URSI Canada – Summer School 2017 (Montreal, Sat, 19 Aug 2017)
Co-organized with ITS Canada / STI Canada, IEEE Montreal Section

• Registration: http://tinyurl.com/URSI-19AUG
• Program: http://www.ursi2017.org/side_program/scientific_program/workshops_summerschool_e.shtml

 

Next Generation Wireless Technology – Issues and Challenges
This edition of the URSI Canada Summer School will focus on advanced wireless applications with emphasis on connected and automated vehicles. Leading experts in the field will provide share important insights and perspectives with attendees. Following each 30-minute presentation, attendees will participate in a 10-minute group discussion based on a question posed by the presenter, then compare results with the rest of the groups.

 

Summer School Program

Registration – 08:00 – 8:30

Welcome and Introduction – 08:30 – 8:45

Session AM1 – Radio Science and the Public Interest – 08:45-10:15

 

Implications of Next Generation Wireless Technology for Smart Cities and Smart Industry 

Pierre Boucher, Head of Research & Innovation, Ericsson Canada

For the past thirty years, the wireless industry has focused on development of systems that provide personal connectivity in residential, commercial and work environments. The next generation of wireless technology will break with this focus and place great emphasis on connecting the devices that power our cities, grow our food, transport people, goods and services, and run our manufacturing and processing plants. The problem is not purely technical. Here, we argue that adequate consideration must be given to the business models that will support deployment and operation and the social and environmental implications of the new technology.   (URSI Commission C)

Pierre Boucher is Head of Research & Innovation  at Ericsson’s R&D and Services Centre in Montreal. He is responsible for collaborative research and innovation projects with universities and institutions across Canada. Boucher’s interests are in 5G, cloud networking and computing and applications of ICT in smart grid, smart communities and sustainable development. Boucher represents Ericsson on various boards promoting research and innovation in the telecommunications sector and in the community, such as Prompt, CATA, ADRIQ and TechnoMontréal. Prior to his 25 years at Ericsson, Boucher worked for Rogers in Network Research with a focus on OSS systems.

 

The Royal Society of Canada Expert Panel on Safety Code 6

Frank Prato, Lawson Health Research Institute

In recent years there has been an explosion in the use of wireless technologies. While these devices deliver incredible convenience and mobility, some members of the public have expressed concern that current limits on RF exposure presented in Health Canada’s Safety Code 6 are not adequate. In response, Health Canada asked the Royal Society of Canada to form a panel to provide an expert review. As a member of this panel, Frank Prato gained a unique perspective on the challenges associated with interpreting technical issues in a political context. The lessons learned will likely be useful to others who find themselves in similar situations in the future. (URSI Commission K)

Frank S Prato is Assistant Scientific Director, Lawson Health Research Institute, and Professor, Departments of Medical Imaging and Medical Biophysics, University of Western Ontario, Canada. He discovered that exposure to extremely low frequency magnetic fields (ELFMF) can affect opioid related behaviours and induce analgesia in humans. In recent years, his research has focused on the introduction of new molecular imaging methods including the establishment of advanced positron emission tomography (PET) facilities in combination with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). In 2013-14, he served on the Royal Society of Canada’s expert panel that reviewed Safety Code 6: Health Canada’s safety limits for exposure to radio frequency fields.  

 

Break – 10:15 – 10:30

 

Session AM2 – Antenna Design for Connected and Automated Vehicles – 10:30 – 12:00

 

Automotive Radar Integration onto Vehicles

Laila Salman, ANSYS Canada

Automotive radar will be a key role in helping Connected and Automated Vehicles achieve their targets for improving road safety. However, integrating automotive radars onto vehicles in a manner that allows them to achieve their design goals in the face of blockage, shadowing and multipath propagation represents a significant challenge. As we rely more and more on connectivity of cars, many potential problems could emerge from faulty connected car technology. In this presentation, Laila Salman will demonstrate how the leading EM simulation tool can be used to help engineers visualize the implications of a design and achieve the appropriate trade-offs. (URSI Commission B)

Inter-Vehicular / Vehicle-to Infrastructure Modeling

Laila Salman, ANSYS Canada
The rise of autonomous vehicles will transform the industry and society itself as much as the nineteenth century shift from horse-carriages to automobiles did. However, developing autonomous vehicle technology is a formidable challenge. It requires ambitious new developments in sensing technologies that are not only unprecedented in the automotive industry, but in all other industries as well. Engineering simulation is a time-tested tool for accelerating technology development. Faced with the daunting challenge of billions of miles of road tests, ADAS and autonomous vehicle companies have quickly realized that simulation will be an essential technology for achieving development goals and timelines. (URSI Commission B)

Laila Salman received the B.S. and M.S. degrees in electronics and communication engineering from Cairo University, Giza, Egypt, in 2003 and 2005, respectively, and the PhD. Degree in electromagnetic and antenna design from the University of Mississippi, MS, USA in 2009. She also worked as a post-doctoral researcher at the Université de Quebec en Outaouais, Gatineau, QC, Canada till 2010. Dr. Salman joined ANSYS Canada Ltd. in August 2010 as a Lead Technical Services Specialist for High Frequency Applications.

 

Session PM1 – System Design for Connected and Automated Vehicles – 13:00 – 14:30

 

Spectrum Management & Licensing for Connected Vehicles

David G Michelson, University of British Columbia

The next generation of Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) will use wireless communications, including 5.9 GHz Dedicated Short Range Communications (DSRC), to facilitate the exchange of data and control information. The integration of DSRC into the non-traditional on-road transportation domain is creating new demands on regulators at all levels of government to find practical and efficient spectrum management and licensing models that will allow full protection of the spectrum from interference and misbehaviour. Here we review current practices and their limitations and then propose some alternative apppropaches that may be useful in the future. Of particular interest are schemes that will allow the wireless network to monitor itself and reduce the demands on the regulator. (URSI Commission E and F)

David G Michelson is Director of the Radio Science Lab and Co-Director of the AURORA Connected Vehicle Testbed at the University of British Columbia . His work focuses on short-range wireless networks for both industrial and commercial applications including connected vehicles, precision agriculture, smart meters, and urban infrastructure. A member of the Boards of Governors of the IEEE Communications Society and the IEEE Vehicular Technology Society, he also chairs the IEEE VT-S Propagation Committee and co-chairs the ITS Canada Technical Committee on Connected and Automated Vehicles. He has served as a consultant to both Transport Canada and Industry Canada (now ISED) on problems related to spectrum policy and management.

Sensor Fusion for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles

Omar Chakroun, Université de Sherbrooke

Connected and autonomous vehicles will make use of a variety of sensors in order to achieve their goal of improving road safety. Here, we review the sensor fusion approaches applicable for connected and autonomous vehicles to gather needed information for the most common safety related applications. The purpose of such approaches is to construct the most complete view of the road status, users and the surrounding environment. Actual designs leverage a multitude and diverse sensors types, primarily to ensure reliability with diverse type of data that has to be processed and fused to construct a complete view. (URSI Commission C)

Omar Chakroun received his Ph.D. degree in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Sherbrooke. He holds a Master’s degree in telecommunication networks from Sup’Com, Tunisia. He worked on developing new solutions for telecommunication infrastructure debug and fast faults detection, indoor/outdoor real-time localisation systems for smart environments. During his Ph.D., he was interested in designing communication schemes for safety messages delivery and applications performances assessment. He is currently a member of Laboratory on Intelligent Vehicles (LIV) at the University of Sherbrooke. His research interests will be focalized on cyber security and data fusion applied to vehicular networks.

 

Break – 14:30 – 14:45

Session PM2 – Applications of Connected Vehicle Technology – 14:45 – 16:15

 

Connected Vehicles: A New Challenge for Smart Cities 

Azzedine Boukerche, University of Ottawa

In this presentation, we share results from several major research projects related to the design of “cognitive” cars and smart roads applications through the DIVA Strategic Research Network, the TRANSIT Network and the PARADISE Research Laboratory at the University of Ottawa. First, we will review the main challenges of this work include modeling, simulation and design issues and discuss some results obtained recently. Next, we will talk about LIVE testbed, a convergence of distributed simulation, wireless multimedia and vehicular sensor technologies we are developing at DIVA and PARADISE Research Laboratory for an urban vehicular grid. This testbed will facilitate and enable us to evaluate and design new protocols and applications for future generations of connected vehicular and sensor network technologies. (URSI Commission C)

Azzedine Boukerche is a Distinguished University Professor and holds a Canada Research Chair Tier-1 position at the University of Ottawa. He is the Scientific Director of NSERC-DIVA Strategic Research Network and NSERC TRANSIT Research Network, and a Director of PARADISE Research Laboratory at uOttawa. He worked as a Senior Scientist at the Simulation Sciences Division, Metron Corporation located in San Diego. He spent a year at the JPL/NASA-California Institute of Technology where he contributed to a project centered about the specification and verification of the software used to control interplanetary spacecraft operated by JPL/NASA Laboratory. He is a fellow of IEEE, the Canadian Academy of Engineering and the American Association for the Advanacement of Science.

 

Intelligent Transportation Systems for the Natural Resources Sector

Jan Michaelsen, FP Innovations

Transportation plays an obvious and important role in the activities of the Canadian forest industry. Although forestry industry planners and urban transportation engineers share the common goals of: 1) improving road safety, 2) reducing traffic congestion and environmental impact, and 3) increasing commercial vehicle efficiency, the possibility of adapting intelligent transportation system concepts developed for use in urban environments to forestry applications has, until now, received only scant attention. FP Innovations, the Canadian forestry industry’s national research and development organization, is embarking on an ambitious program, as part its Forestry 4.0 initiative, to develop an Intelligent Forestry Transportation System Architecture for Canada that will build of industrial users in a challenging physical environment. (URSI Commission C)

Jan Michaelsen is the research leader for the Transport and Energy research program at FPInnovations. Since 2010, he has led a group of 10 researchers and technicians who work towards improving operational efficiency of transport operations and reducing the energy use in forest operations. His work at FPInnovations has covered many areas including transport system efficiencies, energy efficiency, driver training, truck transport safety, log trailer design, truck specifications, off-highway trucking, multimodal transportation and operations logistics. He is leading FP Innovations recent initiative to develop and introduce Intelligent Forestry Transportation System technology.

 

Session PM3 – Panel Discussion – 16:15 – 16:45

Presenters will lead attendees in a group discussion of the insights shared and gained during this event.