The fifth biennial IEEE International Conference on Microwaves, Communications, Antennas, and Electronic Systems (IEEE COMCAS 2015) took place at the David Intercontinental Hotel in Tel-Aviv on the 2–4 November 2015. The first two days of the conference included the plenary session together with six regular parallel sessions and poster sessions, while the third day was reserved for tutorial and workshop tracks in three parallel sessions.
IEEE COMCAS is organized as a multidisciplinary international conference where scientists, engineers, and students can meet and discuss their common interests. In addition, it holds an exhibition with more than 100 booths that is attended by top internationally recognized scientists and engineers active in fields such as communication, antennas, microwave, and systems engineering. Colleagues who are developing the products and systems of tomorrow particularly find the exhibition helpful to their projects and careers.
This conference is sponsored by the IEEE Communications Society, the IEEE Microwave Theory and Techniques Society, and the IEEE Israel AP/MTT joint chapter. It is technically co-sponsored by additional chapters, societies, and professional organizations including the IEEE’s AES (Aerospace and Electronic Systems) and APS (Antennas and Propagation); the Association of Engineers and Architects in Israel; the European Microwave Association (EuMA); and the GAAS (GaAs and other Compounds Association).
This year the organizers significantly increased the number of tutorials and industry-oriented invited sessions, making this conference more relevant than ever before. The emphasis continues to be on applications-oriented research and development, from antennas and devices to systems and software, including GaN technology and applications, biomedical systems and applications, phased array radars, SDR and 5G cellular mobile. The event had strong industry patronage and participation, and the final program comprised 150 technical presentations, talks and tutorials, arranged in 45 sessions over three days with up to six parallel sessions running concurrently for much of the time.
Some of the presented topics at IEEE COMCAS 2015 were: green communication, radar and microwave technologies, device modeling, antennas, networking technologies, defense and UAS applications, communication measurements, implementations and resource allocation, sensors and advanced frequency synthesizers.
The conference also featured a special Women in Engineering session on ‘Diversity in High-Tech – What’s Working and Why?,’ presented by Prof. Orit Hazzan from the Technion, that illustrated how the creation of a culture that enhances diversity benefits the entire STEM community. This invited speaker presentation asserted that it is in the interest of the high-tech world, rather than in the interest of any specific underrepresented group in the community, to enhance diversity in general, and gender diversity in particular.
Hosting such conferences in various locations around the world is an excellent way to encourage IEEE members and societies and the technical community at large to participate. This helps improve recognition and generate growth for the IEEE Communications Society, the IEEE Microwave Theory and Techniques Society, and their Sister Societies. The fifth IEEE COMCAS conference was highly successful, with more than 1500 participants from 38 countries who expressed their very positive feedback and comments.
COMCAS continues to be very successful and will likely be well attended in the future by many technologists who lead innovation and have an impact on the microwave, communications, antenna, solid-state circuits, and electronic systems fields.