IEEE COMMUNICATIONS SOCIETY
Signal Processing and Computing for Communications Technical Committee (SPCC)
Minutes of Technical Committee Meeting at GLOBECOM 2020, held by videoconference

Dec. 17, 2020

IEEE COMMUNICATIONS SOCIETY
Signal Processing and Computing for Communications Technical Committee (SPCC)
Minutes of Technical Committee Meeting at GLOBECOM 2020, held by videoconference

Dec. 17, 2020

1. Introductions – The TC meeting was started at 8:30 AM EST. The SPCC Chair Dr. Xianbin Wang introduced the agenda of the meeting and welcomed all SPCC members to the meeting. Instructions to maintain the meeting through the Zoom tool were provided.
2. Minutes of ICC 2020 – The minutes of ICC 2020 SPCC TC meeting were approved.
3. SPCC Scope, Objectives and Organization Structure – The Charter and objectives of the TC after renaming, TC structure and P&Ps were presented. Current and past officers were introduced as well.
4. Motion for Policies and Procedures (P&P) Update

An update to the P&Ps was proposed by the Vice-Chair to accommodate them to instructions received from ComSoc. The update was unanimously approved. The updated P&P will be soon shown on the website.

5. Technical Program Committee Reports

• SPC Symposium – GLOBECOM 2020: Co-chairs for the symposium include Hai Lin (Osaka Prefecture University, Japan), Jemin Lee (Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science and Technology, Korea) and Dania Marabissi (University of Florence, Italy). Hai Lin was recommended by SPCC. The number of submissions was 116, the number of TPC members was 150, and the number of accepted papers is 46, with an acceptance rate of 39.6%. There were 9 sessions.
• CT Symposium – GLOBECOM 2020: Co-chairs for the symposium include Marco Chiani (University of Bologna, Italy), Rui Dinis (FCT-UNL, Instituto de Telecomunicações, Portugal) and Paschalis Sofotasios (Khalifa University, UAE & Tampere University, Finland). Rui Dinis was recommended by SPCC. The number of submissions was 124, the number of TPC members was 132, and the number of accepted papers is 53, with an acceptance rate of 43%. There were 11 sessions.
• WCS Symposium – GLOBECOM 2020: Co-chairs for the symposium include Lian Zhao (Ryerson University, Canada), Koichi Adachi, The University of Electro-Communications, Japan), Wenchi Cheng (Xidian University, Chin), Xiangwei Zhou (Louisiana State University, USA) and Nicolo Michelusi (Purdue University, USA). Xiangwei Zhou was recommended by SPCC. The number of submissions was 366. the number of TPC members was 232, and the number of accepted papers is 147, with an acceptance rate of 39.9%. There were 29 sessions.
• SPC Symposium – ICC 2021: Co-chairs for the symposium include Shaodan Ma, George C. Alexandropoulos and Jing Yang. All were recommended by SPCC. The number of submissions was 99 and the number of TPC members was 163.
• SPC Symposium – GLOBECOM 2021: Co-chairs for the symposium include Zhijin Qin (Queen Mary University of London), who was recommended by SPCC.
• WC Symposium – GLOBECOM 2021: Co-chairs for the symposium include Cong Shen (University of Virginia), who was recommended by SPCC.
• SAC: Machine Learning for Communications – GLOBECOM 2021: Co-chairs for the symposium include Kamel Tourki (Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd), who was recommended by SPCC.

6. Other Endorsed Conferences by SPCC

• 3rd International Conference on Advanced Communication Technologies and Networking (CommNet 2020),  (Marrakech, Morocco, September 2020), http://www.commnet-conf.org

      SPCE representatives:

• George K. Karagiannidis, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece
  • Mohamed-Slim Alouini, KAUST, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
  • Faissal El Bouanani, Mohammed V University, Morocco
• IEEE International Conference on Wireless for Space and Extreme Environments (WiSEE 2020), https://attend.ieee.org/wisee-2020

      SPCE representatives:

• Tarik Taleb, Aalto University, Finland
  • Telex M. N. Ngatched, Memorial University of Newfoundland
  • Xiangwei Zhou, Louisiana State University
  • Zhu Han, University of Houston
• 14th International Conference on Signal Processing and Communication Systems (ICSPCS 2020) (Adelaide, South Australia, December 2020), https://www.dspcs-witsp.com/icspcs_2020/index.html

      SPCE representatives:

• Octavia Dobre
  • Takahiko Saba
  • Tadeusz Wysocki
• International Conference on Computing, Networking and Communications (ICNC 2020)

      (Big Island, Hawaii, USA), http://www.conf-icnc.org/2020/

      SPCE representatives:

• Tomohiko Taniguchi
  • Cheng Li
  • Jingxian Wu
  • Feifei Gao
• Tenth International Conference on Wireless Communications and Signal Processing (WCSP 2019) (Hangzhou, China, October 2019), http://www.ic-wcsp.org

      SPCE representatives:

• Hai Lin
  • Lajos Hanzo
  • Jinhong Yuan
• IEEE International Conference on Wireless for Space and Extreme Environments (WiSEE 2019) (Ottawa, Canada, October 2019), http://sites.ieee.org/wisee-2019/

      SPCE representatives:

• Marco Chiani, University of Bologna, Italy
  • Rui Dinis, University Nova de Lisboa, Portugal
  • Xu Zhu, University of Liverpool, UK
  • Yik-Chung Wu, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong 
• 13th International Conference on Signal Processing and Communication Systems (ICSPCS 2019, December 16-18, Surfers Paradise, Australia), https://www.dspcs-witsp.com/icspcs_2019/index.html

      SPCE representatives:

• Octavia Dobre
• Takahiko Saba
• Tadeusz Wysocki

7. Special Interest Group (SIG) Activity Report

The following SIGs reported their activity:

• SIG on Signal Processing Techniques in 5G Communication Systems. Chairs include Chau Yuen, SUTD, Singapore; Woon Hau Chin, Toshiba Research Lab, UK; Yan Zhang, Simula Research Lab, Norway; Linglong Dai, Tsinghua University, China and Shiwen Mao, Auburn University, USA. Recent activity of the SIG includes:

Published

• IEEE JSAC, Special Issue on mmWave, June and July of 2017
• IEEE Transactions on Multimedia, Special Issue on Video over Future Networks: Emerging Technologies, Infrastructures, and Applications, Oct. 2017.
• IEEE Access, Special Issue on Cooperative and Intelligent Sensing, Jan 2018.
• IEEE Access, Special Issue on The Internet of Energy: Architectures, Cyber Security, and Applications
• IEEE Access, Special Issue on Deployment and Management of Small Heterogeneous Cells for 5G.
• IEEE Wireless Communications, Special Issue on Wireless Big Data: Technologies and Applications, Feb 2018.
• IEEE Wireless Communications, Special Issue on NOMA, April and May, 2018.
• IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Signal Processing, Special Issue on hybrid analog-digital signal processing for hardware-efficient large scale antenna arrays, May and June, 2018.
• IEEE Wireless Communications, Special Issue on Intelligent Radio: When Artificial Intelligence Meets Radio Network, vol.27, no.1, Feb. 2020

To appear

• IEEE Access, Special Section on Network Resource Management in Flying Ad Hoc Net-works: Challenges, Potentials, Future Applications, and Way forward, to appear.
• IEEE Access, Special Section on Urban computing and intelligence, to appear.
• Springer Neural Computing and Applications Journal, Special Issue on Multi-access Edge Computing Enabled Internet of Intelligences, to appear.
• IEEE/CIC China Communications Journal, Special Issue on Quality of Experience for multimedia communications, to appear.

Submission closed

• IEEE Transactions on Cognitive Communications and Networking, “Intelligent Surfaces for Smart Wireless Communications”, Deadline: 1 Sept 2020.
• IEEE Open Journal of the Communications Society (OJ-COMS), Special Issue on “Reconfigurable Intelligent Surface-Based Communications for 6G Wireless Networks”, Deadline: 1 Sept 2020.
• IEEE Wireless Communications Magazine, Special Section on “Edge Intelligence of Beyond 5G Networks“, Deadline: 1 July 2020.
• IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics, Special Issue on IoT with Cognitive Computing
• Journal of Communications and Networks Special Issue on  Advances and Applications of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning for Wireless Communications
• Elsevier Future Generation Computer Systems, Special Issue on “Computation Intelligence for Energy Internet”.
• IEEE Vehicular Technology Magazine, Special Issue on “Mobile Edge Computing for Vehicular Networks”.
• IEEE Network Magazine, Special Issue on “AI for Network Traffic Control”.
• IEEE Communications Magazine, Special Issue on “Multi-Access Mobile Edge Computing for Heterogeneous IoT”.
• IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics, Special Issue on “Blockchain for Industrial Internet of Things”.
• IEEE Access, Special Issue on “Emerging technologies on vehicle to everything (V2X)“.
• IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics, special issue on “Security and Privacy in Industry 4.0“. 
• IEEE JSAC, special issue on “Wireless Networks Empowered by Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces”.
• IEEE Network Magazine, special issue on “Blockchain and AI for Beyond 5G Networks“
• IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics, Special Issue on “IoT with Cognitive Computing”
• IEEE Open Journal on Vehicular Technology (OJ-VT), Special Issue on “Machine Learning/Deep Learning for Wireless Communications”
• IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transport Systems, Special Section on “Edge Intelligence of Internet of Vehicles”

Ongoing

• IEEE Communications Standards Magazine, Special Issue on “Emerging Security Technologies for 6G“ (Dec 31, 2020)
• IEEE Wireless Communications Magazine, Special Issue on “Intelligent Surfaces for 5G and Beyond” (March 15, 2021)
• IEEE Network Magazine, Special issue on “AI and 6G Convergence: an Energy-efficiency Perspective” (April 15, 2021)

 Other activities

• IEEE VTS and Comsoc Joint Workshop on 6G (Apr 2019)
• IEEE Asia Pacific Wireless Communications Symposium 2019 (Aug 2019)
• IEEE ICC 2021 – Next-Generation Networking & Internet Symposium
• TPC Vice Chair, IEEE GLOBECOM 2022
• Area TPC Chair, IEEE INFOCOM 2021, 2020
• Co-Chair, IEEE ICC 2021 – Next-Generation Networking & Internet Symposium
• Track Co-Chair, IEEE CCNC 2021, Next Generation Protocols: MAC and Above Track, Las Vegas, NV, Jan. 2021
• Panel Chair, IEEE 2020 International Conference on Mobile Ad-hoc and Sensor Networks (IEEE MSN 2020), Tokyo, Japan, Dec. 2020
• Track Co-Chair, IEEE Vehicular Technology Conference Fall 2020, Track 3: Spectrum Management, Radio Access Technology, Heterogeneous Networks, Victoria, Canada, Sept. 2020
• General Chair, The 13th IEEE International Conference on Internet of Things (iThings 2020)
• Program Chair, IEEE ICME 2020
• GITC Advisor, IEEE ICC 2020
• Secretary, IEEE ComSoc Asia-Pacific Board
• TPC Vice Chair, IEEE GLOBECOM 2022
• TPC Co-Chair, the 18th IEEE International Conference on Mobile Ad-Hoc and Smart Systems (IEEE MASS 2021), Dec. 2021
• General Co-Chair, the 11th EAI International Conference on Mobile Networks and Management (MONAMI 2021), Chiba, Japan, Sept. 2021
• General Co-Chair, EAI MobiMedia 2021
• Area TPC Chair, IEEE INFOCOM 2021
• Co-Chair, IEEE ICC 2021 – Next-Generation Networking & Internet Symposium
• Co-Chair, IEEE ICC 2021 Workshop on Communication, IoT, and AI technologies to counter COVID-19 (COVI-COM’21), Montreal, Canada, June 2021
• TPC Co-Chair, IEEE INFOCOM 2021 Workshop on Security, Privacy, and Digital Forensics of Mobile Systems and Networks (MobiSec’21), Virtual Workshop, May 2021
• Track Co-Chair, IEEE CCNC 2021, Next Generation Protocols: MAC and Above Track, Las Vegas, NV, Jan. 2021
• Panel Chair, IEEE 2020 International Conference on Mobile Ad-hoc and Sensor Networks (IEEE MSN 2020), Tokyo, Japan, Dec. 2020
• Track Co-Chair, IEEE Vehicular Technology Conference Fall 2020, Track 3: Spectrum Management, Radio Access Technology, Heterogeneous Networks, Victoria, Canada, Sept. 2020
• General Chair, The 13th IEEE International Conference on Internet of Things (iThings 2020)

• SIG on Signal Processing Techniques for Big Data and Wireless Edge Intelligence. Chair: Cong Shen, University of Virginia; Vice Chair: Jie Xu, University of Miami.

Mission: Provide a research and networking platform for researchers to collaborate, exchange ideas, and promote initiatives on Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces for Signal Processing and Communications

• Selected Topics:
  • Signal processing for RIS-empowered wireless networks
  • Radio resource allocation for RIS-empowered wireless networks
  • Fundamental performance limits of RIS-empowered wireless networks
  • Channel estimation for RIS-empowered wireless networks
  • RIS sensing, computing, and communication
  • Experimental results and testbed implementations of RIS
  • Software-defined design and implementation of RIS-empowered wireless networks
  • AI-inspired design of and management of RIS-empowered wireless networks
  • Indoor/outdoor localization in wireless networks using RIS
  • Distributed deployment and network planning of RIS-empowered wireless networks
  • Integration of RISs with state-of-the-art wireless technologies (e.g., small cells, Massive MIMO, millimeter-wave communications, THz communication, free space optics, Internet of Things, drones-aided communications, energy harvesting, physical layer security techniques, etc.)

Recent activities

• Published JSAC Special Issue: Wireless Networks Empowered by Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces
• Workshop @ Globecom 2020: December, 7th, 2020, with two keynotes (by Prof. Rui Zhang and Prof. Merouane Debbah) plus six technical paper presentations
• Workshop @ ICC 2021: Accepted
• Tutorials @ CCNC, WCNC, VTC Spring, ICASSP: Accepted
• Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces for Future Wireless Communications
• by A. Zappone, M. Di Renzo, S. Jin, M. Debbah
• TCCN Special Issue: Wireless Networks Empowered by Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces

Future activities

• Semi-annual workshop on RIS @ IEEE Globecom and IEEE ICC (following the model of the workshop @ Globecom 2020 and ICC 2021)
• Ogoing collaboration with the recently established IEEE ETI on RIS
• Active contribution to the IEEE Best readings on RIS
• Tutorial proposals submitted for presentation at other IEEE communication and signal processing conferences (e.g. ICC, Globecom, ISWCS, PIMRC, ICCC, etc.)
• Schools to be organized for Ph.D. students and researchers in general, to increase the awareness of RIS-based wireless networks in the signal processing and communications community.

• New SIG on Signal Processing Techniques for Next Generation Multiple Access (NGMA). Chair: Cong Shen, University of Virginia; Vice Chair: Jie Xu, University of Miami. Chair: Yuanwei Liu, Queen Mary University of London, UK; Vice Chair: Zhiguo Ding, The University of Manchester, UK; Vice Chair: Octavia A. Dobre, Memorial University, Canada.

Mission: Provide a research and networking platform for researchers to collaborate, exchange ideas, and promote initiatives on advanced signal processing on Next Generation Multiple Access (NGMA) in wireless networks.

• Selected Topics:
  • Fundamental limits and performance analysis of NGMA
  • Advanced channel coding and modulation for NGMA
  • NGMA for ultra-reliable low-latency communication (URLLC)
  •  Massive non-orthogonal multiple access schemes
  • Non-orthogonal random access schemes
  • Rate splitting multiple access schemes
  • Machine learning and big data aided NGMA
  • Multiple antenna-assisted NGMA
  •  Interplay between reconfigurable intelligent surfaces and NGMA
  • NGMA enabled mobile edge computing
  • Security provisioning for NGMA
  • Massive non-orthogonal multiple aerial access
  • Grant free and semi-grant free multiple access
  • NGMA for emerging technologies
  • Hardware implementation challenges of NGMA
• Journal special issues

Published

• IEEE JSAC Special Issue on Non-Orthogonal Multiple Access for 5G Systems, December 2017.
• The IEEE Wireless Communications Special Issue on “Non-Orthogonal Multiple Access for 5G”, 2018.
• IEEE JSTSP Special Issue on “Signal Processing Advances for Non-Orthogonal Multiple Access in Next Generation”, September 2018.
• IEEE Access Special Issue on “Advances in Signal Processing for Non-Orthogonal Multiple Access”, May 2019
• IEEE JSAC Special Issue on Massive Access for 5G and Beyond, January 2020.

Ongoing

• IEEE OJ-COMS Special Issue on NOMA for 5G and Beyond
• Future activities
• Tutorial proposals to be submitted for presentation at major IEEE communication and signal processing conferences (e.g. ICC, Globecom, WCNC, PIMRC, VTC, ICCC, etc.)
• Organize workshops related to next generation multiple access
• Special issues to be submitted to IEEE journals, e.g., IEEE JSAC on Next Generation Multiple Access (Under Review)
• SIG website to further promote initiatives and attract new collaborators.
• Call to the arms to participate and contribute to this SIG

8. ComSoc student competition

• SPCC Representative: Prof. Sinem Coleri Ergen, Koc University, Turkey

Goal is to recognize students who demonstrate the capacity to improve the lives of people through the application of communication technology. A team led by a Student Member or Graduate Student Member of IEEE Communications Society is eligible. A number of 49 applications were received.

In Phase I a ranking of applications is done based on evaluations considering five different aspects, namely social impact, technical content, originality, practical applicability, and quality of presentation. In Phase II voting of the best 2 projects among the top 8 projects. The results were as follows:

• First Prize:
  • Microfluidic Networks: the Future of Human Integrated Communication Systems 
    Hamidovic Medina, Johannes Kepler, University Linz Austria 
• Second Prize:
  • AirEmergCom: Airborne Emergency Communication System with Millimeter-Wave Beamforming 
    Zhu Lipeng, Beihang University China 
  • Recycling Radio Waves for the Wide Adoption of Precision Agriculture Vougioukas Georgios, Technical University of Crete Greece
• Honorary mention certificates to the remaining 11 projects selected for Phase II

9. SPCC IEEE Standard Activities

• SPCC Representative: Dr. George C. Alexandropoulos, University of Athens, Greece

3GPP

• Radio Access Networks (RAN): Next meeting information and previous meeting reports and documents are available here. List of Tdocs
• Services & Systems Aspects (SA): Next meeting information and previous meeting reports and documents are available here. List of Tdocs
• Core Network & Terminals (CT): Next meeting information and previous meeting reports and documents are available here. List of Tdocs
• 3GPP Keywords and Acronyms
• 3GPP Latest Release: Release 16
• ETSI 5G NR detailed description

IEEE Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality Working Group

• IEEE P2048.1™ – Device Taxonomy and Definitions and more…

IEEE DySPAN Standards Committee

• IEEE 1900.7 Working Group and more…

IEEE 802 Standard

• IEEE 802.11 Working Group and more…

IEEE 1906.1-2015 – Recommended practice for nanoscale and molecular communication framework

10. SPCC TC Newsletter

• Editor: Prof. Xiangwei Zhou.
• Goal: to share important information for the members of the committee; to have some brief contact approximately every six months; to become a useful communication tool; it will be brief and at the same time open for everybody to contribute.

The eighth issue, December 2020, available at: https://spce.committees.comsoc.org/files/2020/08/SPCC-Newsletter-Issue-8.pdf

11. New appointed officers

New SIG Coordinator: Prof. Fang Fang, University of Durham, UK

New Student Competition Representative: Prof. Rui Dinis, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal

12. Distinguished Lecture (DL) Program

The SPCC TC can nominate a maximum of 4 members. Recently selected members:

• Marco Di Renzo, CNRS – CentraleSupelec – Univ Paris-Sud, France
• George Karagiannidis, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece
• Octavia Dobre, Memorial University, Canada
• Arumugam Nallanathan, Queen Mary University, UK

13. SPCC Awards

SPCC gives the following two annual awards:

• SPCC Technical Recognition Award
• SPCC Outstanding Service Award
• SPCC Best Paper Award (new)
• SPCC Early Achievement Award (new)

The officers received the instructions not to share the awards results and postpone until the process is reviewed according to new P&Ps: voting and approval through email of the award selection committee for 2020 awards.

14. Discussions

Some ideas about how to make SPCC more successful during pandemic were discussed:

• Expanding the technical scope
• Member engagement
• New special interest group
• ComSoc Best Reading
• Virtual Tech talk/Distinguished Lectures
• Collaborations with other TCs

15. Other Business

Next SPCC meeting will be held during ICC 2021.

16. Adjourn –The meeting was adjourned at 10:25 AM EST. There were 76 people in attendance.

17. Attendance List