal of attaining maximum global network utility or fair sharing of resources in the network. A significant part of this research is focused on solutions/algorithms that can be implemented in a distributed manner, through local coordination, often only requiring limited information about the network topology and conditions. Of late, I have also been working on economic issues related to the use of the wireless spectrum.
In recent years, I have also been interested in control and optimization questions for the smart grid/power distribution networks with the goal of attaining better spatio-temporal load distribution through demand-response strategies, as well as attain better energy efficiency through adaptive thermal control of smart buildings.
A distinguishing feature of my work is the use of linear, non-linear and stochastic optimization and control techniques, to study these network algorithm design/resource allocation questions. Some of my recent work also have a game-theoretic and financial engineering flavor.
Major research interests/projects are listed below. Some of the key papers that I have written on each topic can be found by clicking on the specific links.
My recent/ongoing research interests (2014--) have been mainly on the following topics:
My primary interests prior to 2014 have been in the following topics, some of which I am still pursuing (the topic of adaptive video transmission over the Internet, in particular):
My research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, MIT Lincoln Labs, Office of Naval Research, US Army Research, Department of Energy, IBM Research, and Cisco Systems.
I am a part of the Center of Pervasive Computing and Networking, Lighting Enabled Systems & Applications, and Center for Future Energy Systems at RPI.
★Recent News★
- Paper on "A Renewable Energy-Aware Distributed Task Scheduler for Multi-sensor IoT Networks" with E. Liri and K.K. Ramakrishnan (UCR) accepted in ACM SIGCOMM 2022 Workshop on Networked Sensing Systems for a Sustainable Society (NET4us 2022).
- Presented a Seminar at Sandia Labs, Albuquerque on "Price-Driven Demand Response Control of Flexible Loads in the Smart Grid", May 2022.
- Attended the ARPA-E Summit, Denver, and ran a booth (along with S. A. R. Naqvi) on our PERFORM Project, May 2022.
- Presentation at the Information Technology and Applications (ITA) workshop on "Pricing for Efficient Equilibria in Internet Traffic Exchange"", San Diego, May 2022.
- Poster on "Optimal Power Flow Redesign for Enhancing Transient Stability Margin" (First author: Rahul Chakraborty, NC State) accepted for presentation at PES General Meeting, May 2022.
- Paper on Peak Power Minimization for Commercial Thermostatically Controlled Loads in Multi-Unit Grid-Interactive Efficient Buildings appeared in IEEE Transactions on Sustainable Energy, April 2022.
Uncategorized Selection of Recent Papers, Technical Reports and Preprints (For publication listing by topic, please click on my research interest topics as provided above. For a more comprehensive list of my recent publications, see my Google Scholar page.)
- M. I. I. Alam, S. Mustafa, K. Kar, M. Yuksel, Modeling and Automating ISP Peering Decision Process: Willingness and Stability, Proc. IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC) 2022, Seoul, S. Korea, May 2022.
- S. A. R. Naqvi, K. Kar, S. Bhattacharya, V. Chandan, Peak Power Minimization for Commercial Thermostatically Controlled Loads in Multi-Unit Grid-Interactive Efficient Buildings, IEEE Transactions on Sustainable Energy, vol. 13, no. 2, pp. 998-1010, April 2022.
- M. I. I. Alam, K. Kar, E. Anshelevich, Port Capacity Leasing Games at Internet Exchange Points, Proc. EAI GameNets 2021 (virtual), December 2021.
- M. I. I. Alam, K. Kar, E. Anshelevich, Balancing Traffic Flow Efficiency with IXP Revenue in Internet Peering, Proc. Globecom 2021, Madrid, Spain, December 2021.
- M. I. I. Alam, E. Anshelevich, K. Kar, M. Yuksel, Proportional Pricing for Efficient Traffic Equilibrium at Internet Exchange Points, Proc. International Teletraffic Congress (ITC) 33, Avignon, France, August-September 2021.
- S. A. R. Naqvi, K. Kar, S. Bhattacharya, V. Chandan, Peak Power Reduction for HVAC Operations in Multi-unit Commercial Buildings, Proceedings of 2021 IEEE Power & Energy Society Innovative Smart Grid Technologies Conference (ISGT), February 2021.
- S. A. R. Naqvi, K. Kar, S. Bhattacharya, V. Chandan, Optimizing HVAC Operations in Multi-unit Buildings for Grid Demand Response, Proceedings of 2020 American Control Conference (ACC), Denver, CO, USA, July 2020.
- S. A. R. Naqvi, Z. Nawrocki, Z. B. Tariq, K. Kar, S. Mishra, Achieving Improved Personalization and Energy Efficiency in Cohabited Work-Spaces Through Data-Driven Predictive Control, Proceedings of Dynamic Systems and Control Conference (DSCC), October 2020.
- E. Liri, N. Orie, H. Siezar, K. K. Ramakrishnan, P. K Singh, W. Cai, L. Gerday, K. Kar, G. Lyon, P. Sharma, Communication Energy and Protocol Considerations in IoT Deployments, Proceedings of 2020 IEEE 6th World Forum on Internet of Things (WF-IoT), August 2020.
- P. K. Singh, K. Kar, Countering data and control plane attack on OLSR using passive neighbor policing and inconsistency identification, Proceedings of 2019 ACM symposium on QoS and Security for Wireless and Mobile Networks (ACM Q2SWinet 2019), Miami Beach, FL, USA, November 2019.
- Q. Gong, J. W. Woods, K. Kar, and J. Chakareski, Multiple-Cache Pairing for Fine-Grained Scalable Video Caching and Networking, Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Future Internet Technologies (CFI'19), Phuket, Thailand, August 2019. (Winner of best paper award at the conference)
- Z. Bin Tariq, M. H. Toufiq Imam, K. Kar, S. Mishra, Experimental Evaluation of Data-Driven Predictive Indoor Thermal Management, Proceedings of the Tenth ACM International Conference on Future Energy Systems (ACM e-Energy Conference), Phoeniz, AZ, June 2019.
- E. Liri, P.K. Singh, A. BIN Rabiah, K. Kar, K. Makhijani, K. K. Ramakrishnan, Robustness of IoT Application Protocols to Network Impairments, 2018 IEEE International Symposium on Local and Metropolitan Area Networks (LANMAN), Washington DC, June 2018.
- Z. B. Tariq, K. Kar, S. Mishra, J. T. Wen, Enabling Better Thermal Management of Indoor Spaces through Adaptive Zonal Heat Transfer, American Control Conference (ACC) 2018, Milwaukee, WI, June 2018.
- S. Gupta, K. Kar, S. Mishra and J. T. Wen, Singular Perturbation Method For Smart Building Temperature Control Using Occupant Feedback, Asian Journal of Control, Vol. 20, No. 1, pp. 386-402, May 2018. (A shorter version appeared in Proceedings of 19th IFAC World Congress, Cape Town, South Africa, August 2014.)
- E. Anshelevich, K. Kar, S. Sekar, Z. B. Tariq, Balancing social utility with aggregator profit in electric vehicle charging, Proceedings of 2017 IEEE International Conference on Smart Grid Communications (SmartGridComm), Dresden, Germany, October 2017.
- S. Bhattacharya, K. Kar and J. H. Chow, Optimal Precooling of Thermostatic Loads under Time-varying Electricity Prices, American Control Conference (ACC) 2017, Seattle, WA, May 2017. (A full version of this work will will appear in IEEE Transactions on Sustainable Energy.)
- Z. Dar, K. Kar, O. Sahni, J.H. Chow, Windfarm Power Optimization using Yaw Angle Control, IEEE Transactions on Sustainable Energy, Volume 8, Issue 1, January 2017, Pages 104-116.
- S. Bhattacharya, V. Chandan, V. Arya, K. Kar, Fairness based Demand Response in DHC Networks using Real Time Parameter Identification, Proceedings of IEEE SmartGridComm 2016 (Workshop on Efficient, Intelligent and Economic District Heating and Cooling Systems), Sydney, Australia, Nov. 2016.
- E. Anshelevich, K. Kar and S. Sekar, Pricing to Maximize Revenue and Welfare Simultaneously in Large Markets, Proceedings of the 12th Conference on Web and Internet Economics (WINE 2016) , December 2016, Montreal, Canada.
- S. Bhattacharya, V. Chandan, V. Arya, K. Kar, Thermally-fair Demand Response for District Heating and Cooling (DHC) Networks, Proceedings of ACM e-Energy 2016, Waterloo, Canada, June 2016. (A full version of this work appears in EEE Transactions on Sustainable Energy, 10(2), pp. 865-875.)
- O. Bhardwaj, E. Anshelevich, and K. Kar, Coalitionally stable pricing schemes for inter-domain forwarding, Computer Networks, Volume 97, March 2016, Pages 128-146.
- S. Bhattacharya, K. Kar, J. H. Chow and A. Gupta, Extended Second Price Auctions with Elastic Supply for PEV Charging in the Smart Grid, IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid. Volume 7, Issue 4, July 2016, Pages 2082-2093. (Parts of this work have appeared in ACC 2014 and NetGCoop 2014.)
- A. Ghavami, K. Kar and A. Gupta, Decentralized Charging of Plug-In Electric Vehicles with Distribution Feeder Overload Control, IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, Volume 61, Issue 11, November 2016, Pages 3527-3532 (Extended version)
- Z. Dar, K. Kar, J.H. Chow, Store or Sell? A threshold price policy for revenue maximization in windfarms with onsite storage, Proceedings of 2016 Annual Conference on Information Science and Systems (CISS), Princeton, NJ, March 2016.
- S. Gupta, K. Kar, S. Mishra and J. T. Wen, Distributed Consensus Algorithms for Collaborative Temperature Control in Smart Buildings, IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering, vol.12, no.4, pp.1285-1296, Oct. 2015. (A shorter version appeared in American Control Conference (ACC) 2015.) (Winner of the 2015 IEEE T-ASE Best Paper Award )
- E. Anshelevich, O. Bhardwaj, and K. Kar, Strategic Network Formation through an Intermediary, Proceedings of the 24th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI 2015), Buenos Aires, July-August 2015. (Extended version, which appears in Theory of Computing Systems 63 (6), pp. 1314-1335)
- E. Anshelevich, K. Kar, and S. Sekar, Envy-Free Pricing in Large Markets: Approximating Revenue and Welfare, Proceedings of the 42nd International Colloquium Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2015) , Kyoto, Japan, July 2015.
- P. Muthuswamy, K. Kar, A. Gupta, S. Sarkar and G. Kasbekar, Portfolio Optimization in Secondary Spectrum Markets, EAI Endorsed Transactions on Wireless Spectrum 15(3), July 2015. (Shorter version appeared in WiOpt 2011, Princeton, NJ, May 2011.)
- A. Gupta, K. Kar and P. K. Muthuswamy, Design and Pricing of Derivative Contracts in a Spectrum Market, Journal of Financial Engineering, Volume 02, Issue 01, March 2015.
- S. Gupta, K. Kar, S. Mishra and J. T. Wen, Distributed Consensus Algorithms for Collaborative Temperature Control in Smart Buildings, Proceedings of American Control Conference (ACC) 2015, Chicago, July 2015.
Teaching
I
teach courses in the areas of computer systems, communication systems and
networks, and network science and engineering, at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. The courses
that I have taught at RPI are:
- ECSE 2660: Computer Organization, Networks and Operating Systems.
- ECSE 4670: Computer Communication Networks.
- ECSE 4520: Communication Systems.
- ECSE 6600: Internet Protocols.
- ECSE 6660: Broadband and Optical Networks.
- ECSE 4964/6964: Internetworking of Things.
- ECSE 6968: Network Science and Engineering.
Professional Actitivities
- Guest Editor (Special Issue), Pervasive and Mobile Computing (2017, 2020).
- Associate Editor for IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing (2013-2016).
- Associate Editor for IEEE/ACM Transactions in Networking (2009-2013).
- TPC Co-Chair, COMSNETS 2015, MOBIHOC 2016, ICDCN 2017, ICDCN 2020, LANMAN 2020.
- General Chair, LANMAN 2021.
- TPC Vice-Chair, MOBIHOC 2007.
- Submissions Management Chair (EDAS Chair) for Infocom 2007.
- Member of the Technical Program Committee of various conferences, including Infocom, MobiHoc, VTC, SECON, ICDCS, COMSNETS, QShine, ICCCN, TridentCom.
- Reviewer for various journals, including IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications, IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking, IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Computing, Journal of Scheduling, IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications, Computer Networks Journal, IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications, IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing.
Miscellaneous
Dr. Shivkumar Kalyanaraman's lecture slides and videos on networking, are available here. (Note: Dr. Kalyanaraman was formerly a professor of networking at RPI, and these instructional material are from courses he taught at RPI between 1999 and 2007. These lecture material, popular among online and self-learning students, are included here with his permission for wider accessibility. These can be used as reference or supplementary material for understanding basic concepts in computer networking.)