Guest Editorial
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| Title | Guest Editorial |
| Authors | |
| Abstract | Wireless communications has penetrated many aspects of our day-to-day life. Often invisible, like a deus ex machine, taken for granted. We even have a word for it – wireless communications is ambient. This view on wireless communications has an association of being amazed, some people call it a WOW!-factor. But the other side of the medal is that we expect that the ‘magic’ is always there, like water, electricity. Apart from the fact that with the current debate about natural resources, this comparison is getting somewhat uneasy, we clearly notice that many of us got clearly addicted, and as a result, ‘we’ claim “always on, everywhere”. This level of availability, preferably in a durable way, has not been realised. And new mottos pop up – “any device, any network”: as a user, we really don’t want to be bothered. Hide it, behind the wall-paper, woven in our clothes, as long as we’re not bothered! This type of requirement poses serious challenges to technology; this is not just ‘changing some bits and pieces’.The European Microwave Week, including the European Wireless Technology (EuWiT) Conference, has every year a kaleidoscopic set of workshops, regular as well as focused sessions, and invited papers, showing the richness of the field. In 2008, the theme was “Bridging Gaps”. Gaps that exist between state-of-the-art technology, and challenging requirements posed in an ever increasing number of application areas. Gaps between scientific rigour, and the pragmatic reality. During this week, these gaps get ‘faces’ – real people working at both sides, and taking pains to bridge the various gaps. This network of people is, to our opinion, one of the most valuable aspects of this conference.This year, Journal of Communications (JCM) has offered EuWiT the opportunity to publish a selected number of its accepted papers, and we have accepted this opportunity gratefully. The title of this special issue is: Advanced Wireless Technology. The two regular papers immediately show the width of the field, and of the conference.The contribution of MacCurdy et al. is on the border of life sciences (ornithology) and electrical engineering, when they present a new method for tracking animals using a terrestrial system similar to GPS. The challenges in this field are clearly weight of the device, its cost, and its performance in extremely crowded and diverse conditions. Taking away the specific application, the results of MacCurdy may be applied also in other fields, where tracking is a key aspect, and where similar challenges exist: logistics, crowd-control, food-chain-control, ….The paper by Karamehmedović et al. on the other hand addresses the topic of modulation techniques for future wireless systems. Currently the similarity between next generation wireless systems (e.g. 802.11n, mobile WiMax, LTE) lies in the use of OFDM and MIMO. The authors address the weaknesses of OFDM, and discuss the use of wavelet-based modulation, a technique that might be a candidate for the fifth generation wireless systems. Specific attention is paid to the performance of wavelet-based transceivers in the presence of analogue radio frequency front-end imperfections.The invited (overview) paper is from Miyake. Dr Miyake reviews the progress in wireless communications, and the way innovations in various technological fields are brought together into candidates for standardisation. A particular observation is that quite some industry fora and standardisation bodies create application area-specific work groups, like health, or industry. Another issue addressed in his paper is the essential role of wireless communications in the networked knowledge society in the 21st century, the point which nicely supports the idea of this Special Issue. Enjoy the reading! |
| Publisher | ACADEMY PUBLISHER |
| Date | 2009-08-01 |
| Source | Journal of Communications Vol 4, No 7 (2009): Special Issue: Advanced Wireless Technology |
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