Ranveer Chandra

Tech Transfers

I work closely with product teams within Microsoft. Some of the publically disclosed engagements are listed below.

XBOX One Wireless Controller Protocol (2013 to now)
The wireless protocol between the XBOX One controller and console

Designed the high-throughput, low-latency wireless protocol that shipped in the XBOX One. Research and industry has always focused on getting higher throughput. However, little prior work, if any, looks at achieving high throughput while achieving low (guaranteed) latency. For the XBOX One we designed a protocol that achieves both. I enjoyed being deeply involved with the design, development, and testing of the controllers.

Visual Studio 2013 Energy Profiler (2013) – Diagnostics & Performance Toolbox for Windows 8.1
Enables app developers to estimate the energy consumption of their apps

Described here (opens in new tab), and also showcased in Steve Ballmer’s Build Keynote (opens in new tab): (around 45th minute). Our research paper Empowering Developers to Estimate App Energy Consumption, (opens in new tab) published in ACM MobiCom 2012 describes the details of the system.

Low Energy Wi-Fi (2012) – Windows 8, Windows 10
Increases battery lifetime in Windows 8 Tablets and Surface computers.

Compared to laptops the new class of mobile devices, such as tablets and Surface computers, need to stay connected even when the screen is turned off. Keeping the Wi-Fi always on consumes significant energy. We designed a set of techniques that allows the Wi-Fi device to not lose its connection even when the screen is turned off and the processor (and SoC) is in a low power state. We accomplished this by reducing the Wi-Fi power consumption to a few mW in standby state. Our techniques shipped in Windows 8.

Antenna Placement on Windows Tablet (2012) – Windows 8.1
Enabled best-in-class Wi-Fi network connectivity & performance for tablets

We helped design the antenna placement on tablet devices. Since users hold tablets differently than laptops, existing antenna placement techniques (on the laptop’s screen) are not the most optimal for tablets. The placement of a user’s hand around the antenna might reduce the signal, and so can the orientation in which the tablet is held. We studied these phenomena in detail – in the wild and in antenna chambers – and made recommendations to the Windows 8 team, which were incorporated in the final design of Windows 8 tablets.

Visual Studio Energy Modeler & Profiler (2012) – Windows Phone 8 Dev Tools
Enables mobile app developers to estimate the energy consumption of their apps

Poorly written apps are one of the primary reasons for high energy drain on mobile devices. One reason for energy-inefficient apps is that app developers do not have sufficient tools to determine the energy impact of their apps. As part of a Wattson research project we designed a Visual Studio plug-in that provides visibility to the application developer of their application’s energy consumption. Our paper Empowering Developers to Estimate App Energy Consumption, (opens in new tab) published in ACM MobiCom 2012 describes the details of the system. This work formed the basis for the Energy Profiler that is part of the Visual Studio SDK for Windows Phone 8.

Singapore White Space Database (2012)
Used by Singapore’s regulatory authority in the Singapore White Space Trail
http://whitespaces.msresearch.us/Singapore/ (opens in new tab)

White spaces profer to be a possible solution towards improving spectrum effiency. As part of our research since 2005, we developed a geo-location database service which returns a list of TV channels at any given location, and filed (opens in new tab) to be a white space database provider with the FCC. We are also working with governments outside the US with white space trials. We recently released a version of our database as part of the ongoing white spaces trial in Singapore.

Virtual Wi-Fi (2009) – Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 10
Enables Windows to connect to multiple WLANs simultatenously. Is the foundation of SoftAP & Wi-Fi Direct features in Windows 7 & Windows 8

We designed a technique to virtualize wireless LAN (WLAN) cards. With it users can concurrently connect to multiple Wi-Fi networks using a single WLAN card, thus enabling several novel scenarios. The original paper. The original paper ( MultiNet: Connecting to Multiple IEEE 802.11 Networks Using a Single Wireless Card (opens in new tab)) was published in INFOCOM 2004. Our miniport driver was downloaded by over hundred thousand developers and was one of Microsoft Research’s most popular software downloads. Virtual Wi-Fi first shipped in Windows 7.