After a span of three years, D.J. Sanghvi’ s Department of Electronics and Telecommunication Engineering organized the International Conference on Wireless Communication (ICWiCOM) which was conducted from 19th to 20th January 2018. The purpose of this international conference is to encourage the growth of research activities among Professors as well as students in various areas of the wireless communication engineering field. Over 100 research papers were submitted for the conference. The Turnitin plagiarism software was used for each submitted paper. After a rigorous selection process where each paper was reviewed by 2 reviewers, 45 of them made it to the final round out of which 35 of the papers were presented at ICWiCOM. The selected papers will be available for access at Springer Digital Library, a reputed online publishing website.
The conference inauguration was held at BJ Hall with Dr. Surendra Pal, Vice Chancellor, DIAT Pune as the chief guest and Dr. Girish Kumar, Professor, IIT Bombay as the guest of honor. Mr. Bharat Shri Sanghvi, Vice President, SVKM, Dr. Hari Vasudevan, Principal, DJ Sanghvi College of Engineering and Dr. Amit Deshmukh, HOD of EXTC Department, DJ Sanghvi College of Engineering were also present to grace the inauguration. After the lamp lighting ceremony, the chief guest and guest of honor were introduced to the audience.
The first keynote address was delivered by Dr. Surendra Pal. He started off by stating the importance and scope of the wireless communication field. According to him, the wireless communication field has a lot more to offer in the future since this field can lead to establishing new industries and facilitating further innovations and research opportunities. After sharing his insights on the wireless communication field, he proceeded to his keynote topic, ‘Antenna Systems for Space Applications’ where he explained about antenna design and their properties like polarization, power handling capacity, multiplexing, size and bandwidth. Topics like null filling antennas, multiple beam antennas, C band micro strip array for SAR, beam steering antennas and antennas for space and onboard applications were covered by him during his keynote. Apart from speaking on these topics, he also shared interesting facts regarding the reason that inspired the study of antennas. Lastly, he advised the audience to think outside the box in order to become an RF engineer.
Dr. Girish Kumar was the second keynote speaker for ICWiCOM. Before proceeding to his keynote topic, he urged the students among the audience to not only focus on the theoretical part of telecommunication engineering but also give importance to the design and development part. For the keynote address, he made a presentation on ‘RF Radiation Hazards and Solutions’ where detailed explanation was given on topics like RF sources, radiation pattern of antenna, EMF exposure safety norms, biological effects and RF radiation solutions. Apart from sharing technical knowledge, he also discussed a case study about the hazardous effects of mobile towers near Usha Kiran building at Worli which resulted in 4 residents developing cancer due to over exposure of radiation from the mobile towers.
After the conclusion of both the keynote addresses, plenary-1 was conducted in the college’s conference room by Dr. Kaustubh Phanse, VP, Mojo Networks. He spoke on ‘Massively Scalable Cognitive Wi-Fi’ which helped the audience gain insights about the evolution of Wi-Fi technology, enterprise Wi-Fi architecture evolution, cloud architecture, behavioral analysis engine and introduced trending topics like smart Wi-Fi campus. Before concluding his talk, Dr. Kaustubh quoted that the journey of Wi-Fi is just beginning and encouraged the audience to think and explore new and smart ideas to use Wi-Fi.
The inaugural day of the conference concluded with the first session where researchers and professors presented their papers on networking.
ICWiCOM’s second day began with plenary-2 which was held in the conference room of the college. Mr. Yateesh Shetty, Global Head of Cloud Marketing, Tata Communication and also an alumnus of DJ Sanghvi College of Engineering was the speaker for the plenary. Before he began his presentation on ‘Borderless Growth through IoT platforms’, he requested the audience to give examples about the unique applications of IoT. A video about how Tata Communication enables businesses to connect globally was shown for the viewers to understand how IoT will play a major role in our lives in the near future. Innovative concepts like cloud application connectivity, programmable SIM cards, fleet management and automotive telematics were described at the plenary. Global IoT applications like smart waste management in Singapore and connected bike sharing in Seoul were elaborated. Mr. Shetty ended his presentation with the following quote: “Technology is what technology does”.
After plenary-2, two parallel sessions on antenna design and embedded communication were conducted where research papers on different topics of these areas were presented by the delegates.
Dr. S.P. Duttagupta, Professor, IIT Bombay was the main speaker for plenary-3 where he spoke about ‘Tera Hertz Systems and Technologies’ which is a niche topic in the wireless communication field. This technical plenary helped the audience gain vast amount of knowledge regarding radiation monitoring networks, FFSN system prototypes, powered mobile platforms, hybrid powered airborne applications, WPT in airborne platforms, bio cell and APD parameters. The audience found Dr. Duttagupta’s presentation to be very informative as he covered a lot of niche technical topics.
The final session was held after the plenary where five papers on different areas of antenna design were presented by researchers and students.
Later in the evening, the valedictory function of ICWiCOM was held at the conference hall and was graced by Mr. Girish Dandige, Program Director, TCS. Before Mr. Dandige’s speech, the HOD of the EXTC department, Dr. Amit Deshmukh gave a brief report on the proceedings of the conference and thanked the Principal, Professors and the student committee for their contribution and support. Mr. Girish Dandige spoke about the existence of wireless communication even before the advancement of technology. In addition to that, his talk also contained a number of relevant and interesting sanskrit verses.
ICWiCOM was a huge success this year as it provided a great platform for researchers and students in the wireless communication field to present their research papers. The delegates of the conference had a great learning experience as they got an opportunity to gain knowledge shared by some of the best minds in the wireless communication field.
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