Prof. Nei Kato was invited by the Xian, Beijing, and Harbin ComSoc Chapters to conduct a ComSoc Distinguished Lecturer Tour in May 2015. The first lecture was held at Xidian University on 15 May, which was hosted by the Xian ComSoc Chapter. The lecture topic was “Device-to-Device (D2): Research Trends and Future Perspectives.” There were more than 40 attendees including faculty members and graduate students from Xidian University. The attendees were very interested in the lecture topic and they actively participated in the Q&A session, asking questions ranging from current research progress of D2D to future open problems. They also raised practical issues regarding the achiev-able performance and implementation details of the “Relay-by-Smartphone” D2D prototype.
Prof. Kato delivered his second lecture at Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications (BUPT) on 18 May 2015. It was hosted by the Beijing ComSoc Chapter. There were approximately 50 attendees, including university students, academic researchers, and public participants from ICT related Industries.Prof. Kato started the lecture with background information about D2D and why we need it. The technical presentation covered a range of interesting details about D2D and the recent research development in this field. Prof. Kato also showed a short video about interesting research conducted in his lab, where the stu-dents showed how to send a message up to 2.5 km without any infrastructure. There were many different insights and raised curiosities in the participants’ minds, which was then reflected during the Q & A session. The lecture was about an hour. Partici-pants were very interested in the topic and contents. After the lecture, Prof. Kato had additional discussions with the other professors at BUPT, and he visited the related labs.
After the lectures in Beijing, Prof. Kato traveled to Harbin to conduct his technical talk at Harbin Institute of Technology on 21 May 2015. The lecture was hosted by the Harbin ComSoc Chapter. Prof. Kato analyzed the background and significance of D2D,proposed that in the case of spectrum scarcity of resources, it is possible to increase the cellular communication system spectral efficiency and reduce terminal transmit power for D2D to a certain extent. He described the mechanism of DTN proposed byhis group. It was suitable for the case when irregular nodes moved in a large scale with faster velocity or nodes were sparse,which could solve the routing failure of MANET caused by nodes’changes and movements to some extent. He also demonstrated a D2D application in the emergency network using a MANET and DTN’s mixed strategy that was very effective. During the lecture,professors and students discussed the trends of D2D such as“the security issues of D2D,” “the shortest path problem of D2D”and “the validity period of DTN information,” among others. Prof.Kato also talked about the research activities on wireless net-works in Tohoku University, providing valuable information to the local professors and students. There were approximately 100 attendees at the lecture.
Prof. Kato also attended a seminar organized by Prof. Weixiao Meng’s group (Monday Seminar). Prof. Kato patiently provided guidance and directions to students in their research domain,and also had a discussion with the students and other professors, which lead to new ideas in their research work. The participants were impressed with Prof. Kato’s rigorous learning style and pleasant personality.