Ricardo Nicanor Barrios Muñoz is a Ph.D. Researcher at the Institute of Telecommunications and Multimedia Applications (iTEAM), Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV), Spain, under the supervision of Dr. David López-Pérez and Dr. David Gómez-Barquero. Prior to this role, he spent close to eight years in the Peruvian telecommunications sector: at the Ministry of Transport and Communications (MTC) of Peru, where he specialized in spectrum management and the type approval of telecommunications equipment, and at COMSATEL PERÚ S.A.C., where he worked on network infrastructure. He received his degree in Electronic Engineering from the Universidad Nacional San Luis Gonzaga de Ica (UNICA), Peru, in 2021, and is a registered professional engineer of the Colegio de Ingenieros del Perú. As a recipient of the Beca Generación del Bicentenario, he completed his M.Sc. in Telecommunication Technologies, Systems and Networks at UPV in 2024.

Ricardo has dedicated his research to data-driven modelling and optimization for energy efficiency in wireless communication networks, with particular emphasis on closed-loop RAN intelligence: energy-saving xApps for the O-RAN near-real-time RIC, validated end to end on software-defined radio testbeds with instrumented power measurement and UAV-borne base stations sustaining service continuity. Currently, his research interests include sustainable and energy-efficient network operation, O-RAN architectures and xApp design, radio propagation modelling and ray-tracing digital twins, AI-driven traffic prediction, and the integration of aerial platforms into 5G/6G networks.

He has also contributed to the experimental characterization of radio propagation through extensive measurement campaigns multi-frequency indoor penetration loss, dense-urban 5G drive tests, and aerial coverage studies assessing the impact of remote electrical tilt on cellular-connected UAVs over private 5G SA deployments, as well as to the construction of high-fidelity digital twins from LiDAR and photogrammetric data for ray-tracing-based network modelling, and to traffic forecasting from operator NWDAF data using deep learning and state-space models. His work on 5G connectivity for U-Space applications and cellular-connected unmanned aerial systems was presented at the 30th European Wireless Conference (2025).