Welcome to Paris, La Ville Lumière – the City of Light – where the spotlight will fall on the RF and microwave industry when the Palais des Congrès de Paris stages the 18th European Microwave Week from 6 to 11 September 2015. During the week the focus will be on the three conferences: the 45th European Microwave Conference (EuMC), the 10th European Microwave Integrated Circuits Conference (EuMIC) and the 12th European Radar Conference (EuRAD), together with the European Microwave Exhibition and affiliated workshops and short courses.
The motto for 2015 is “Freedom through Microwaves,” which addresses the concept of modern living, where microwave technologies are opening up new frontiers that will govern how individuals and objects communicate, sense and move. In particular, there is major interest in the development and evolution of the “connected humans” concept, where there is potential for the microwave community to play a significant role as we look towards Horizon 2020.
Technologically, connecting humans may be relatively new but European Microwave Week has been doing so on a personal level for many years, priding itself on building relationships between academia and industry, the young and the more experienced and across continents. Such interaction is epitomized by the Welcome Reception on Tuesday evening, which provides networking opportunities and a convivial atmosphere that actively encourages delegates and industry to interact and socialize.
On Wednesday evening socializing will move from the Palais des Congrès to the River Seine for a cruise, including a cocktail reception on board a charming Paris Bâteaux Mouches, which will tour the Paris landmarks after dark. Mixing business and pleasure can be enjoyed throughout the week through the strong calendar of social events.
Not content with just land and water, EuMW 2015 will also offer the opportunity for attendees to discover space, as it is a major focus for the event and the subject of key presentations. For example, the opening session on Tuesday morning will feature two keynote lectures when Bruno Le Stradic from Airbus DS Space Systems will consider: “Space Antennas on Satellites, for Telecommunications and Earth Observation Missions: Past Evolutions and Future Trends.” He will be followed by Laurent Phalippou from Thales Alenia Space (TAS) who will present: “30 Years of Innovation in TAS Radar Altimetry Product Line for Earth Climate Monitoring.”
During the EuMW closing session, Clément Dudal and Céline Loisel from the French Space Agency (CNES) will consider the ESA/CNES/DLR Rosetta mission, which successfully reached the 67P Churyumov-Gerasimenko comet after a 10 year journey. They will offer an insight into the embedded RF electronics, which led to the success of the mission.
Not forgetting the Defence, Security and Space Forum, which will take place on Wednesday, 9 September, and feature executives from industry, academia, the military and space agencies. This year the focus will be on the design and deployment of RF systems for unmanned aerial vehicles. More information on the Forum can be found on page 90.
Paris is renowned for glamour, so it is appropriate that the well-established Women in Engineering event, co-sponsored by the IEEE MTT-Society, will include a panel session focused on exploiting microwaves in the area of fashion (fashionable and wearable technology), arts and gastronomy that will end with a guided tour of a fashion workshop.
The catwalk where the latest RF and microwave trends and innovations can be found will be at the European Microwave Exhibition. The show floor offers a platform for companies from Europe and across the globe to demonstrate the developments they are making and the products they are producing that will enable engineers to design, develop and fulfill their goals. The exhibition spans the middle of the week from 8 to 10 September, with 265 exhibiting companies taking up 9460 square metres of gross space on Level 1 of the Palais des Congrès.
The exhibition will also be the home of the conference poster sessions and coffee breaks, feature the Publisher’s Corner and the ever popular Cyber Café, as well as being the location for the European Microwave Week Microwave Application Seminars (MicroApps). MicroApps will take place in the MicroApps Auditorium on the show floor the entire three days of the exhibition, offering a platform for education and discussion.
Maintaining EuMW’s commitment to education and the development of young engineers, two student competitions will take place during the week. The Student Challenge, sponsored by Thales Nederland B.V., is a competitive event where teams of bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral students are invited to propose an appealing topic or idea in the wide and challenging field of microwaves, inspired by papers presented at EuMW. The Student Design Competition involves master’s and doctoral students designing and measuring a piece of equipment developed during the conference. It is sponsored by Cobham Aerospace Communications, with measurement facilities provided by Keysight Technologies.
Ivar Bazzy President, Horizon House Publications
Hervé Aubert General Chairman, EuMW 2015
The Career Platform continues, with the aim of fostering the dynamic between young researchers, engineers and the job market within the field of microwaves. A dedicated area will be reserved for sharing and exchange, and new special sessions will be held on industrial market analysis, career development and recruitment strategies. EuMW 2015 will also launch a unique e-platform initiative with the ambition of offering the RF and microwave community a job portal on a European scale.
Putting together such a major event is never easy, but the 2015 EuMW team faced the added complication of finding a suitable alternative venue at the eleventh hour and had to bring the schedules forward to accommodate an early September time slot. Bringing this to fruition, from paper submission and review to the on-site organization at the venue, has been a major undertaking. So, on behalf of the local organizing committee, we would like to thank the technical programme committees of the three conferences, along with the reviewers who worked tirelessly to shape the conference programmes. We would like to acknowledge the EuMA board for its continued advice and guidance and thank the Horizon House personnel assigned to EuMW for their indispensable expertise and support in organizing this major event. Recognition should also go to the organizers of workshops, special sessions and student events and we also acknowledge the significant financial and in-kind sponsorship of many industrial companies and organizations.
We hope and expect La Ville Lumière to be illuminating on all levels and we look forward to seeing you in Paris.