On Nov. 23, 2018, the IEEE Joint Communications Society/Vehicular Technology Society (ComSoc/VTS) Chapter in the Victoria Section celebrated the anniversary of the chapter by hosting the IEEE Communications and Vehicular Technology Night in Victoria BC, Canada. The chapter was co-founded by Lin Cai and David Gregson in November 2017, and Michael Hansen serves the chapter as its industry liaison. The event brought together approximately 60 participants from academia and industry at the University of Victoria.

The event featured an invited technical talk and a poster session with 10 poster/demos bringing academia and industry together with technical and social opportunities related to the chapter’s focus, communications and vehicular technologies, including IoT, 5G, clean and intelligent ground/air/water/space transportation, autonomous driving, AI, e-health, cyber-physical systems, information security and privacy, and smart cities.

Mr. Andy Eadie, Founder of EMC FastPass, gave an invited talk titled “EMC Compliance: Why 50% of Hardware Products Fail.” This speech outlined the Electro-magnetic Compatibility (EMC) problem with the how and why neglecting EMC issues can negatively affect both equipment and systems, leading to significant cost overruns and loss of market share. Mr. Eadie discussed why the regulations exist, what the main EMC tests were and processes that multinational organizations put into place to minimize the impact. From a design perspective, he discussed how to understand the mechanisms causing common issues and the solution options. The severity of EMC challenges in the vehicle industry were highlighted and discussed.

The best poster award was selected and presented to the poster entitled “Sleep Monitoring using Wireless Signals for Health Care.” During the poster session, participants had the chance to taste pizza, fruits and beverage while getting together for both technical and social discussions. The successful event, supported VIATEC (Victoria Innovation, Advanced Technology and Entrepreneurship Council), is a testimony to the vibrant technology environment in the Victoria area. The IEEE Joint ComSoc/VTS Chapter in the Victoria Section plans to host similar events regularly to tie industry and academia together into an evening of shared technical/professional engineering experiences.