Professor Eddie Ball

School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering

Professor of Radio Frequency Engineering

UKRI Future Leaders Fellow (2021-2028)

Eddie Ball
Profile picture of Eddie Ball
e.a.ball@sheffield.ac.uk
Sir Frederick Mappin Building

Full contact details

Professor Eddie Ball
School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering
Sir Frederick Mappin Building
Mappin Street
Sheffield
S1 3JD
Profile

I am a Professor in RF Engineering, in the Communications Research Group.

Prior to starting at 51ݶ in 2015, my career has been as a practising RF Engineer in industry:-

  • Tunstall Healthcare Ltd (Principal RF Engineer & Radio System Architect) 2011-2015
  • Cambridge Consultants Ltd (Principal RF Engineer, in Wireless Business Unit) 1996 - 2011

My industrial expertise is in building innovative, bespoke, wireless systems that require a balanced and holistic view of RF / Digital / DSP / Protocol aspects to achieve best partitioning for performance vs cost trade-off. I am experienced in adapting COTS radio protocols and creating bespoke protocols.

I am particularly experienced and passionate about hardware design, for both high volume and low volume manufacture.

My reach extends from the pre-specification creation process, through all theoretical aspects of RF design, to the practical lab bench development and field test; all core to the creation of a mass producible item. I’m also experienced at talent identification and selection for developing high capability teams.

Research interests
  • Novel RF circuit design
  • Novel RF system design, including DSP and Software Defined Radio
  • Novel applications of RF and radio technology (including non-communications applications)
  • Future IoT radios
  • Millimetre wavelength radios
  • RF MMIC and RF SiGe design
Publications

Journal articles

  • Joseph SD & Ball EA (2026) . IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques, 1-13.
  • Yu H, Ball EA & Saad R (2026) . IEEE Open Journal of Antennas and Propagation, 7(3), 823-837.
  • Ball EA & David Joseph S (2026) . IEEE Journal of Microwaves, 6(1), 146-162.
  • Joseph SD & Ball EA (2025) . IEEE Transactions on Components, Packaging and Manufacturing Technology, 15(9), 1986-1995.
  • David Joseph S, Davies B, Davies M, Ball EA & Willmott JR (2025) . IEEE Open Journal of Antennas and Propagation, 6(6), 1717-1727.
  • Asfour RW, Khamas SK & Ball EA (2025) . IEEE Access, 13, 4267-4280.
  • Ball E & David Joseph S (2025) . IEEE Open Journal of Antennas and Propagation, 6(1), 144-162.
  • Zhao Y, Deng T, Gavin B, Ball EA & Seed L (2025) . IEEE Open Journal of the Computer Society, 6, 460-467.
  • Joseph SD, Gavin B & Ball EA (2024) . IEEE Open Journal of Antennas and Propagation, 5(3), 543-556.
  • Gavin B, Deng T & Ball E (2024) . IEEE Open Journal of the Computer Society, 5, 50-61.
  • Asfour R, Khamas SK, Ball EA, Ng JS, Huang G, Allanic R, Le Berre D, Quendo C, Leuliet A & Merlet T (2024) . Sensors, 24(2).
  • Asfour R, Khamas SK & Ball EA (2023) . Sensors, 23(24).
  • Asfour RW, Khamas SK & Ball EA (2023) . IEEE Access, 11, 122016-122028.
  • Zhao Y, Gavin WCJ, Deng T, Ball EA & Seed L (2023) . IEEE Access, 11, 120955-120962.
  • Zhao Y, Deng T, Ball EA & Saad R () . Sensors, 26(14), 4588-4588.
  • David Joseph S, Davies B, Davies M, Ball EA & Willmott JR () Additive Manufacturing on Kapton substrate for rapid prototyping of low-cost mmWave antennas. IEEE Open Journal of Antennas and Propagation.

Conference proceedings

  • Joseph SD, Ball EA, Kettle J & Harwell J (2026) . 2025 IEEE Microwaves, Antennas, and Propagation Conference (MAPCON). Kerala, India, 14 December 2025 - 14 December 2025.
  • Ball EA & Joseph SD (2026) . Proceedings of 2025 50th International Conference on Infrared, Millimeter, and Terahertz Waves (IRMMW-THz). Helsinki, Finland, 17 August 2025 - 17 August 2025.
  • Ball EA & Joseph SD (2026) . Proceedings of 2025 50th International Conference on Infrared, Millimeter, and Terahertz Waves (IRMMW-THz). Helsinki, Finland, 17 August 2025 - 17 August 2025.
  • Ali M, Ball EA, Joseph SD, O'Farrell T & Anbiyaei MR (2026) . Proceedings of 2025 50th International Conference on Infrared, Millimeter, and Terahertz Waves (IRMMW-THz). Helsinki, Finland, 17 August 2025 - 17 August 2025.
  • Joseph SD & Ball EA (2025) . 2025 International Symposium ELMAR (pp 145-148), 15 September 2025 - 17 September 2025.
  • Joseph SD & Ball EA (2025) . 2025 International Symposium ELMAR (pp 209-212), 15 September 2025 - 17 September 2025.
  • Ball EA & Joseph SD (2025) . 2025 IEEE International Mediterranean Conference on Communications and Networking (MeditCom) (pp 1-5). Nice, France, 7 July 2025 - 7 July 2025.
  • Ali M, Ball E, Joseph SD, O'Farrell T & Anbiyaei MR (2025) . 2025 IEEE International Mediterranean Conference on Communications and Networking (MeditCom) (pp 1-4). Nice, France, 7 July 2025 - 7 July 2025.
  • Anbiyaei MR, Snr TO, Ali M & Ball EA (2025) . 2025 IEEE International Conference on Communications Workshops (ICC Workshops) (pp 1031-1036), 8 June 2025 - 12 June 2025.
  • Ball EA & Joseph SD (2025) . 2025 19th European Conference on Antennas and Propagation (EuCAP). Stockholm, Sweden, 30 March 2025 - 30 March 2025.
  • Joseph SD & Ball EA (2025) . 2025 19th European Conference on Antennas and Propagation (EuCAP). Stockholm, Sweden, 30 March 2025 - 30 March 2025.
  • Yu H, Saad R & Ball EA (2025) . 2025 19th European Conference on Antennas and Propagation (EuCAP) (pp 1-4). Stockholm, Sweden, 30 March 2025 - 30 March 2025.
  • Anbiyaei MR, O'Farrell T, Ali M & Ball EA (2025) . 2025 IEEE Wireless Communications and Networking Conference (WCNC) (pp 1-3), 24 March 2025 - 27 March 2025.
  • Anbiyaei MR, O'Farrell T, Ali M & Ball EA (2025) . 2025 IEEE Wireless Communications and Networking Conference (WCNC) (pp 1-6), 24 March 2025 - 27 March 2025.
  • Joseph SD, Davies BE, Davies MM, Ball EA & Willmott JR (2025) . 2024 IEEE Microwaves, Antennas, and Propagation Conference (MAPCON). Hyderabad, India, 9 December 2024 - 9 December 2024.
  • Joseph SD, Askre S & Ball EA (2025) . 2024 IEEE Microwaves, Antennas, and Propagation Conference (MAPCON). Hyderabad, India, 9 December 2024 - 9 December 2024.
  • Asfour R, Albakosh W, Khamas SK & Ball EA (2024) . 2024 IEEE International Symposium on Antennas and Propagation and INC/USNC‐URSI Radio Science Meeting (AP-S/INC-USNC-URSI) (pp 189-190), 14 July 2024 - 19 July 2024.
  • Ball EA & Joseph SD (2024) . 2024 15th German Microwave Conference (GeMiC) (pp 144-147). Duisburg, Germany, 11 March 2024 - 11 March 2024.
  • Ball EA, Joseph SD & Tennant A (2024) . 2024 18th European Conference on Antennas and Propagation (EuCAP) (pp 1-5), 17 March 2024 - 22 March 2024.
  • Joseph SD, Ball EA & Tennant A (2024) . 2024 18th European Conference on Antennas and Propagation (EuCAP) (pp 1-5), 17 March 2024 - 22 March 2024.
  • Joseph SD & Ball EA (2024) . 2024 18th European Conference on Antennas and Propagation (EuCAP) (pp 1-5), 17 March 2024 - 22 March 2024.
  • Allanic R, Le Berre D, Quendo C, Ball EA, Shien Ng J, Huang G, Leuliet A & Merlet T (2023) . 2023 IEEE Conference on Antenna Measurements and Applications (CAMA) (pp 649-652). Genoa, Italy, 15 November 2023 - 15 November 2023.
  • Allanic R, Le Berre D, Quendo C, Ball EA, Shien Ng J, Huang G, Leuliet A & Merlet T (2023) . 2023 IEEE Conference on Antenna Measurements and Applications (CAMA) (pp 653-656). Genoa, Italy, 15 November 2023 - 15 November 2023.
  • Ball E & Joseph SD (2023) . 2023 IEEE Conference on Antenna Measurements and Applications (CAMA) Proceedings (pp 560-563). Genoa, Italy, 15 November 2023 - 15 November 2023.
  • Carroll T, Wong T, Morris M, Stone M, Di Germanio C, Ball E, Simmons G, Busch M & Miller C (2023) . Transfusion, Vol. 63(S5)
  • David Joseph S, Ball EA & Ford L () Heterogeneous Integration for D-Band Communications: A Broadband Metasurface AiP on Glass Interposer. 19th United Conference on Millimetre Waves & Terahertz Technologies. Birmingham, UK, 23 August 2026 - 23 August 2026.
  • David Joseph S & Ball EA () Broadband GaAs On-chip E-band Series Fed Antenna Arrays. The 19th United Conference on Millimetre Waves & Terahertz Technologies. Birmingham, UK, 23 August 2026 - 23 August 2026.
  • Ball EA & David Joseph S () Wide steering 128QAM direct digitally modulated E-Band time modulated array transmitter. 2026 19th IEEE United Conference on Millimeter Waves and Terahertz Technologies (UCMMT). Birmingham, UK, 23 August 2026 - 23 August 2026.
  • Ball EA & David Joseph S () Design and test of a 73 GHz push-push oscillator using voltage controlled tuning without varactors. 2026 19th IEEE United Conference on Millimeter Waves and Terahertz Technologies (UCMMT). Birmingham, UK, 23 August 2026 - 23 August 2026.
  • Ball EA & David Joseph S () The use of Time Modulated Arrays for Integrated Sensing and Communications in mmWave bands. 2026 IEEE International Mediterranean Conference on Communications and Networking (MeditCom). Cagliari, Italy, 6 July 2026 - 6 July 2026.
  • Ball EA & David Joseph S () A Quadrature Sampling RF Travelling Wave ADC architecture for QAM digitisation at mmWave. 2026 IEEE International Mediterranean Conference on Communications and Networking (MeditCom). Cagliari, Italy, 6 July 2026 - 6 July 2026.
  • Joseph SD, Ball EA, Davies B, Davies M, Willmott JR, Kettle J & Harwell J () . REACT 2025 (pp 8-8)
Professional activities and memberships
  • SMIEE
  • MIET
Other responsibilities
  • Theme Lead for Electromagnetics, Wireless Hardware & RF Devices. 
  • Director of UKRI National mmWave Measurement Facility.
     

Links

Information and Communications Engineering