Invited Lectures

In a SatCom system, a Mission Control Centre (MCC) is a set of functionalities which have two main objectives. Firstly, to ease the operation of the system (space and ground segment), then to benefit the maximum capacity of the payload and ground devices. As a consequence, the mission centre has to be considered as an efficient mean to increase the return of the investment made by the satellite operator.
Moreover, all the operators want to have integrated Mission Control Centre for global consistency, by proposing a merged planning, configuration and monitoring system
The main function addressed by a Mission Control Centre are :
Planning : to check feasibility of a deployment, and optimize on board and ground resources consumption, in order to enhance the system capacity.
Configuration : to deploy easily payload and station accordingly to what have been planned.
Monitoring : to check if the operation are in line with the plan and also to detect potential threat on ongoing transmission activities.
Thales Alenia Space has a long history in development and supply of Mission Control Centers for commercial and institutional Satcom missions

During the last decade, SatCom market is facing the introduction of new features, associated to the increasing needs of capacity, reliability and flexibility. Consequently the in-orbit validation, operation, planning  and resource optimization of such systems becomes more and more complex, hence requiring to develop new operating concepts and tools.
These new features are mainly :
IP services with variable data-rate,
Ka Band bringing bandwidth improvement but also important fading.
Complex wave-form with adaptive coding and modulation.
Flexible payload increasing deployment possibilities with multi-beams, shared TWTA, Digital Transparent Processor (DTP)…
And for governmental systems, the struggle against Jamming threats either at monitoring and planning level or through the use of specialized anti-jamming devices.

The aim of this presentation is to give an overview on the new functions that had to be added to Mission Control Centre during last ten years in order to take up the challenge induced by these new technologies. We will see how new ground function have escorted these major change, and maybe more, how they had made some of these changes possible. Because, some of them wouldn’t have been a reality without the development of a dedicated ground software helping a non expert operator to plenty use them.

Philippe Noel
Mission Control Center Thales Alenia Space

Philippe NOEL received his engineer diploma from the “Institut Universitaire des Sciences Pour l’Ingénieur de Marseille” in 1993 and his master in computing sciences from “Ecole des Mines de Saint Etienne” in 1994.
He integrated Thales group in 1995 where he made a 16 years long carrier completely dedicated to Network Management Systems.
Since 2003, Philippe Noel has participated exclusively to the realization of important Satellite Telecommunication Systems. These projects were ARISTOTE and SYRACUSE 3 for the French MOD (Ministry of Defence), NATO EMS (NATO EPM Modem System), NATO ASNMC (Acquisition of Advanced Satcom Network Monitoring and Control. More recently he works on a dual military and commercial C/KA/KU Satcom sytem developed by Thales and Astrium for United Arab Emirates : YAHSAT.
During this period Philippe Noel was successively : developer, designer, technical manager, work package and project manager.
He is now in charge for the Telecom Business Unit of Thales Alenia Space of the Mission Control Center product line.

Christian Schlegel
University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada

Christian Schlegel received the Dipl. El. Ing. ETH degree from the Federal Institute of Technology, Zürich, in 1984, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN, in 1986 and 1989, respectively.
In 1988 he joined the Communications Group at the research center of Asea Brown Boveri in Baden, Switzerland, where he was involved in mobile communications research. He spent the 1991/92 academic year as Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, Hawaii. From 1992-1994, he was head of the Mobile Communications Research Centre at the University of South Australia, Adelaide, then, from 1994-1996 he was with the University of Texas at San Antonio, and in 1996 he joined the University of Utah, Salt Lake City. In 2001 he assumed the iCORE Chair for Digital Communications at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada. His interests are in the area of error control coding and applications, multiple access communications, iterative processing, digital communications, wireless networks, as well as low-power implementations of communications systems. He is the author “Trellis Coding” (IEEE Press 1997), “Trellis and Turbo Coding,” (Wiley/IEEE 2004), and co-authored “Coordinated Multiple User Communications,” Springer in 2006 with Professor Alex Grant from the University of South Australia. Dr. Schlegel received an NSF 1997 Career Award in support of his research in multiuser communications, a Canada Research Chair in 2001, and a Province of Alberta iCORE Chair in 2001 and 2006, providing a total of $5 Mio of research funding. Dr. Schlegel is an IEEE Fellow, and was named IEEE Distinguished Lecturer of the IEEE Circuits and Systems Society in 2007 and for the IEEE Vehicular Technology Society in 2011.
Dr. Schlegel was associate editor for coding theory and techniques for the IEEE Transactions on Communications from 1999-2007, guest editor for the Proceedings of the IEEE’s Proceedings of the IEEE’s special issue on turbo coding, and currently serves on the editorial board of Editorial Board of the Journal of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Hindawi Publishing. Dr. Schlegel also served as technical program co-chair of the IEEE Information Theory Workshop 2001 held in Cairns, Australia, as technical program chair of the IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory (ISIT’05) 2005 held in Adelaide, Australia, as technical co-chair of the 4th IEEE Multiple Access Workshop (MACOM) 2011, and as general chair of the 2005 IEEE Communication Theory Workshop (CTW’05) held in Park City, Utah. He has also frequently serves on several technical program committees, most recently or IEEE VTC’99 in Houston, TX, IEEE VTC’2000 held in Tokyo, Japan, IEEE Globecom 2001 held in San Antonio, TX, the 3rd International Symposium on Turbo Codes, held in Brest, France, in 2003, IEEE VTC’2004-Fall held in Los Angeles, IEEE Globecom 2004 held in Dallas, TX. IEEE VTC’2006 held in Melbourne, IEEE ICC 2006 held in Istanbul, Turkey, IEEE IWCMC 2006, held in Vancouver, IEEE PIMRC 2006 held in Helsinki, Finland, IEEE VTC 2007, Spring, held in Dublin, IEEE VTC 2007, Fall, held in Baltimore, IEEE Globecom 2007, held in Washington, DC, IEEE PIMRC 2007, held in Athens, Greece, IEEE VTC 2008, held in Calgary, the 5th International Symposium on Turbo Codes, held in Lausanne, Switzerland, 2008, the Military Communications Conference MILCOM 2008, held in San Diego, November 2008, IEEE VTC 2009, held in Barcelona, Spain, the 6th International Symposium on Turbo Codes, to be held in Brest, France, September 6-10, 2010, and the 3rd International Workshop on Multiple Access Communications held in Barcelona, September 13-14, 2010, MILCOM 2010, held in San Jose, November 2010, MILCOM 2011, to be held in Baltimore, November 2011, and IEEE ICC 2012 to be held in Ottawa, Canada in June 2012.
Dr. Schlegel is the originator and organizer of the Western Canadian Summer School on Information and Communication Theory held every year in Banff, Alberta, and currently in its 5th year. He also organizes an annual undergraduate student event on wireless principles at the University of Alberta.
Dr. Schlegel has published over 100 technical papers, and have given numerous invited talks and seminars. He received research grants for over 1 Mio US$ from the National Science Foundation, the Army Research Office, the State of Utah, and private industry, notably L3 Communications in Salt Lake City, Utah, and more than 6 Mio Can$ from iCORE, the Canadian Foundation for Infrastructure (CFI), NSERC, ASRA, the Canada Research Chair (CRC) program, and the wireless industry in Canada. His work with industry has resulted in ten patents in the area of spread spectrum communication, error control coding, and digital and analog implementations. He has pioneered multi-user detection based on interference separation principles and iterative decoding methods. He frequently holds tutorials on Turbo Coding and Multiple Access Communications. Further information and instructional material is available on his University laboratory.

As an introduction, this talk gives an overview over the essential physical phenomena of the satellite communications channel. Then it describes measurement and modelling techniques for the land mobile satellite channel and gives an overview over this field. The characteristics of the land mobile satellite channel are discussed, and “historic” DLR channel measurements are reviewed. From this, a narrowband channel model is derived, and parameters of the channel model, resulting from measurements, are presented. Finally, a four-state model for dual satellite channel diversity is introduced.

Erich Lutz
Head of the Digital Network Section – DLR

Erich Lutz received the Dipl.-Ing. degree from the Technical University Munich in 1977 and the Dr.-Ing. degree from the Univer­sity of the Armed Forces, Munich in 1983. Since then, he has been with the Institute of Communications and Navigation of the German Aerospace Center (DLR) in Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany, and from 1986 until 2008, he was head of the Digital Network section of this institute. He has participated in a large number of international studies and research projects. Since 2006, he has been coordinator of the SatNEx Satellite Communications Network of Experts funded first by the European Commission and now by the European Space Agency.His research interests include networking aspects in mobile and broadband satellite communication systems. Prof. Lutz has published numerous journal and conference papers, and is the principal author of a book on satellite systems for personal and broadband communications, published by Springer in 2000. He holds a honorary professorship at the Technical University Munich where he lectures on satellite communication networks. Prof. Lutz is a member of the Editorial Panel of the International Journal of Satellite Communications.

Bernard H. Fleury
Department of Electronic Systems 
University of Aalborg, Denmark

Bernard H. Fleury received the diploma in electrical engineering and mathematics in 1978 and 1990, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETHZ), Switzerland, in 1990.

Since 1997, he has been with the Department of Electronic Systems, Aalborg University, Denmark, as a Professor of communication theory. He is the Head of the Section Navigation and Communications, which is one of the nine laboratories of this department. From 2006 to 2009, he was a Key Researcher with the Telecommunications Research Center Vienna (ftw), Austria. During 1978–1985 and 1992–1996, he was a Teaching Assistant and a Senior Research Associate, respectively, with the Communication Technology Laboratory, ETHZ. Between 1988 and 1992, he was a Research Assistant with the Statistical Seminar at ETHZ.

Prof. Fleury’s research interests cover numerous aspects within communication theory and signal processing, mainly for wireless communications. His current research interests include stochastic modeling and estimation of the radio channel especially for MIMO applications in fast time-varying environments, iterative message-passing processing with focus on the design of efficient feasible architectures for wireless receivers, localization techniques in wireless terrestrial systems, and radar signal processing. He has authored and co-authored more than 110 publications in these areas. He has developed with his staff a high-resolution method for the estimation of radio channel parameters that has found a wide application and has inspired similar estimation techniques both in academia and in industry.

Michael Devetsikiotis
IEEE Communication Society Distinguished Lecturer 2008-2011
Professor and Director of Graduate Programs, Dept. of Electrical and  Computer Engineering
NC State University, Raleigh, North Carolina, U.S.

Michael Devetsikiotis (IEEE S 1985, M 1994, SM 2003, F 2012) was born in Thessaloniki, Greece. He received the Dipl. Ing. degree in Electrical Engineering from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece, in 1988, and the M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from North Carolina State University, Raleigh, in 1990 and 1993, respectively. As a student he received scholarships from the National Scholarship Foundation of Greece, the National Technical Chamber of Greece, and the Phi Kappa Phi Academic Achievement Award for a Doctoral Candidate at NC State University. He is a senior member of the IEEE and a member of the honor societies of Eta Kappa Nu, Sigma Xi, and Phi Kappa Phi.
In 1993 he joined the Broadband Networks Laboratory at Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada, as a Post-Doctoral Fellow. Michael later became an Adjunct Research Professor in the Dept. of Systems and Computer Engineering at Carleton University in 1995, an Assistant Professor in 1996 and an Associate Professor in 1999. He joined the Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering at NC State as an Associate Professor, in 2000, and became a Professor in 2006.
Michael served as Chairman of the IEEE Communications Society Technical Committee on Comm. Systems Integration and Modeling and is now a member of the ComSoc Education Board. He has served as an Associate Editor of the IEEE Comm. Letters, an Area Editor of the ACM Transactions on Modeling and Computer Simulation, and on the editorial boards of the Intl. Journal of Simulation and Process Modeling, the IEEE Comm. Surveys and Tutorials, and the Journal of Internet Engineering. He co-chaired the Next Generation Internet symposium under IEEE ICC 2002, the High-Speed Networks symposium under IEEE ICC 2004, the Quality, Reliability and Performance Modeling (QRPM) symposium under IEEE ICC 2006, and the Quality, Reliability and Performance for Emerging Network Services symposium under IEEE Globecom 2006. He served as Workshops Chair for IEEE Globecom 2008, and co-chair of the workshops on “Enabling the Future Service Oriented Internet” (2007, 2008 and 2009). He co-chaired the QRPM Symposium under IEEE Globecom 2010, and IEEE CAMAD 2011, in Kyoto. He will co-chair the QRPM symposium at ICC 2012 in Ottawa, Canada.

Designing Smarter Networks: Modeling Communications in the Era of Service Awareness, Social Networks and the Smart Grid
Combined advances in high speed networking, mobile devices, application sharing, web services, virtual world technologies and large scale event processing are converging to create a new world of pervasive, smarter networks, and ubiquitous “presence” of users, which offers tremendous potential for social interaction and co-creation. The communication networking and computing requirements of this converged human-centric environment are also increasing at an accelerated pace. In this new environment, it is imperative that the crucial networking and computing resources align closely with the needs and patterns dictated by the applications, social networks, and by the human users. The success of such socio-technical smarter systems will hinge on the way networks interact with human presence and location, in all of its physical and virtual aspects.
A robust, scalable, and dynamic communication infrastructure is necessary to connect service consumers and providers within such rich, interactive environments. It is also becoming increasingly relevant to the delivery of smarter health systems, and of the “Energy Internet” or “Smart Grid”, in conjunction with progress in energy storage, renewable generation, and smart metering.  Applications of the future will leverage distributed service-oriented deployment patterns where large numbers of network appliances coordinate with peers using network-wide (or “cloud-wide”) application-specific policies, in order to perform configuration changes based on prevailing network, computing and application conditions.
Modeling and adaptation of resources based on state, location, context-awareness and workload (current or predicted) is highly desirable in these high-performance computing and communication socio-technical service systems. In this seminar, we provide an overview of our effort, in collaboration with our College of Management, with the new FREEDM center on renewable energy, with IBM and with Cisco, to develop models of emerging next generation network-based services, traffic characterization and predictive and dynamic resource allocation. We present an overview of approaches that we are using for service-aware utility-oriented modeling and resource allocation in aggregation network optimization, location-aware hybrid activities in wireless networks, smart grids and vehicle charging stations, smart health applications, and virtual collaboration environments such as virtual worlds.

Enrico Del Re

Enrico Del Re received the Laurea in Electronics Engineering from the University of Pisa, Italy, in 1971. After two years employed in industry on the design of attitude sensors for space applications, since 1975 he joined the Department of Electronics and Telecommunications Engineering of the University of Florence where currently is Full Professor of Digital Signal Processing. He was Director of the School for Higher-grade Electronics Technicians of the University of Florence in 1990-93. From 1994 to 2004 he has been Chairman of the Telecommunications Engineering Degree of the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Florence.
Since 2001 he is Member of the Executive Board of CNIT (Italian University Consortium for Telecommunications).
The professional and academic experience has been focused in the fields of the telecommunications systems and the digital processing of signals, where he has published 6 books, more than 300 papers in national and international journals and conferences and more than 40 technical research reports. He has been responsible of over 50 research contracts with the Italian National Research Council, Italian Space Agency, European Union and industries. He has been responsible as a Prime Contractor of a research contract with the European Space Agency in 1984‑86 on the application of advanced digital signal processing techniques on board the satellites.
During the academic year 1987‑88 he has been on leave from the University of Florence at the European Space Research and Technology Centre of the European Space Agency, Noordwijk, Netherlands, carrying out research on the integration of satellite systems with the terrestrial cellular network for mobile communications. He has been the Chairman of the EU COST Project 227 on “Integrated Space-Terrestrial Mobile Networks” and of the EU COST Action 252 “Evolution of satellite personal communications from second to future generation systems”. He has served as an expert for EU in the area of Advanced Communications Technologies. He has been the Chairman of the Satellite Integrated Communications Networks Workshop (1986), the Software Radio Technologies and Services Workshop (2000), the Fifth European Workshop on Mobile/Personal Satcoms (2002) and the Satellite Navigation and Communications Systems Workshop (2006). He is a Senior Member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. He is a member of the EURASIP and AEI. He has been recipient of the 1988/89 premium for the paper “Multicarrier demodulator for digital satellite communication systems” by the Institution of Electrical Engineers (IEE), UK. In the years 2005-2007 he was Director of the National Interuniversity Consortium for Telecommunications (CNIT). Presently he is Vice-President.

Abstract. Maritime subject domain plays an important role in up to date world economy. World ocean covers over 70% of the Earth and forms many sources of energy and food. Needless to say that Maritime Observation Systems (MOS) serve as an important part of the world ocean investigation programs. Currently many different subject domains directly or indirectly incorporate MOS as a core of investigation and real business processes. Traditionally MOS bore somewhat military nature, however, in recent years the business and safety aspects became more important in the trends aimed at developing MOS for different purposes. And currently we observe many initiatives, groups and other real MOS related works around the Globe; like EU Marine Observation and Data Expert Group (MODEG) (http://ec.europa.eu/maritimeaffairs/eu-marine-observation-data-network-mission_en.html). The mission of MODEG is to provide the Commission with the scientific, technical and operational expertise to ensure that the European Marine Observation and Data Network (EMODNET) best meets the needs of its future users.

In Russia there exists a large program: National Unified System for Information on Situation in the Oceans that has been started a couple of years ago (NUSISO).

NUSISO is the information system which integrates technologies working in the Russian Federation for the observation, data acquisition and data processing regarding the situation in the oceans. This system is designed for information support of maritime activities at all levels: Federal, regional and departmental.

NUSISO encompasses over 1300 organizations from 45 departments of Russia, at that, using the databases of Data Center: All-Russian SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH INSTITUTE for Hydro meteorological information-world data center. Detailed information about the NUSISO program is presented on the NUSISO Web-portal(www.oceaninfo.ru).

The system of buoys “ARGO” can serve as an example of the international system. The ARGO project objective is to create and maintain a global network of 3000 buoys that should correspond to more than 100000 measurements performed by different sensors. The project objectives consist in: placing the specified number of buoys in the world ocean; establishing the Argo national centers; free access to data; transfer data to the global network within 24 hours after their receipt.

Detailed information about the ARGO project is available on web-sites given below:

• ARGO Information Center – http://argo.jcommops.org/
• ARGO web-site – http://www.argo.ucsd.edu/
• Argo data from Coriolis – http://coriolis.eu.org/cdc/argo.htm
• Argo data from USA GODAE project – http://www.usgodae.org/argo/argo.html

The MOS analysis indicates that the following constituents are peculiar to the systems: the first and foremost to the point are monitoring and detection means, such as sonar, radar, optical and infrared detectors, magnetic, gravitational, and several others. The second – data centers and decision-making support systems at various levels of the hierarchy, depending on the MOS scale. The third – networks for data transmission and data exchange that implement (at the physical level) the MOS state of distribution and heterogeneity. All constituents are interconnected and mutually stipulated. Currently the number of data transmission networks is enormous, and consideration of the networks totality is hardly possible or practical. In the above regard the presented approach proposes to consider the standard MOS and the Hybrid Networks (HybNet) by example of MOS.

The paper proposes two basic MOS: ECDIS and AIS for further consideration. ECDIS is one of the first marine information systems, which has found wide commercial application. Here the requirements to data networks are minimal: transfer of maps’ corrections, weather, and information about the navigating-hydrographical conditions. AIS appeared due to the advent of GPS with capabilities of continuous monitoring of any surface ship. AIS is a supplementary system in the greater global MOS. VTMS is more complex and distributed heterogeneous system by right. VTMS meets in full the challenge of HybNet implementation. ECDIS and AIS VTMS analysis allows to develop a general approach to DMOS including: architecture, hierarchical levels, goals; networks: cell networks, wireless networks, satellite networks, optic networks etc. Based on the first hand experience in DMOS research and production the paper proposes to consider two more DMOS types developed by SPIIRAS: Sonar Monitoring System (SMOS) and Maritime Surveillance and Recognition System (MSRS).

Plan of the paper

1. Introduction: state-of-the-art, classification of data sources, DMOS data flows and networks

2. ECDIS (Electronic Charts Navigation Systems), and AIS (Automatic Identification Systems)

3. VTMS (Vessel Traffic Management System)

4. DMOS: architecture, levels, goals, networks: cell networks, wireless networks, satellite networks, optic networks etc.

5. Case studies. Sonar Monitoring System, Maritime Surveillance and Recognition System

6. Conclusion

Vasily V. Popovich
Prof., Deputy Director SPIIRAS for Research

Vaily V. Popovich is a Professor, Deputy Director for Research of St. Petersburg Institute for Informatics and Automation of the Russian Academy of Sciences (SPIIRAS) and Head of Object Oriented Geographic Information Systems Laboratory (OOGIS Lab.) of SPIIRAS. His research interests include Geographic Information Systems (GIS), Object Oriented Analysis, Design, Programming, Modeling and Simulation for GIS, Situation Awareness and Assessment, Monitoring Systems Development, Operation Research, Theory of Search for Moving Objects. He is specifically interested in Information Harmonization, Integration and Fusion Concept for GIS (IF&GIS). Science 1986, he has published more than 90 papers in journals, books and conference proceedings on selected above topics. He is a co-editor of the proceedings of the international conference CORP2008 and workshop “Information Fusion and GIS (IF&GIS) 2007″ published by Springer. Popovich serves as a Director for different projects on GIS base for Russian and USA Government´s Departments and Russian and International Business Companies.

Nicolas Sklavos
Informatics & MM Department, Technological Educational Institute of Patras HELLAS (Greece)

Marco Chiani
University of Bologna

Marco Chiani is a Full Professor of Telecommunications and the current Director of the Industrial Research Center on ICT, University of Bologna. He is a frequent visitor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, where he presently holds a Research Affiliate appointment. He is leading the research unit of the University of Bologna on cognitive radio and UWB (European project EUWB), on Joint Source and Channel Coding for wireless video (European projects Phoenix-FP6, Optimix-FP7, Concerto-FP7), and is a consultant to the European Space Agency (ESA-ESOC) for the design and evaluation of error correcting codes based on LDPCC for space CCSDS applications. His research interests include wireless communication systems, MIMO systems, wireless multimedia, low-density parity-check codes (LDPCC) and UWB. He is a Fellow of the IEEE, past Chair (2002–2004) of the Radio Communications Committee of the IEEE Communication Society and past Editor of Wireless Communication (2000–2007) for the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON COMMUNICATIONS

Daniele Mortari
Professor of Aerospace Engineering
746C H.R. Bright Building, Department of Aerospace Engineering
Texas A&M University – 3141 TAMU, USA

Dott. Mortari is Professor of Aerospace Engineering at Texas A&M University, working on the field of spacecraft dynamics and control. In addition, he has taught at the School of Aerospace Engineering of Rome’s University, and at Electronic Engineering of Perugia’s University. Dott. Mortari has received his doctor degree in Nuclear Engineering from University of Rome “La Sapienza”, in 1981.He has published more than 200 papers, holds multiple U.S. patents, and has been widely recognized for his work, including receiving best paper Award from AAS/AIAA, two NASA’s Group Achievement Awards, the 2003 Spacecraft Technology Center Award, and the prestigious 2007 IEEE Judith A. Resnik Award. He is AIAA Associate Fellow, IEEE Distinguish Speaker, and Honorary member of IEEE-AESS Space System Technical Panel.
During his 30-year career as an educator and researcher, he has made contributions to his field in two key areas of specialization: spacecraft attitude and orbit estimation and spacecraft constellations design. His contributions are in both theory and practice. One of his Star Identification algorithms (/Pyramid/) has been widely adopted and recognized as the gold standard for both efficiency and reliability.  He also has solved the related problem of determining the best estimate of spacecraft orientation and orbit from vectors observation. In particular, he has developed robust and accurate space-based orbit determination algorithms. Dott. Mortari has also developed an entirely new class of spacecraft constellations, the /Flower Constellations/. This opens the new area of shape-preserving constellations and increases the dimensionality of the current solutions for space missions such as global/regional observation, global navigation, communication, and radio occultation.
He is member of AAS Space Flight Mechanics Technical Committee, associate editor for AAS /Journal of the Astronautical Sciences/, for the /International Journal of Navigation and Observations/, and for IEEE /Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems/.

Silvano Pupolin
University of Padova

He received the Laurea degree in Electronic Engineering from the University of Padova, Padova, Italy, in 1970.
Since then he joined the Department of Information Engineering, University of Padova, where he is Full Professor of Electrical Communications.
He was:

• Chairman of the Faculty of Electronic Engineering (1990-1994),
• Chairman of the PhD Course in Electronics and Telecommunications Engineering (1991-1997), (2003-04)
• Director of the PhD School in Information Engineering (2004-2007),
• Chairman of the board of the Directors of the PhD Schools of the University of Padova (2005-2007)
• Member of the programming and development committee of the University of Padova (1997-2002)
• Member of Scientific Committee of the University of Padova (1996-2001),
• Member of the budget Committee of the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Padova (2003-2009)
• Member of the Board of Governor of the CNIT “Italian National Interuniversity Consortium for Telecommunications” (1996-99), (2004- 2007)
• Director of CNIT (2008 – 2010 )
• Director Dept. Quantum and Radio Communications of CNVR (Consorzio Veneto di Ricerca) (2011- )

He has been actively engaged in research on digital communication systems since 1970. The topics covered have been:

• Performance analysis of baseband digital communication systems and fiber optic systems;
• Digital radio communications, with emphasis to the adaptive linearization of the High-Power-Amplifier;
• Spread spectrum communication systems;
• Packet radio networks;
• Design of large reliable communications networks;
• Effects of phase noise and HPA nonlinearities in OFDM systems;
• Variable bit rate mobile radio communications systems;
• 3G mobile radio communications systems (UTRA-FDD e TDD) and beyond 3G (OFDM modulation and MC-CDMA);
• Ad-hoc networks with the use of Bluetooth and WLAN
• Capacity of MIMO system in real operating conditions.

He was General Chair of the 9-th, 10-th and 18-th Tyrrhenian International Workshop on Digital Communications devoted to “Broadband Wireless Communications”, “Multimedia Communications”, and “Wireless Communications”, respectively; General Chair of the International Symposium “Wireless Personal Multimedia Communications (WPMC’04)” Abano Terme, Padova , Italy, September 2004.
He spent the summer 1985 at AT&T Bell Laboratories on leave from Padova, doing research on digital radio systems.
Actually, is actively engaged in researches on broadband mobile communication systems, ad-hoc radio networks and personal communication systems.
He was Principal investigator for research projects entitled “Variable bit rate mobile radio communication systems for multimedia applications”, “OFDM Systems with Applications to WLAN Networks”, and “MC-CDMA: an air interface for the 4th generation of wireless systems”. Also, he was engaged in the FIRB PRIMO Research Project “Reconfigurable platforms for broadband mobile communications”

COST Action IC0902, "Cognitive Radio and Networking for Cooperative Coexistence of Heterogeneous Wireless Networks", was launched in December 2009 and coordinates and integrates the research activities on cognitive radio and networks of more than 60 institutions and research projects throughout Europe and worldwide, involving more than 200 researchers. IC0902 aims at becoming the reference point in Europe for research on cognitive radio, leading to the creation of a European platform for cognitive radio and networks by addressing all major technical challenges related to cognitive radio networks design and deployment. One of the major research topics addressed in IC0902 is the operation of cognitive devices in the TV White Spaces. In this work recent results obtained in the framework of IC0902 on the design and deployment of positioning systems in the TV White Spaces are presented. A comparison between traditional Wi-Fi-based positioning systems working in the ISM band and TVWS positioning systems is carried out by means of computer simulations, and results show that the favourable propagation conditions characterizing the TVWS frequencies may lead to better positioning accuracy with the additional benefit of lower transmit power levels.
Maria Gabriella Di Benedetto
University of Rome, La Sapienza

Prof. Maria-Gabriella Di Benedetto obtained her Ph.D. in Telecommunications in 1987 from the University of Rome La Sapienza, Italy. In 1991, she joined the Faculty of Engineering of University of Rome La Sapienza, where currently she is a Full Professor of Telecommunications at the INFOCOM Department. She has held visiting positions at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Paris XI, France. In 1994, she received the Mac Kay Professorship award from the University of California, Berkeley. Her research interests include wireless communication systems and speech science. From 1995 to 2000, she directed four European projects for the design of UMTS. Since 2000, she has been active in fostering the development of Ultra Wide Band (UWB) radio communications in Europe, and participated in several pioneering EU projects on UWB communications (within the 5th framework, whyless.com, first funded research project world-wide addressing UWB communications for civil applications, and project UCAN aimed at the design and implementation of UWB ad-hoc networks – within the 6th EU Framework, IP projects PULSERS and PULSERS II which integrated UWB research and development in Europe, IP project LIAISON on to location-based services). During this last decade Dr. Di Benedetto research main focus was on medium access control and management in wireless networks, as well as energy-efficient routing, and location-based optimization of medium access control and routing functions. In particular, participation in the European Network of Excellence HYCON (Hybrid Control: Taming Heterogeneity and Complexity of Networked Embedded Systems) offered the framework for an inter-disciplinary effort with colleagues from "Control Theory" that led to the formulation of hybrid models for complex wireless communication systems operating under coexisting conditions, and increased theoretical research activity in the field of cognitive and coexisting networks. Based in particular on this last rewarding and productive collaboration, Professor Di Benedetto recently promoted and coordinated a proposal for a COST Action on cognitive radio and networks. The proposal, that gathered over 30 partners of 15 countries in Europe, as well as the US, Canada, China, and Australia, ranked first in the COST Information and Communications Technology Domain and was approved in May 2009. The resulting COST Action IC0902 "Cognitive Radio and Networking for Cooperative Coexistence of Heterogeneous Wireless Networks" kicked-off in December 2009. In October 2009, Dr. Di Benedetto received the Excellence in Research award "Sapienza Ricerca", under the auspices of President of Italy, Giorgio Napolitano.

This talk will give an overview of the ESA programs and activities that support the exploitation of Earth Observation in Europe in the scientific, applications and information services domains. The key results and main achievements in expanding the use of Earth Observation information products and services will be addressed.

Stephen Coulson head of the industry section in ESA’s directorate of Earth Observation Programs in ESRIN
.

has over 25 years’ experience in the field of Earth Observation and its applications, the last 20 of which have been with the European Space Agency. Since 2000, he has been managing an ESA program to support the development of the European EO services industry and is head of the Industry section in the Directorate of Earth Observation Programs in ESRIN (Frascati, Italy). He has a degree in physics from University of Durham (UK) and a Ph.D in theoretical physics from the University of Southampton (UK).

This tutorial will provide an overview of System Health Management, as presented in the first comprehensive reference book for the discipline, called System Health Management: with Aerospace Applications (Chichester, UK: John Wiley UK, 2011), for which Dr. Johnson is the general editor, and the author of chapter 1 on the theory of SHM. Aspects of SHM are known by a number of names, including: fault management; fault protection; fault, detection isolation and response; integrated diagnostics; prognostics and health management; reliability; safety; vehicle health management; vehicle health monitoring, etc.

The tutorial will cover the following topics:

• Brief historical description of the origins of the discipline
• Relationship of SHM to systems theory and control theory
• SHM concepts, terminology, and taxonomy
• The Principles of SHM
• SHM strategies
• Fault Management functions
• Implications of the theory
• Example applications of the theory to satellites and launch vehicles

Stephen B. Johnson
Center for Space Studies, University of Colorado at Colorado Springs and NASA Marshall Space Flight Center

Dr. Stephen Johnson is an associate research professor for the Center for Space Studies at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. He is the general editor for System Health Management: with Aerospace Applications (John Wiley UK, 2011), and Space Exploration and Humanity: A Historical Encyclopedia (ABC-CLIO, 2010). He is also the author of The United States Air Force and the Culture of Innovation, 1945-1965 and The Secret of Apollo: Systems Management in American and European Space Programs, both published in 2002, and was the editor of Quest: The History of Spaceflight Quarterly from 1998-2005.

From 2005-2011 Dr. Johnson worked under interagency agreement for NASA Marshall Spaceflight Center, and he has a contract with MSFC currently to support the Integrated System Health Management and Automation Branch in the development of fault management and vehicle management for the Space Launch System program.  From 2005 through 2011 he headed the development of diagnostic models and tools for the Ares I Crew Launch Vehicle project of the Constellation program, while also helping to develop the concepts and principles section for the NASA Science Mission Directorate Fault Management Handbook. His current research involves dependable space system design and operations, space industry management and economics, space history, and the history of cognitive psychology and artificial intelligence. He received his bachelors degree in physics from Whitman College in 1981, and his doctorate in 1997 in the History of Science and Technology from the University of Minnesota, where he was also the Associate Director of the Babbage Institute for the History of Computing. Prior to 1997, he worked for Northrop and Martin Marietta, and was co-owner of his own small business, managing computer simulation laboratories, designing space probes, and developing engineering processes.

After a brief description of the current and shortly planned systems, as well as an introduction on the evolution key user requirements, this tutorial describes and analyses the key system design issues of current and future HTS broadband satellites. In particular, the main design factors impacting the system throughput and availability are reviewed, both at system, payload and ground segment levels. The key air interface requirements and evolutions are also addressed together with the relevant regulatory constraints, for both the forward and return links, and in the user and feeder links. Some key technological limitations and considerations of the ground and payload sub-systems are also discussed. A case study is finally presented with considerations.

Alberto Ginesi
Head of the Communication-TT&C Systems & Techniques Section – ESA/ESTEC

Alberto Ginesi he spent one year at Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada, doing research on digital transmissions for wireless applications in 1996-1997. In 1997, he joined Nortel Networks and in 2000 Catena Networks, both in Ottawa, Canada, where he worked on Digital Subscriber Loop (DSL) technologies and contributed to the definition of the second-generation ADSL standard.
Since 2002 he joined ESA Research ad Technology Centre (ESTEC), Noordwijk, The Netherlands, where he is currently covering the position of the Head of the Communication-TT&C Systems & Techniques Section. His main current research interests lie in the area of advanced digital communication systems and techniques from theory to HW implementation.
A. Ginesi has been one of the key technical contributor of the DVB-S2 and DVB-RCS2 standards as well the advanced high rate data downlink standard based on SCCC codes and is currently contributing to the feasibility and assessment studies of the Terabit/s broadband satellite concept.

Multi-functional Si/SiGe BiCMOS ICs in complex and reconfigurable mm-wave systems
Over the past 20 years, bipolar and BiCMOS technologies using Si/SiGe heterostructure bipolar transistors have become powerful competitors to established GaAs technologies for microwave and millimeter-wave applications. While the cost advantages of Si-based technologies are frequently touted, they materialize only in large quantities rarely found outside of the consumer market.
The more interesting advantage of Si/SiGe BiCMOS lies in the ability to realize highly complex multi-functional ICs which combine different RF building blocks on one chip together with digital and analog control electronics. The ability to put e.g. a digital bus transceiver with registers and D/A and A/D converters into single-chip transmit/receive modules of electronically steerable antenna arrays can lead to significant reductions in the complexity of the antenna interconnect system.
The increased complexity potential can also be used to realize integrated circuits with a high degree of flexibility, adapting to different use scenarios. They could thus be manufactured in larger quantities, and would lower cost due to lower chip cost (finally fulfilling the initial promise of Si-based mm-wave technology) and shorter time to market.
The presentation will discuss these technological potentials in detail, using two different Si/SiGe technologies – a very mature, truly low-cost npn-only SiGe HBT technology, and an advanced Si/SiGe BiCMOS technology which includes the monolithic integration of RFMEMS switches as an interesting option. It will show sample ICs in the 20-90 GHz range realized with these technologies, and discuss currently developments in the EU FP7 project FLEXWIN, which explores both mm-wave phased array antennas using an “intelligent pixel” concept, and ICs with a high degree of application flexibility.

Hermann Schumacher
Universität Ulm. Institut für elektronische Bauelemente und Schaltungen, Ulm, Germany

Hermann Schumacher received his Diplom-Ingenieur and Doktor-Ingenieur degrees from RWTH Aachen, Aachen, Germany, in 1982 and 1986, respectively. After working for Bell Communication Research, Red Bank, New Jersey, as a Member of Technical Staff, from 1986-1990, he joined Ulm University, Ulm, Germany, as a professor in the Institute of Electron Devices and Circuits. Since 2010, he is the director of the institute. His research interests include compound semiconductor devices and their circuit applications. For more than 15 years, his research group has focused on the application of Si/SiGe bipolar devices to micro- and millimeter-wave circuits and high-frequency microsystems, lately especially high data rate mm-wave systems and impulse-radio ultra-wideband sensors.
Dr. Schumacher is the director of the Communications Technology international Master of Science program at Ulm University (since 1997), the university’s past vice-president for research (2000-2003), founder of the Competence Center on Integrated Circuits in Communications (in 2001), and, since 2011, director of the School of Advanced Professional Studies at Ulm University, the university’s continuing education arm.

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