Paolo Ghelfi is Head of Research Area at the PNT Lab of CNIT.
He received the M.S. degree in electronics engineering from the University of Parma, Italy, in 2000. From 2001 he is with the PNT Lab (formerly, National Laboratory of Photonic Networks) of CNIT in Pisa. In 2008, he has been visiting scientist at KIST in Seoul, South Korea.
With the establishment of PhoTrix Srl (2006 – 2011), a spin-off company of CNIT and Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, he experienced in the management of a company
His current research interests are mainly in the field of microwave photonics.
He has actively contributed in pioneering the use of photonics techniques in radar systems (optical generation of ultra-stable RF carriers over wide frequency ranges, optical generation of wideband amplitude- and phase-modulated RF signals, precise optical sampling of RF signals, processing of optical samples for high-sampling-rate RF receivers, optical beamforming and true-time delay). Currently he is leading the research on networks of photonics-based radars, exploiting radio-over-fiber techniques to develop largely distributed radar systems.
Paolo Ghelfi is also coordinating a study on the use of microwave photonics in electronic warfare systems, in particular for the realization of wideband RF receivers.
He is also actively investigating the use of photonics for wireless communications systems (optical up- and down-conversion of reconfigurable wideband RF signals), and in the realization of microwave devices (opto-electronic oscillators, phase shifters for beamforming), considering as well the photonic integration of these structures.
Moreover, Paolo Ghelfi has a recognized experience on optical communications, in particular in all-optical communication systems and digital photonics (pulsed laser sources, OTDM systems and all-optical processing, 3R all-optical regeneration, all-optical networking), and on WDM systems and networks (PMD compensation techniques, WDM-PON networks and access networks, reconfigurable optical networks).
Besides the research activity, he also regularly serves as lecturer in courses of international masters and Ph.D. programs held by Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, Pisa, Italy.
Paolo Ghelfi has a long experience in coordinating scientific and industrial projects. To cite a few, he has been the laboratory coordinator of the seminal ERC project PHODIR, and is currently leading the activities on CNIT side of the H2020 project ROBORDER, of the Italian Space Agency projects RODI, POINTING, and SCORPIUS, and the Italian MoD projects MULTIRADAR-PIC and DISTURB. Moreover, he is or has been directly managing more than 10 industrial R&D projects with Ericsson Telecomunicazioni SpA, Elettronica SpA, and others.
Paolo Ghelfi is co-author of 33 invited papers to international conferences, 7 invited papers to peer-reviewed journals, and 2 best-paper awarded contributions.
Paolo Ghelfi has authored or co-authored more than 40 papers on International Journals, more than 120 papers on International Conferences, and 20 patents. He has edited a book, and co-authored 6 book chapters. Moreover, he has participating in the Technical Program Committee at ECOC, and he has organized 2 workshops in international conferences.