IEEE ICC 2015 in London, 8-12 June 2015

We are delighted to inform that our VTS chapter has been contributing significantly to the organisation of IEEE ICC 2015, held in London on the 8-12 June, at ExCeL London (http://icc2015.ieee-icc.org). Our chapter is supporting the conference. Your attendance of ICC is encouraged, although note that you must register (paid registration) to attend here: http://icc2015.ieee-icc.org/registration.

Advertisement

IEEE VTS-UKRI Distinguished Lecture Series: “Development of an Extremely Efficient Wireless EV Charger”

Prof. Chris Mi, PhD, Fellow IEEE and VTS Distinguished Lecturer, Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering & Director, GATE Center for Electric Drive Transportation, University of Michigan-Dearborn, USA

2 March 2015, Queen’s University Belfast

3 March 2015, Cranfield University

We are delighted to announce a Distinguished Lecture series by Prof. Chris Mi, IEEE Fellow and VTS Distinguished Lecturer, to be held at Queen’s University Belfast, and Cranfield University. This event is kindly organised by Dr. Aoife Foley, Queen’s University Belfast, and Dr. Dongpu Cao, Cranfield University, in conjunction with Prof. Mi.

A detailed flyer for the Queen’s University Belfast event can be accessed here, and for the Cranfield event here.

Note that (free) registration is required for this event. To register, please send a quick email confirming your attendance to the organisers:

• Dr. Aoife Foley for the Queen’s event: a.foley@qub.ac.uk
• Dr. Dongpu Cao for the Cranfield event: d.cao@cranfield.ac.uk

Abstract: This lecture focuses on wireless power transfer technology that offers significant improvement in convenience and electric safety for EV and PHEV charging. This research aims at novel designs that considerably reduce size and cost while increase coupling coefficient and system efficiency. Distributed capacitors instead of lumped components are proposed. A double sided LCC resonant converter topology for the resonant stage is adopted to further enhance system efficiency. Laboratory prototypes have been built and 22kW power transfer has been achieved over 200mm distance, 93.5% system efficiency (97% DC-DC efficiency), and alignment tolerance of up to 300mm.

Brief Biography: Prof. Chris Mi is a Fellow of the IEEE, Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Michigan, Dearborn, and the Director of the US DOE funded GATE Center for Electric Drive Transportation. He received the B.S. and M.S. degrees from Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an, China, and the Ph.D. degree from the University of Toronto, Canada, all in electrical engineering. His research interests are in electric and hybrid vehicles. He has given tutorials and seminars on the subject of HEVs/PHEVs for the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE), the IEEE, workshops sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF), and the National Society of Professional Engineers. He has delivered courses to major automotive OEMs and suppliers (e.g. GM, Ford, Chrysler, Honda, Hyundai, Tyco Electronics, A&D Technology, Johnson Controls). He has published more than 100 articles and delivered 30 invited talks and keynote speeches. He has also served as a panellist at major IEEE and SAE conferences. Dr. Mi is one of the three Area Editors of the Editor of IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology, associate editor of IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics, Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Industry Applications, Senior Editor, IEEE Vehicular Technology Magazine, Guest Editor, International Journal of Power Electronics, Editorial Board, International Journal of Electric and Hybrid Vehicles, Editorial Board, IET Electrical Systems in Transportation, and Associate Editor of Journal of Circuits, Systems, and Computers (2007-2009).

IEEE VTS-UKRI Mini-Workshop and Distinguished Lecture: “Vehicle-to-Vehicle and Machine-to-Machine Communications”

Friday 7 November 2014, 14:00-17:30

King’s College London, Waterloo Campus, Franklin-Wilkins Building, Room 1.13

Stamford Street, London SE1 9NH, UK

The IEEE VTS-UKRI is hosting a Mini-Workshop and Distinguished Lecture on the 7 November 2014 at King’s College London. The event is free for all to attend. The topic is on vehicle-to-vehicle and machine-to-machine communications, moreover, aspects of the event aim to take a look at some interesting areas of overlap of such areas, e.g., the latency challenges that exist both in vehicle-to-vehicle communications and some aspects of machine-to-machine communications (such as the tactile internet), and some common ways forward including the use of opportunistic spectrum access to realise these communication scenarios. The event will conclude with a discussion panel allowing the audience to interact with the experts and pose questions and suggestions on these technologies.

The programme for the event is as follows.

Session 1: Vehicle-to-Vehicle Communications 

14:00-14:15 Introduction to the IEEE UKRI Vehicular Technology Society (VTS) Chapter and This Event
Dr. Oliver Holland, King’s College London – IEEE VTS UKRI Chapter Chair

14:15-15:15 First (and Next) Generation of Vehicle-to-Vehicle Communications – IEEE VTS Distinguished Lecture
Dr. Onur Altintas, Toyota InfoTechnology Center – IEEE VTS Distinguished Lecturer

15:15-15:30 Coffee and Networking Break

Session 2: Machine-to-Machine Communications

15:30-16:00 Agent Communications Languages and Protocols
Prof. Peter McBurney, King’s College London 

16:00-16:30 White Space with Compressive Sensing for Machine-to-Machine Communications
Dr. Frank Gao, Queen Mary University of London

16:30-17:00 The Tactile Internet: Machine-to-Machine on Steroids in 5G
Prof. Mischa Dohler, King’s College London

17:00-17:30 Discussion Panel 

Dr. Onur Altintas, Toyota InfoTechnology Center
Prof. Peter McBurney, King’s College London
Dr. Frank Gao, Queen Mary University of London
Prof. Mischa Dohler, King’s College London

IEEE VTS-UKRI Distinguished Lecture, 19 November 2013, University of Bradford, UK

“Sustainable Energy Engineering”

Prof. Mehrdad (Mark) Ehsani, Ph. D., P. E., F. IEEE, F. SAE

Robert M. Kennedy Endowed Professor,
Director, Sustainable Energy & Vehicle engineering Program,
Texas A&M University College Station, Texas, USA
Web link: http://ee.tamu.edu/~ehsani

Taking place at 6:30 pm in the JSB lecture theatre, University of Bradford, Richmond Road, Bradford, BD7 1DP, UK.

The IEEE VTS-UKRI will be hosting a Distinguished Lecture on the 19 November at the University of Bradford, UK. The event will be free for all to attend. More information will be provided in the near future.

The Abstract for the talk is as follows.

“The living film covering the surface of planet earth is delicately balanced. The conditions for life are created by life. These conditions are systems and feedback mechanisms that are poorly understood. We lack engineering systems to properly manage our energy and materials productivity at the planetary scale. This is resulting in environmental impacts, such as biodiversity loss, pollution, and climate change. The solution is a new way of thinking and new technologies that I refer to as Sustainable Energy Engineering.

This talk will review the above issues. We will pay special attention to the issues of sustainable energy production and consumption. This will establish the foundations of the holistic sustainable energy production-consumption technology complex.”

Professor Mark Ehsani is the co-author of over 350 publications, 17 books, over 20 US and EU patents on energy and power production and utilization, and has given numerous international seminars and short courses. He has been a consultant to over 60 international companies and government agencies.

This event is kindly organised by Dr. John L. Victory, the University Bradford, UK.

A flyer for the event can be found here.

Workshop and Industry Panel on “Advanced Coexistence Technologies for Radio Resource Usage Optimisation”

The IEEE VTS-UKRI supporting the ICT-ACROPOLIS 3rd Annual Workshop and Industry Panel on “Advanced Coexistence Technologies for Radio Resource Usage Optimisation”, which occured at King’s College London on the two days immediately following IEEE PIMRC 2013. All VTS members in the UK & RI were welcome to join, at no expense. Coffee breaks and light lunches were provided by the meeting host.

The event investigated numerous aspects of spectrum sharing and coexistence, and related enabling technologies such as cognitive radio. The event comprised three distinct aspects:

• Focal Topics presentations highlighting some of the key work that has been ongoing in ACROPOLIS, which the project chooses to particularly coordinate effort towards,
• An Industry Panel comprising some key insights from industry, and discussion related to those as well as discussion related to the ACROPOLIS Focal Topics,
• A Workshop highlighting further detailed research within ACROPOLIS, including prominent results and outcomes, observations, etc.

The Focal Topic presentations took place on the morning of Thursday the 12 September. The content broadly covered the five focal topics:

• Network and Neighbourhood Discovery,
• Detection, Identification and Localisation,
• System Theoretic Multi-Antenna Multi-Carrier Cognitive Radio Design for Interference Management and Mitigation,
• The ACROPOLIS Decision Making Framework,
• Experimentation and Hardware Validation.

The Industry Panel took place on the afternoon of Thursday the 12 September. It included presentations/contributions from:

• Andrew Stirling, Project Director of the Cambridge White Spaces Trial, UK,
• James “Jody” Neel, President of Cognitive Radio Technologies, USA,
• Maziar Nekovee, Chief Engineer of Samsung Electronics R&D Institute, UK,
• Christophe Le Martret, Thales Expert of Thales Communications & Security, France.

It also included a highly-interactive panel discussion.

The Workshop took place for the duration of the 13 September, comprising some 15-20 papers/presentations on ACROPOLIS research.

The event will be held in K6.29 the “Old Anatomy Lecture Theatre”, King’s Building, Strand Campus, on the 12 September, and S-2.18 (note that is “minus 2”!) the “Lucas Lecture Theatre”, Strand Building, Strand Campus, on the 13 September.

Information on access to and navigation around the Strand Campus is here.

More information on the event is available at this link.

Programme Committee

Hamid Aghvami, King’s College London, UK
Hanna Bogucka, Poznan University of Technology
Maria-Gabriella Di Benedetto, University of Rome “La Sapienza”
Liljana Gavrilovska, Ss. Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje, Macedonia
Petri Mahonen, RWTH Aachen University, Germany
Andreas Polydoros, Institute of Accelerating Systems and Applications, Greece
Raymond Knopp, EURECOM, France
Eduard Jorswieck, Dresden University of Technology, Germany
Sylwia Romaszko, RWTH Aachen University, Germany
Oliver Holland, King’s College London, UK

Meeting Report: IEEE VTS-UKRI Chapter Meeting at the University of Surrey, 19 April 2013, on “Physical Layer Techniques for 5G Wireless Access Networks”

The IEEE VTS-UKRI Chapter held a meeting on the 19 April at the University of Surrey, Guildford, UK. This meeting was in collaboration with European Wireless 2013, www.ew2013.org, which took place at the University of Surrey on the previous three days. The topic of the meeting was “Physical Layer Techniques for 5G Wireless Access Networks”, under which a guest lecture was given by Dr. Tadashi Matsumoto, of the Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology. Various other lectures and discussions on this topic were also held, as well a social activity taking place.

The meeting was held in the “BB” building of the Stag Hill Campus, which can be located at the following link: www.surrey.ac.uk/files/pdf/campusmap.pdf. Information on the University of Surrey, including travel directions, can be found at this link: www.surrey.ac.uk, or at the European Wireless event’s web site: www.ew2013.org. The room of the event was a combination of 10 BB 01 and 11 BB 01 (these two rooms were merged together).

The Agenda for the meeting was as follows. We have also made available here the embedded presentations that were given at the event.

9.00am: “Introduction to the IEEE VTS UKRI Chapter”, Dr. Oliver Holland, King’s College London

9.15am: “Physical Layer Techniques for 5G Wireless Access Networks”, Prof. Tadashi Matsumoto, Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (in 3 parts)

10.30am: Coffee break (provided)

11.00am: “Toward Energy Efficient 5G Access Networks”, Dr. Mehrdad Dianati, University of Surrey

11.30am: Open discussion “What is 5G, and what Physical Layer Capabilities should it Involve”?

12.30pm: Lunch (light lunch provided)

1.30pm: Tour of the Centre for Communication Systems Research (CCSR) of the University of  Surrey

IEEE VTS-UKRI Chapter Support for CommNet Events

The IEEE VTS UKRI Chapter supported two prominent CommNet events in September – October 2012. CommNet is a UK coordination activity which aims to consolidate the academic and related industrial community engaged in all aspects of communications research. CommNet is an acronym for “Community Organisation of Events in Communications, Mobile Computing and Networking”. More information on CommNet can be found here: http://www.commnet.ac.uk.

The first event was the “Smart Grid” Workshop at Loughborough University on Thursday/Friday the 20-21 September. The VTS-UKRI had a prominent showing at this event, including giving a presentation at it. More information on this event can be found here: http://www.commnet.ac.uk/node/45.

The second event was the “Vision for Future Wireless Research” Workshop on Friday 19 October, at the Al Qasimi Theatre, Royal Academy of Engineering, Carlton House Terrace, London. More information on this event can be found here: http://www.commnet.ac.uk/node/52.

Programmes for both events were as follows:
Smart Grid Workshop, 20-21 Sept
Vision for Future Wireless Research, 19 October (draft)

IEEE VTS-UKRI Seminar at King’s College London, 10 October 2012

The VTS-UKRI supported a seminar by Prof. H. Vincent Poor, Princeton University, USA, on the topic of “Games, Privacy and Distributed Algorithms for the Smart Grid”, held at King’s College London, Strand, London WC2R 2LS, at 3pm on Wednesday the 10 October 2012. This was a very well attended event, covering a number of interesting scenarios and techniques to support the emerging area of smart grids. The VTS-UKRI would like to thank Prof. Poor for his excellent and inspiring talk.

The Abstract of the seminar was as follows:

Smart grid involves the imposition of an advanced cyber layer atop the physical layer of the electricity grid in order to improve the efficiency and lower the cost of power use and distribution, and to allow for the effective integration of variable energy sources and storage modes into the grid. This cyber-physical setting motivates the application of many techniques from the information and systems sciences to problems arising in the electricity grid, and considerable research effort has been devoted to such application in recent years. This talk will describe recent work on three aspects of this problem: applications of game theory to smart grid design; characterization of the fundamental tradeoff between privacy and utility of information sources arising in the grid; and the design of distributed algorithms for inference and control that are suitable for the topological constraints imposed by the structure of the grid.

The biography of Prof. Poor is as follows:

H. Vincent Poor is the Michael Henry Strater University Professor at Princeton University, where he is also the Dean of Engineering and Applied Science. His research interests are primarily in the areas of stochastic analysis, statistical signal processing, and information theory, and their applications in various fields, including wireless networking, social networks and smart grid. Among his publications in these areas is the recent book Smart Grid Communications and Networking (Cambridge, 2012). He a member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering and the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, and a Fellow of the IEEE, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Royal Academy of Engineering of the U.K. He received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2002, and the IEEE Education Medal in 2005. Recent recognition of his work includes the 2010 IET Ambrose Fleming Medal, the 2011 IEEE Eric E. Sumner Award, and honorary doctorates from Aalborg University, the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and the University of Edinburgh.

Meeting report – July 2012, Dublin, Ireland

We held a meeting at CTVR /The Telecommunications Research Centre at Trinity College Dublin on Thursday July 26, 2012. The topic of the meeting was the capacity challenges facing future mobile and wireless networks, and the use of cognitive radio solutions in particular to address such challenges. Dr. Oliver Holland (Chair IEEE VTS UKRI Chapter) opened the meeting and welcomed delegates.

Our first invited speaker was Prof. David Goodman, IEEE VTS Distinguished Lecturer, who talked about the future of cellular networks and the challenges associated with rising capacity demands and dwindling revenues.

Following a break for networking and tea/coffee, Prof. Alex Wyglinski, IEEE VTS Distinguished Lecturer, discussed cognitive radio and recent efforts in dynamic spectrum access technologies.

Dr. Keith Nolan (IEEE VTS UKRI Chapter Vice-Chair) from CTVR then followed with an overview of the spectrum, regulatory, market, and technical issues surrounding the use of cognitive radio and dynamic spectrum access, and outlined five key market areas to watch.

The final presentation of the meeting was from Dr. Oliver Holland who explained the energy consumption implications associated with the rapidly rising data volumes in wireless communications networks and how cognitive radio could play a role in providing solutions. Because the associated presentation contains a number of animations, it is strongly recommended to download it and view in Powerpoint “Presentation Mode” from the following link, instead of viewing the integrated version below: Energy Efficiency Challenges and CR as a Solution

Following lunch, the meeting then featured an exciting networking event, including a tour of the Book of Kells and the Old Library in Trinity College Dublin, followed by a tour of the campus.

We wish to thank all the delegates for participating in this meeting and hope you had a safe trip home. On behalf of IEEE VTS UKRI, we wish to thank CTVR / The Telecommunications Research Centre for kindly hosting this meeting.

Next meeting announcement – July 26, 2012 – Trinity College Dublin

Thanks to everyone who responded to our request for suggested locations for the next VTS-UKRI Chapter meeting. July 2012 marks the 50th anniversary of the founding of IEEE in the UK and Rep. of Ireland. We are delighted to announce that VTS-UKRI will hold a meeting at Trinity College Dublin on July 26.

The focus of this meeting will be on the capacity challenges facing the wireless and mobile communications industry and the use of solutions such as cognitive radio and dynamic spectrum access to alleviate those challenges.

The programme will feature invited lectures from two esteemed IEEE VTS distinguished lecturers; Prof. David Goodman of the Polytechnic Institute of New York University and Prof. Alex Wyglinski from Worcester Polytechnic Institute. We are also planning a tour of Trinity College, the Book of Kells, and the Old Library. Coffee/tea and a light lunch will be provided.

If you are planning to attend, please register (for free) at this link: http://vts-ukri.eventbrite.ie

The tentative agenda of the meeting is as follows:

09:00 Welcome, register of attendees and introduction of the topic of the meeting

Dr. Oliver Holland, Dr. Keith Nolan

09:10 Overview of the VTS UKRI Chapter

Dr. Oliver Holland, Dr.  Keith Nolan

09:20 Guest lecture: “Can cellular networks keep up with the growth of big data? Technology trends in industry and research directions”

Prof. David Goodman, IEEE VTS Distinguished Speaker, Polytechnic Institute of New York University

10:20 Networking break

10:50 Guest lecture: “Cognitive Radio: A Panacea for RF Spectrum Scarcity”

Prof. Alex Wyglinski, IEEE VTS Distinguished Speaker, Worcester Polytechnic Institute

11:50 Talk: The use of cognitive radio to improve spectrum usage efficiency and data capacity

Dr. Keith Nolan, CTVR / The Telecommunications Research Centre at Trinity College Dublin

12:10 Talk: Energy efficiency challenges of data volume increases, and the use of cognitive radio and dynamic spectrum access techniques to mitigate these

Dr. Oliver Holland, King’s College London

12:30 Lunch

13:30 Networking session: Tour of the Book of Kells and Old Library in Trinity College Dublin

Meeting location – CTVR / The Telecommunications Research Centre : corner of Westland Row and Fenian Street, Dublin 2.

About Prof. David Goodman:

David Goodman is Professor Emeritus at Polytechnic Institute of NYU where until 2008 he was a professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and the director of the Wireless Internet Center for Advanced Technology (WICAT). Before joining NYU-Poly in 1999, he was at Rutgers, where he was the founding director of the Wireless Information Networks Laboratory (WINLAB). Prior to this he was the head of the Radio Research Department at Bell Labs, Crawford Hill. He earned a Bachelor’s degree at Rensselaer, Master’s at NYU and Ph. D. (Imperial College, London). Dr. Goodman is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and a foreign member of the Royal Academy of Engineering, a Life Fellow of the IEEE and a Fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology. He is a member of the LMAG of the IEEE NY Section.

About Prof. Alex Wyglinski

Dr. Alexander M. Wyglinski is internationally recognized as an expert in the field of wireless communications, specializing in cognitive and software-defined radio, cyber-physical systems and security, and wireless system optimization and adaptation. He is an Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), Worcester, MA, Director of the Wireless Innovation Laboratory (WI Lab), and Director of the WPI Limerick (Ireland) Project Center. Throughout his academic career, Dr. Wyglinski has published 30 journal papers, 73 conference papers, 9 book chapters, and the first-ever textbook on cognitive radio communications and networks (Academic Press, December 2009). Dr. Wyglinski’s research activities have been or are currently being sponsored by organizations such as the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Naval Research Laboratory, the Office of Naval Research, the Air Force Research Laboratory – Space Vehicles Directorate, The Mathworks, Toyota InfoTechnology Center U.S.A., and the National Science Foundation. Dr. Wyglinski is a Senior Member of the IEEE, a member of Sigma Xi and Eta Kappa Nu, and a Distinguished Lecturer for the IEEE Vehicular Technology Society (July 2012 – June 2014).