Ioannis Kanellakopoulos 1

Ioannis Kanellakopoulos, PhD
Bus. Phone: 650.308.8485

CNSV Member

IEEE Fellow

Expert Witness in Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS: ACC, lane keeping, blind spot), Self-Driving Cars / Autonomous Vehicles, Telecommunications (DSL, wireless, 5G, WiFi)

303 Twin Dolphin Dr Suite 600
Redwood City, CA 94065
USA

Dr. Kanellakopoulos is a technology leader with 25+ years of experience in R&D (Research & Development), operations, administration, and management in both academia and industry. He is an IEEE Fellow (elected in 2005 “for contributions to the theory and practice of adaptive nonlinear control” – see this IEEE link), former Professor and Vice Chair in the UCLA Electrical Engineering Department, and Chief Scientist / CTO of several startup companies. He is the author or co-author of one book, 6 book chapters, 25 articles in refereed technical journals, 60 papers in refereed technical conferences, and 12 contributions to international telecommunications standards committees. He has been the plenary speaker at major technical conferences, and an invited speaker at more than 40 industrial and academic venues in 12 countries across 4 continents. He has served as an expert witness to law firms for more than 20 years on cases involving patent infringement in both the telecommunications and automotive areas, as well as product liability / personal injury cases involving automotive software and automated vehicles. In this capacity, he has an enviable record: 100% of his cases resulted in a win or a very favorable settlement for his clients. In 2017, he was the lead expert witness in a case that resulted in a $25M jury award for his clients; that decision was later upheld on appeal. He also provides consulting services to technology companies, primarily in the areas of intellectual property strategy and technology roadmap development, as well as to private equity firms and venture capitalists in the area of technology due diligence for investment decisions. In these roles, he draws upon his experience in designing and building telecom products such as DSL and Carrier Ethernet hardware and software, as well as a prototype fully automated electric vehicle that was used for research purposes on multiple college campuses. While at UCLA and later as CEO of an automotive startup, he conducted extensive applied research in adaptive control of nonlinear systems, with applications to automotive control systems, specifically driver assistance systems and active suspension systems. In addition, he has experience with international telecommunication standards (ITU-T, 3GPP, IEEE, Wi-Fi) and has directed collaborative projects with several automotive/truck manufacturers and vendors (Ford, Mercedes-Benz, DaimlerChrysler, Freightliner, Gentex, Visteon). His training in systems and control (PhD from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) and his 8-year academic career at UCLA exposed him to a wide range of technology areas and have allowed him to make contributions to many of those areas. His work in telecommunications has been mostly in system architecture and physical layer design for next-generation Ethernet Access Devices over copper and fiber, and in new algorithms for receiver-based crosstalk cancellation. He has also worked in wireless communications, primarily on digital signal processing methods for new modulation schemes for baseband transceivers. In the semiconductor area he worked mainly in developing core technology for manufacturing and metrology. In all his roles, his three main responsibilities were technology vision, customer interactions, and managing engineering organizations. His three specialties are:

  1. Invent simple and unusual solutions to complex technical problems;
  2. Work extensively with customers to build strong partnerships through mutual trust; and
  3. Lead and motivate engineers to perform beyond their own expectations.

But what do these have to do with serving as an expert witness and as a technology consultant? First, his deep technical expertise in the areas of telecommunications and automotive driver assistance systems has allowed him to analyze patents and products in detail, and explain clearly (in expert reports, depositions, and court testimony) the main issues that the judge and jury need to comprehend in order to understand the essence of the case. His extensive experience with teaching university students for 10 years and dealing with customers in the marketplace for another 12 years allows him to create documents and presentations that help judges and jurors understand the topic they are dealing with, instead of confusing them with unnecessary technical details. After all, it takes excellent teaching skills and a deep understanding of a complex technical concept to convey the essence of that concept to non-experts without talking down to them. Moreover, in each of his previous positions he created new technology concepts and developed new products that helped multiply revenues. The key here is to see where technology is headed 3-5 years from now, and to identify what technologies, products, and services will be needed to make that happen that nobody else is working on. Then you choose some of those “missing links” that line up with your organization’s core strengths, and you develop them before anyone else does. He has been successful in these types of predictions, ranging from adaptive cruise control in the mid-1990s to blind-spot detection in 2003 and VDSL Vectoring in 2006. Dr. Kanellakopoulos was the founding chairperson of the CNSV Autonomous Vehicles Special Interest Group (AV-SIG) and a CNSV Director-At-Large in 2017-2018.


          Ioannis Kanellakopoulos 2