Andy Drozd
EMC Society Senior Representative on the ITS Technical Council
New Year’s Day marked the birth of the IEEE’s newest entity dedicated to studying technical issues and solving sophisticated problems on a global scale associated with the Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) initiative. The Technical Activities Board (TAB) of the 320,000+ IEEE members voted to transform the TAB Ad Hoc Committee on ITS into a permanent entity, the new ITS Council, which officially began operations as of 1 January 1999.
The EMC Society is one of a number of other IEEE societies that joined the Ad Hoc Committee in 1997 and continued on during the committee’s recent transition to technical council status. To provide some background on what the ITS Council is all about and the EMC Society’s role, submitted for your approval below is an excerpt of a recently issued press release announcing the establishment of the IEEE ITS Council. This is followed by a brief overview of our participation in the ITS Council.
The ITS Council press release was sent to all IEEE transactions and newsletter editors, and to the editors of leading ITS-related publications such as Inside ITS, ITS World, The Intelligent Highway, ITS America News, ITS International, ICDN Newsletter, GPS World, Traffic Technology International, etc. The excerpt is as follows:
“The ITS Council joins the ranks of 37 other societies and councils within IEEE. The purpose of the Council is to advance and coordinate scientific, literary and educational work in the field of ITS throughout IEEE and the larger ITS community. The ITS Council’s field of interest includes the theoretical, experimental and operational aspects of electrical and electronics engineering and information technologies as applied to all intelligent transportation efforts.
Membership. Eighteen societies with interests in the field of ITS are already members of the ITS Council. That’s more than half the total number of IEEE Societies. The ITS Council’s founding members include the following:
Aerospace & Electronic Systems
Antennas & Propagation
Communications
Computer
Consumer Electronics
Control Systems
Electromagnetic Compatibility
Electron Devices
Industrial Electronics
Instrumentation & Measurement
Microwave Theory & Techniques
Power Electronics
Professional Communication
Reliability
Robotics & Automation
Signal Processing
Systems, Man & Cybernetics
Vehicular Technology
Each member society appoints two representatives to the Council. The society representatives bring a broad spectrum of backgrounds from large corporations, consulting firms, academia, and trade associations.
Conferences. The Council continues a series of IEEE ITS conferences that was launched with ITSC ‘97. Held November 1997 in Boston, the first conference drew close to 500 engineers from corporations and governments around the world. The focus of this and future ITSC conferences is on cutting-edge electronics technologies and their applications for ITS. Tokyo is the site of the next ITSC conference in October 1999. Plans for ITSC 2000 in Detroit are also well along.
The ITS Council will be governed by a president, vice president, secretary and treasurer elected annually by the society representatives. In the transitional year (1999), the officers are:
President: Dr. Umit Ozguner, Ohio State University
Vice President: Dr. Ichiro Masaki
Secretary: Ms. Emily Sopensky, The Iris Company
Treasurer: Dr. Richard Klafter, Temple University
Publications. The first issue of the ITS Council’s quarterly journal, IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems, is scheduled for March 2000. Dr. Chelsea C. White, III, Director of the ITS Research Center of Excellence at the University of Michigan, is slated to become Editor of the Transactions. White was the first chair of the predecessor IEEE ITS Ad Hoc Committee when it was organized in 1993. A call for papers will be posted at the Council’s website: www.ewh.ieee.org/tc/its.
An electronic newsletter for the TAB ITS Council is planned to start soon with Dr. Alberto Broggi (University of Pavia, Italy) as editor."
And now, a little about our involvement as a member society. First, there are two individuals who collectively represent the EMC Society and are able to vote on ITS matters brought before the council. These are J. L. Norman Violette and yours truly. In particular, our responsibilities and contributions are concerned with:
The EMC Society looks forward to a long and meaningful association with the ITS Council in the coming years. The council and its activities allow the EMC Society to play a major technical and policy role in virtually all ITS technologies and applications as they pertain to EMC on a broad, international scale. We hope to positively shape the overall direction of the council, and to help solve some challenging technical problems along the way.
I will periodically report on the progress of this activity to the membership.
If you have any questions or comments in the meantime, please contact me at (315) 337-4396 or via email at andro1@aol.com.
Contributor’s Note: Many thanks to Robert L. French, IEEE ITS Council Publicity Chair, for supplying much of the background material contained in this article.