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The VTS Propagation Committee (PC) is a standing committee of VTS whose scope "encompasses radiowave propagation issues," according to VTS Bylaws. Understanding radiowave propagation is central to the effective design and operation of modern wireless communication systems, on which an ever-increasing fraction of the world’s population relies.
A major focus of VTS is mobile wireless communications to and/or from vehicles—always more challenging than the non-mobile case! This field of study has been around since the dawn of wireless just before the beginning of the 20th century, and has built upon the work of world-famous pioneers such as Hertz, Maxwell, Marconi, and others.
Over a century of investigation in this field has not exhausted the realm of important and fascinating topics. Rather, new mobile wireless systems such as those deploying unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), supporting high-speed trains, managing reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RIS), and incorporating integrated sensing and communications (ISAC), are challenging mobile wireless communications propagation engineers in new ways. In addition, movement to ever-higher frequency bands such as the millimeter-wave (mmWave) and terahertz (THz) bands presents additional challenges.
Our field is very active, with expertise in academic, industrial, and government institutions. Tools such as ray-tracing, radiofrequency (RF) fingerprinting, and the adoption of machine-learning and artificial intelligence, are being applied to provide communication system engineers with more accurate wireless channel models over a larger range of environmental settings and frequency ranges than ever before. Coming 6th generation (6G) cellular systems will need to address all these areas. Much work still lies ahead in our exciting field.
Typical activities for VTS standing committees include the following: organizing conference workshops or special sessions (typically at VTC); organizing special sections or special issues of VTS publications (IEEE VT Magazine, IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology, and IEEE Open Journal of VT); organizing and conducting student competitions; and coordinating with other committees—both within and outside VTS—on various goals (e.g., standards, and all of the above).
The VTS PC has recently re-formed with the following membership:
Chair: David W. Matolak, University of South Carolina
Areas: air-ground, V2V, atypical (stairwells, elevator shafts, hangars, etc.), mmWave
Co-chair: Daniel B. Da Costa, Technology Innovation Institute (TII) UAE
Areas: fading channel modeling, MIMO
Secretary: José Rodríguez-Piñeiro, Tongji University & University of A Coruña
Areas: air-ground, drones, ISAC
Michael Walter, German Aerospace Center
Areas: V2V, air-to-air, train-to-train, ship-to-ship
Ke Guan, Beijing Jiaotong University
Areas: railways, ray-tracing, mmWave, THz
Carlos A. Gutierrez, Universidad Autónoma de San Luis Potosí
Areas: V2V, RIS, ISAC
One of the committee’s first initiatives is to host a workshop on mobile-to-mobile propagation and channel modeling, at an upcoming VTS conference. We may try to extend this to an ongoing series of workshops. Another initiative we have planned is the composition of articles on mobile-to-mobile communication channels for the IEEE VT Magazine.
In the future we plan to strengthen relations with several other related committees, e.g., the European Association of Antennas and Propagation (EurAAP) Working Group on Propagation, and several IEEE ComSoc ad hoc committees (UAV & V2V, Site-Specific Channels). We may also compile archival reference documents, e.g., a "basics of propagation" document for (mobile) wireless comm engineers, a periodic “state of the field” report, etc.
Finally, we would like to extend an invitation for new members to join our committee, as the current committee members agree that there is much work to be done. If you are interested in participating in the VTS Propagation Committee, or would like more information, please contact me, VTS Propagation Committee Chair David W. Matolak. |
