Professor Nei Kato
Tohoku University, Japan

Title: Relay-by-Smartphone: A Dual Mode Ad hoc Network System for Disaster-affected Areas

Abstract: Through the valuable lessons learnt during the “Great East Japan Earthquake”, the significance of facilitating communications swiftly and effectively in disaster-stricken areas has been reaffirmed. Given that the natural disasters such as earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, bushfire, and so on may occur anywhere at any time, readiness for various emergencies in the sense of quick deployment of communications with user-friendly interfaces is of paramount importance. Since the last year, Japanese government launched a number of projects aiming at deploying advanced ICT technologies into disaster areas. Prof. Kato has been serving as the PI of one of these projects called “Movable and Deployable Resource Units (MDRUs)” in collaboration with three giant communication facilitators in Japan, namely NTT, NTT Communications, and Fujitsu. After the first R&D year, we have successfully developed the first-ever prototype and tested it in the field. The most important features of our newly developed system are as follows. First, the temporary communication units are implemented in such a size that they can be easily transported by truck. Second, the users do not need any communication devices in addition to the smartphones which they already have for daily use. In my presentation, the prototype system and its specifications, particularly the implementation and the field test of the dual mode (MANET and DTN) network system, which we refer to as the “Relay-by-Smartphone”, will be introduced along with the discussion of future prospects.

Biography

    Nei Kato(A’03–M’04–SM’05-F’13) received his Bachelor Degree from Polytechnic University, Japan in 1986, M.S. and Ph.D. Degrees in information engineering from Tohoku University, Japan, in 1988 and 1991, respectively. He joined Computer Center of Tohoku University at 1991, and has been a full professor with the Graduate School of Information Sciences since 2003. He became Strategic adviser to the President of Tohoku University since 2013. He has been engaged in research on satellite communications, computer networking, wireless mobile communications, smart grid, image processing, and pattern recognition. He has published more than 300 papers in peer-reviewed journals and conference proceedings.
    He will serve as elected Member-at-Large(2014-2017) on the Board of Governors, IEEE Communications Society. He currently serves as the Vice Chair of IEEE Ad Hoc & Sensor Networks Technical Committee, the Chair of IEEE ComSoc Sendai Chapter, the steering committee member of WCNC and a voting member of GITC, an editor of IEEE Wireless Communications(2006-), IEEE Wireless Communications(2006-), IEEE Network Magazine(2012-), IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications(2008-), IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology(2010-), and IEEE Trans. on Parallel and Distributed Systems(TPDS, 2011-). From 2013, he also serves as an Associate Editor-in-Chief of TPDS and IEEE Internet of Things Journal. He has served as the Chair of IEEE Satellite and Space Communications Technical Committee(2010-2012), the Chair of IEICE Satellite Communications Technical Committee(2011-2012),  guest-editor of many IEEE transactions/journals/magazines, a symposium co-chair of GLOBECOM’07, ICC’10, ICC’11, ICC’12, Vice Chair of IEEE WCNC’10, WCNC’11, ChinaCom’08, ChinaCom’09, Symposia co-chair of GLOBECOM’12, TPC Vice chair of ICC’14, and workshop co-chair of VTC2010. His awards include Minoru Ishida Foundation Research Encouragement Prize(2003), Distinguished Contributions to Satellite Communications Award from the IEEE Communications Society, Satellite and Space Communications Technical Committee(2005), the FUNAI information Science Award(2007), the TELCOM System Technology Award from Foundation for Electrical Communications Diffusion(2008), the IEICE Network System Research Award(2009), the IEICE Satellite Communications Research Award(2011), the KDDI Foundation Excellent Research Award(2012), IEICE Communications Society Distinguished Service Award(2012), IEEE GLOBECOM/WCNC/VTC Best Paper Awards, and IEICE Communications Society Best Paper Award(2012). Besides his academic activities, he also serves on the expert committee of Telecommunications Council, Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, and as the chairperson of ITU-R SG4 and SG7, Japan. Nei Kato is a Distinguished Lecturer of IEEE Communications Society(2012-2014) and the co-PI of A3 Foresight Program(2011-2014) funded by Japan Society for the Promotion of Sciences(JSPS), NSFC of China, and NRF of Korea. He is a fellow of IEEE and IEICE.