The emergence of the professional society of ComSoc/SPS joint Chapter in the regional IEEE Section of Vizag Bay, India illustrates the growing interest of the IEEE members, engineers and professionals in the Chapter’s activities. The Chapter makes it possible to rejuvenate and establish a firm network of peers, technocrats and knowledge base of communication and signal processing in the region. Strongly standing on this foundation, the Chapter establishment has been taken up. For a deep insight, it is important to have the torch as bright as possible. In the analogy, the elites of the field of communications and signal processing have often taken the responsibility as torch bearers. In the line, the ComSoc/SPS Chapter has been inaugurated with an excellent participation which is a blend of academia and industry in the city of Visakhapatnam.
The inaugural ceremony was completed with all its grandeur through a virtual meeting via Cisco WebEx Meeting on 26 September 2020. The Chief Guest was Dr. K. V. S Hari, IEEE Fellow and Professor, India Institute of Science (IISc) Bangalore, India, and Vice President-Membership, IEEE Signal Processing Society. The ceremony was presided over by Dr. T. S. N. Murthy, Chair, ComSoc/SPS Joint Chapter, IEEE Vizag Bay Section, Dr. VVSSS Chakravarthy, Vice-Chair, ComSoc/SPS Joint Chapter, and Dr. Lakshmi Narayana Sadasivuni, Chair, IEEE Vizag Bay Section. The inaugural meeting was followed by a technical talk on “Sensing and Signal Processing for Autonomous Navigation” by Prof. K. V. S. Hari. The inaugural and technical session attracted an overwhelming participation of aproximately 180 IEEE members/non-IEEE members.
Dr. T. S. N. Murthy, Chair, welcomed all the members for the inaugural ceremony of the ComSoc/SPS Joint Chapter. He briefed the agenda of the meeting, welcomed the inaugural chief guest, Prof. K. V. S. Hari.
Dr. VVSSS Chakravarthy, Vice-Chair, introduced the chief guest with his brief bio-data. Dr. T. S. N. Murthy, Chair, invited Prof. K. V. S. Hari garu to inaugurate the Joint Chapter by lunching an inaugural video (https://youtu.be/5cu4RkJ7K2c).
Dr. S. Lakshminarayana, Chair, IEEE Vizag Section, congratulated all the members of the ComSoc/SPS Joint Chapter. He also briefed about the association of Prof. K. V. S. Hari with the IEEE Vizag Bay Section.
After the inauguration, Prof. K. V. S. Hari initiated deliberations with a technical talk on “Sensing and Signal Processing for Autonomous Navigation.” During the talk, he mentioned that the emergence of autonomous navigation systems has spurred many innovations in the design of sensing, computing, communication and control systems. In his talk, he presented two case studies of designing and developing autonomous navigation platforms using machine-learning tools. First, he decribed a system design used in large vehicles for collision avoidance based on using cameras and deep neural networks. Second, he decribed the design of a sensing platform using LIDAR, cameras to collect data related to road traffic in India. After his technical talk he also briefed about the Signal Processing Society and the benefits of SPS membership. After completion of the talk, Prof. K. V. S. Hari answered all the questions raised by the audience. The official meeting was concluded at 7pm with the vote of thanks delivered by Dr. N. Udaya Kumar, Secretary, ComSoc/SPS Joint Chapter.