Nuno Borges Carvalho
IMAGE LICENSED BY INGRAM PUBLISHING
The greatest microwave/RF/wireless technology show is in San Diego, CA, USA. The International Microwave Symposium (IMS) is coming to San Diego in June. IMS is the most significant event for microwave enthusiasts, students, engineers, researchers, and professors. I attended my first IMS in 1998, in Baltimore, MD, USA, and since then, IMS has continued to be where I want to be every year; the networking aspect of this conference, combined with the exhibition, where the latest industry instruments are presented, is a crucial moment of our year.
Before IMS, the IEEE Microwave Theory and Technology Society (MTT-S) Administrative Committee’s (AdCom’s) second annual meeting (AM2) will be held to discuss the administrative activities of our Society. This is a great opportunity, where we discuss the strategy for the Society and manage the activities for the year; Figure 1 is a photograph of the AdCom taken during the first meeting of the year, in Las Vegas, NV, USA, in January.
Figure 1. The MTT-S AdCom.
At AM2, we will also discuss the future of IMS, and we have a task force looking forward to managing such a great show so that in the future, we will continue to provide a great conference for all our members.
During IMS, our technical committees also meet and discuss future activities in all the technical topics we cover; at this moment, the MTT-S has 29 technical groups (you can read about them at https://mtt.org/technical-committees-list/). We invite members to attend the meetings and volunteer to support the topical areas and activities they manage, including workshop proposals, specific subconferences, student design competitions, special issues for our journals, and any other ideas.
This year at IMS, we will also have a rump session discussing MTT-S journal reviews, and our publication’s reviewers are invited to join since it would be an excellent time to network with other reviewers and editors.
In the MTT-S AdCom, we have a specific committee focused on IMS and its organization, the IMS Executive Committee (IMSEC), which deals with IMS management, and a Standards Committee that meets during IMS to discuss the future of various microwave standards under consideration.
I cannot end this column without paying respect to our colleague Reinhard Knöchel, professor emeritus at the University of Kiel, Germany, who passed away in January; my thoughts go to his family, relatives, and friends.
In 2023, the key goal of IMSEC is to support our volunteer IMS general chairs and steering committees and to provide the AdCom with all the tools and best practices to have a world-class IMS. This includes providing contractual and operational support addressing all stakeholders’ needs. It appears that most of the COVID-19-related issues of recent years are now behind us. IMS2023 is on a traditional trajectory for a face-to-face event in San Diego. You can be sure that John Wood, Gayle Collins, and their entire steering committee are looking forward to a wonderful IMS in June.
Additionally, IMSEC will be
J.K. McKinney (Figure 2) will chair the IMSEC. McKinney has a long history of supporting IMS. He first volunteered, in 1984, to serve on the 1989 IMS Steering Committee when Chuck Swift was the general chair. Since then, he has held increasing roles with four additional IMSs in southern California. He was the general chair of IMS2010, in Anaheim, CA, USA.
He has contributed to multiple select committees appointed by the Society president over the past two decades. He has been part of the exhibitor and event management committees, and has served on, and now chairs, the Site Inspection Committee to help recommend future IMS venues. When COVID-19 arose, McKinney was appointed the COVID czar for the MTT-S. In this capacity, he was able to assist with charting responses for IMS2020, IMS2021, and IMS2022. For his long history of service to the Society, the AdCom presented him with the 2015 Distinguished Service Award.
The Standards Committee for the MTT-S guides the standards work for the Society for anything RF/microwave/millimeter-wave/terahertz (THz) related. Three new standards published in the past year represent the work that the MTT-S Standards Committee covers. These three standards are IEEE 1770-2021, IEEE Recommended Practice for the Usage of Terms Commonly Employed in the Field of Large-Signal Vector Network Analysis; IEEE 1765-2022, IEEE Recommended Practice for Estimating the Uncertainty in Error Vector Magnitude of Measured Digitally Modulated Signals for Wireless Communications; and the IEEE 287 family of documents, which includes IEEE 287.1-2021, IEEE Standard for Precision Coaxial Connectors at RF, Microwave, and Millimeter-Wave Frequencies—Part 1: General Requirements, Definitions, and Detailed Specifications; IEEE 287.2-2021, IEEE Recommended Practice for Precision Coaxial Connectors at RF, Microwave, and Millimeter-Wave Frequencies—Part 2: Test Procedures; and IEEE 287.3-2021, IEEE Recommended Practice for Precision Coaxial Connectors at RF, Microwave, and Millimeter-Wave Frequencies—Part 3: Connector Effects, Uncertainty Specifications, and Recommendations for Performance. Moving forward, for 2023, the committee will expand on IEEE 1765–2022 to include conducted and over-the-air hardware verification. It will continue the work on P2725 (microwave structural, vascular, and functional medical imaging device safety), P2822 (micrometer, millimeter, and THz on-wafer calibrations, de-embedding, and measurements), and P3136 (universal waveguide interface for frequencies of 60 GHz and above). In addition, it is looking at updating IEEE 1785.1, IEEE Standard for Rectangular Metallic Waveguides and Their Interfaces for Frequencies of 110 GHz and Above. The committee is always looking at new potential standards areas and collaborating with other IEEE Societies in publishing standards that are the de facto point of reference for the MTT-S community and beyond.
This year, the Standards Committee will be chaired by Naoki Shinohara (Figure 3). He is a professor and research associate with Kyoto University. Previously, he was an MTT-S Distinguished Microwave Lecturer and MTT-S Technical Committee 25 (Wireless Power Transfer and Conversion) chair. Prof. Shinohara is
He received his B.E. degree in electronic engineering and his M.E. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from Kyoto University. His books are Wireless Power Transfer via Radiowaves (Wiley), Recent Wireless Power Transfer Technologies Via Radio Waves (editor) (River Publishers), Wireless Power Transfer: Theory, Technology, and Applications (editor) (Institution of Engineering and Technology), and some Japanese textbooks on wireless power transfer.
I encourage you to visit our website (https://www.mtt.org) for more information about the MTT-S and volunteer opportunities.
Nuno Borges Carvalho (nbcarvalho@ua.pt), 2023 MTT-S president, is with the Department of Electronics, Telecommunications, and Informatics, University of Aveiro, Aveiro 3810-193 Portugal.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MMM.2023.3243442