10th Congress of the Portuguese Committee of URSI ''Communications in safety and emergency scenarios''

The 10th Congress of the Portuguese Committee of URSI has taken place in Lisbon, chaired by Luisa Mendes, ANACOM's Director of Spectrum Management. Held on 18 November 2016 at the Microsoft auditorium in Parque das Nações, the Congress focused on the topic of "Communications in safety and emergency scenarios".

The working session opened with presentations by Fátima Barros, Chair of ANACOM's Board of Directors, by Paula Panarra, General Director of Microsoft Portugal and Jorge Gomes, Secretary of State of Internal Administration.

In her opening remarks, Fátima Barros marked the Congress as a historic milestone, noting that a decade had passed since the Portuguese Committee of URSI organised its first Congress. Fátima Barros recognised the accomplishments of the Portuguese Committee of URSI in its work, undertaken with diligence and in a consolidated and consistent manner. This work has made the Congress of the Portuguese Committee of URSI an increasingly important fixture in academia and industry, as one of Portugal’s most prominent and highly attended events in this scientific area.

The day was marked by a series of interesting panels which clearly highlighted the importance of flexibility in communication resources and reliability in the use of communications networks as particularly important factors when implementing emergency and security management solutions to address natural disasters and other incidents.

The management of these communication resources must be performed horizontally at a public and private level (security and civil protection services, emergency medical, environmental protection, food security, law enforcement agencies, etc.), and also at a geographical and vertical level (local, national and international).

To address these concerns, the sessions of the conference were organised into panels focusing on specific themes.

To start with, a panel moderated by Anabela Campos, a journalist from Portugal's Expresso newspaper, with participation by representatives of the Portuguese Navy, Public Security Police and NAV Portugal, focused on security systems in Earth, Air and Sea.

Alexandra Machado, from Portugal's Jornal de Negócios, moderated a panel on Emergency Communications systems, in light of the applications and practical experience of the institutions involved, specifically Instituto Nacional de Emergência Médica (National Institute of Emergency Medicine), BRISA, Infraestruturas de Portugal, EDP Energias de Portugal, Laboratório Regional de Engenharia Civil da Madeira (Regional Civil Engineering Laboratory of Madeira) and Motorola Solutions.

At the round table, moderated by Manuel Pedrosa de Barros, ANACOM Director of Communications Security, a critical analysis was made focusing on existing networks in Portugal and on the envisaged future needs of users and technological developments, so that safeguards can be ensured in security and emergency situations. To discuss this subject, the Congress heard from representatives from Azores and Madeira Civil Protection, from SIRESP, the General Secretariat of the Ministry of Internal Administration and from ANACOM.

At a parallel academic session, moderated by António Topa of Instituo de Telecomunicações (Telecommunications Institute), presentations were made of the works submitted as entries to the Best Student Paper Award from among the themed areas of the Scientific Committees of the Portuguese Committee of URSI.

The Congress also featured two guest speakers, João Romana, of Associação Portuguesa da Indústria Aeroespacial (Portuguese Aerospace Industry Association), whose presentation focused on the "Importance of Space and Communications Satellites in critical scenarios and when all else fails on the Earth's surface" and Bruno Soares, of "Governance Advisors, as-a-Service", who addressed the topic of "Secure and enable digital transformation - risk and value considerations in the 3rd platform".

José Perdigoto, Member of the ANACOM's Board of Directors, presented the ANACOM-URSI Portugal Prize and the Best Student Paper Award which aim, respectively, to stimulate creativity and rigour in scientific research work in Portugal and encourage young authors.

The winner of the 2016 ANACOM-URSI Portugal Prize was announced as Ricardo Correia, of the Department of Electronics, Telecommunications and Informatics of the University of Aveiro, for his work "Quadrature Amplitude Modulation Backscatter for Passive Wireless Sensors".

The paper proposes the introduction of a wireless passive sensor which that does not require the use of batteries. To this end, use is made of a sensor that uses one frequency for transferring data (obtained by the sensor) and one frequency for receiving energy from transmitters. In order to increase the transmission rate and the data transmission range, implementation of a new modulator is proposed, capable of increasing the order of modulation and thereby significantly increasing the data transmission rate with low energy consumption. Through this work, it is possible to implement wireless passive sensors with a very high data transfer rate, without a need for batteries.

The winner of the 2016 Best Student Paper Award was announced as Miguel Monteiro, a graduate student at Instituto Superior Técnico (Higher Technical Institute) for the work "Load Balancing on Auto-optimized 4th Generation Networks (LTE)".

2nd place was awarded to Marta Veríssimo, Master's student at the Instituto Superior Técnico, for the work "Capacity Assessment on Multi-Service UMTS/HSPA Networks Based on Real Performance Statistics" and 3rd place to Andreia Costa Master's student at the University of Aveiro for the work "Antenna Array to Increase the Communication Range of UAV".

To close proceedings, José Perdigoto, Member of ANACOM's Board of Directors, took the opportunity to inform the Congress that the 32nd General Assembly and Scientific Symposium of URSI will be held from 18 to 26 August 2017, at the Palais des Congrès in Montreal (Canada) - the corresponding call for papers and the submission of entries to the GASS Student Paper Competition close on 30 January 2017,

Finally, on behalf of ANACOM and the Portuguese Committee of URSI, José Perdigoto thanked the scientific community, universities and polytechnics, research centres, and all national, public and private institutions with activities of relevance to scientific research applied to telecommunications and especially radiocommunications for their presence at this 10th Congress of the Portuguese Committee of URSI; in particular, he thanked all those who, year after year over the last decade, have actively followed and participated in this forum, which is acknowledged as an important catalyst of expectations, ideas and opinions.

This congress, once again, accomplished its goals in terms of the promotion and dissemination of research carried in Portugal and in terms of strengthening ties of cooperation between academia, research, investors and the communications sector.