Arogyaswami Paulraj


Arogyaswami J. Paulraj is an Indian-American electrical engineer. He is a Professor Emeritus in the Department of Electrical Engineering at Stanford University.

Early life

Paulraj was born in Pollachi near Coimbatore, British India in 1944, one of six children of Sinappan Arogyaswami and his wife Rose. He joined the Indian Navy at age 15 through the National Defense Academy, Khadakvasla and served the Indian Navy for 26 years. Paulraj received a B.E. in electrical engineering from the Naval College of Engineering, Lonavala, India, and a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi, India

Career in India

Paulraj’s contributions in India came whilst serving in the Indian Navy. In 1972, he developed an improved trans-receiver-display for a British origin Sonar 170B. The technology was widely deployed in the Indian fleet. During 1977- 83, Paulraj led the development of a large surface ship sonar APSOH. This sonar became the fleet sonar for the Indian Navy and its variants are still widely deployed. APSOH was a landmark achievement in Indian Electronics. Later, Paulraj founded three national level research centers in India: the Center for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Defense R&D Organization, the Central Research Laboratories, Bharat Electronics, and the Center for Development of Advanced Computing, Dept. of Electronics. These labs are now a part of India’s vast R&D infrastructure. He attained the rank of Commodore.
In the 1980s, Arogyaswami was "laughed out of the Service" after he suggested MIMO or "multiple input, multiple output". The same technology made billions outside India.

Career in USA

Paulraj joined Stanford University in 1991. His invention for exploiting multiple antenna at both ends of a wireless link lies at the heart of the current high speed WiFi and 4G mobile phones, and has revolutionized high speed wireless services for billions of people. MIMO boosts data rate by creating parallel data streams, multiplying throughput by the number of antennas used. Paul’s contributions went beyond MIMO’s invention - his large research program at Stanford and two pioneering start-up companies: Iospan Wireless for MIMO-OFDMA core technology, and Beceem Communications for WiMAX chips, have helped create an wireless technology eco-system now shipping billions of MIMO wireless devices annually. More recently he founded Rasa Networks for using AI tools in WiFi network analytics. He is on the advisory board of Cohere Technologies Inc.
Paulraj has two textbooks on MIMO. He is a co-inventor in over 80 patents.

Awards and honors