It is a pleasure to announce that 2023 IEEE Conference on Antenna Measurements and Applications will host the following Special Sessions. The Technical Program Committee expresses its gratitude to all the Organizers. Contributors will find information about the submission process in this page.

SPS01 – New material applications and related characterization techniques (organizers: Razvan Tamas, Ala Sharaiha)

This special session focuses on, but not limited to: microwave and millimeter wave material characterization, new material applications and related measurement techniques, metamaterial characterization.

SPS02 – Research in the fields of radar, telecommunications and electronic warfare (organizers: Philippe Pouliguen, Alessio Balleri)

The main topics that could be covered are related to:
– Augmented measurement for RCS and antenna evaluations
– Innovative Radar to detect small targets and electronics in complex medium
– Antenna and RCS metrology in reverberation environment,
– Innovative approaches to compute EM behavior of complex materials and metamaterials

SPS03 – Innovative materials and manufacturing technologies (organizers: Karu Esselle, Cristina Ponti)

Research on innovative materials for antennas is driven by low-cost and fast-prototyping fabrication and implementation of customized design. New materials are being explored and tested to be employed as antenna substrates in planar technologies addressing, for example, flexibility or conformity applications, or as antenna superstrates designed for high-gain and beam shaping. Complex layouts, which may be difficult to fabricate with conventional techniques, can be easily realized through additive manufacturing with 3D printing, which has demonstrated its great potential in a wide range of antenna components, such as all-dielectric lenses, electromagnetic-band gap (EBG) materials, metamaterials, and reflectarrays. Moreover, advancements in metal-only printing technologies and metal-plating techniques have been opening to significant possibilities also in the fabrication of conductive parts of antennas and high-impedance surfaces.

SPS04 – New frontiers and challenges in radar technology: from GPR surveys to monitoring applications (organizers: Raffaele Persico, Ilaria Catapano)

The session aims at overviewing recent advancements in frame of radar technologies ranging from hardware solutions to data processing and any theoretical aspects including innovative use cases and valuable applicative examples. Accordingly, contributes dealing with MiMo radar systems, radar mounted onboard unmanned vehicles, unconventional usage of radar systems, innovative technological solutions as well as advancements in terms of data processing strategies are welcome. Contributes concerning the usage of radar technology as a tool for facing open challenges in terms of soil, river and sea monitoring are also relevant as well as those reporting significant examples of radar surveys in real contexts.

SPS05 – Advanced techniques and emerging applications in the synthesis of focused and shaped fields (organizers: Santi Concetto Pavone, Loreto Di Donato, Gino Sorbello)

The proposed convened session should be intended as a forum for researchers at IEEE CAMA 2023 to share new findings on general techniques for generating focused and, more in general, “shaped” electromagnetic fields, for antenna applications in the Fraunhofer and in Fresnel regions, by considering also unconventional techniques/materials for wave-front manipulation. Moreover, ad hoc developed analytical techniques and optimization algorithms for the synthesis of focused and shaped fields are of interest for the session, since often the computational effort required to optimize focusing systems cannot be neglected and needs to be minimized as much as possible.

SPS06 – Challenges in measurement, calibration and processing procedures for electromagnetic imaging (organizers: Rosa Scapaticci, Martina Teresa Bevacqua, Jorge Alberto Tobon Vasquez)

This session aims to highlight innovative solutions for the open challenges in different electromagnetic imaging applications. In particular, contributions about novel measurement strategies, calibration procedures, and processing algorithms are welcome. Several research groups are developing devices and techniques to apply electromagnetic imaging to real-world problems, dealing with the signal’s noise and instability, the inherent ill-posedness and non-linearity of inverse problems, and the dissimilarity between measurement and numerical systems. This session will be the opportunity to share the selected approaches and the ongoing research while discussing the limitations and the open subjects.

SPS07 – Microwave non destructive methods of characterization (organizer: Geneviève Mazé-Merceur)

The papers presented in this session will address the topic of non destructive characterization in the microwave range. The techniques allowing the extraction of the parameters of interest (permittivity and/or permeability of materials) will be described. Different applications will be addressed: medical, agri-food and civil-engineering applications, and in-process control.

SPS08 – Advances in mathematical modeling of inverse scattering (organizer: Claudio Estatico)

Inverse scattering is a wide research field, where physical properties of an object are recovered from the measurements of how it scatters under the illumination of given incident waves. Theoretical modeling of inverse scattering involves the solution of multidimensional integro-differential equations, generally nonlinear and ill-posed.
Aim of the special section is to discuss about recent developments in the mathematical and physical modeling of general scattering phenomena, also involving regularization and spectral transformations in non-standard functional spaces as well as specific characterizations and enhancements of general-purpose numerical methods.

SPS09 – Active arrays and reconfigurable arrays for wide-angle and directive beamsteering (organizer: Cyrille Menudier)

The objective of this session is to focus on recent advances on active phased arrays and reconfigurable arrays for directive and wide-angle beamsteering applications (5G, 6G, SatCom, Radar, UAVs, …).
One goal of the session is to invite specialists of active arrays modeling and design to present challenges and solutions to take into account non linearities of active channels for beamsteering, in order to estimate accurately the efficiency of such architectures.
A second part of the session is devoted to alternative concepts without distributed amplifications, in order to give to the attendees a vision of the recent works on wide-angle and directive beamsteering solutions.
Combining these concepts into a same session is a way to emphasize the complementarity of all these architectures depending on the application.

SPS10 – Antenna design and measurement (organizers: Debatosh Guha, Andrea Michel)

This session aims to present progress in the theory and practice of antenna design, measurements and their deployment in wireless systems. It covers novel antenna designs and their analysis, small antennas, antenna and propagation measurement techniques, active antennas, and matching techniques, as well as structures that enable improved antenna designs, including metamaterial-based surfaces and substrates.

SPS11 – Microwave-based imaging and diagnostic for medical applications: beyond proofs of concepts, addressing the real-world needs (organizers: Jean-Charles Bolomey, Christian Pichot)

After a few decades of proofs-of-concept mainly supported by numerical simulations and in-lab experiments on phantoms, microwave-based imaging and diagnosis for medical applications have undoubtedly entered a new era. Indeed, technology transfer to spin-off companies has allowed the development of operational systems that have been gradually involved in clinical trials whose results satisfactorily confirm ability to operate in realistic environments with some accuracy. However, beyond such an early basic validation of microwave systems, it remains to demonstrate their specific advantages, if any, over other existing modalities, in terms not only of clinical efficacy and health outcomes for patients but also global cost-effectiveness. After careful identification of application niches, for their confirmed accessibility to microwaves, and taking into account, so as not to repeat them, the many mistakes that may have been made in the past, it is a specific development strategy that must be put in place aiming at a global optimization of the microwave system performance in a highly competitive environment with other existing modalities that already benefit from a routine clinical practice for many years and are continuously being improved upon. Nevertheless, beyond their recognized specific sensitivity to dielectric properties of biological tissues, worth noting that microwaves can also offer most of the identified key growth drivers over the next ten years in most medical imaging market surveys. Just to name a few: patient and operator safety, low investment and maintenance costs, low power consumption, miniaturization and portability, low personnel training requirements… In other words, microwaves should be able to find their place somewhere in the medical radiology landscape, a profitable market that is far from being saturated, if considering that 2/3 of the world’s population has little or no access to radiology services, especially in middle- and low-income countries.
Therefore, this special session aims to provide an opportunity to share views on microwave diagnostic radiology, in the light of the experience gained over the last four decades, considering not only the half-filled part of the glass, but also the challenges to successfully fill its remaining empty part, to best meet real-world needs in terms of clinical and cost-effectiveness. To this end, in addition to standard presentations of recent results or new microwave sensing devices and applications, some timeslots will be set aside for discussion, dedicated to “quantitative versus qualitative imaging”, “deep learning and AI algorithms for microwave sensing”, and “dielectric characterization of biological processes and phantoms”.

SPS12 – Quantum technologies for antenna design (organizers: Amir Boag, Gabriele Gradoni, Paolo Rocca)

This session has a focus on the integration of quantum technologies and computational electromagnetics in the areas of antenna design, scattering, and related applications. For example, new quantum computation architectures enable the analysis and synthesis of large electromagnetic systems on various scales from nanodevices to large arrays. Recent advances have elucidated how classical electromagnetics theories can be formulated into quantum (universal and annealing) circuits that are available in recent implementations of quantum computers.
The session invites contributions describing various quantum mechanical aspects of electromagnetic wave interactions with antennas and scatterers, as well as how quantum mechanical effects spark new modelling and optimization methodologies. Contributions from world leading experts will provide deep insights into how the scope of electromagnetics engineering is expanded to include a variety of quantum effects and how it will benefit from the quantum advantage provided by emerging quantum technologies.

SPS13 – Resonance and inverse scattering and nonlinear media (organizers: Yury Shestopalov, Eugen Smolkin)

The session topics will cover but are not reduced to recent advances in mathematical and numerical models and methods for the study of resonance and inverse scattering in open structures as well as various applications for antenna technologies and measurements. A particular attention is paid to nonlinear phenomena and wave propagation and scattering in nonlinear media, including interaction of oscillations and waves and analysis of critical points of dispersion equations. The Session scope will reflect recent trends in modeling nonlinear character of scatterers and advanced accomplishments in nonlinear analysis as applied to the development of the solution techniques for inverse problems, including cloaking.

SPS14 – Microwaves for agricultural applications (organizers: Ian Platt, Eva Anton)

Includes advances in microwave equipment (antennas, sensors, signal generating & processing hardware etc.) and signal processing techniques (general DSP, reconstruction and other algorithms) for use in agricultural applications.

SPS15 – Microwaves for medical applications (organizers: Ian Platt, Eva Anton)

Includes advances in microwave equipment (antennas, sensors, signal generating & processing hardware etc.) and signal processing techniques (general DSP, reconstruction and other algorithms) for use in medical applications.

SPS16 – Antenna applications for infrastructures (organizers: Naruto Yonemoto, Akiko Kohmura, Shunichi Futatsumori)

Antenna systems are widely applied to the sensing applications. Especially, loing term surveillance or inspections are expected to keep the safety and security of public infrastructures. This session focuses the surveillance and inspection of the infrastructures using antenna applications.

SPS17 – Advanced UAV applications (organizers: Fabio Paonessa, Torsten Fritzel)

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), or drones, are nowadays employed in a wide range of applications. In electromagnetics, their use is no longer limited to antenna measurements but is spreading out to new markets. UAVs equipped with increasingly complex transmitters and receivers represent an effective solution for engineers working on topical applications such as 5G network deployment, radar testing, satellite emulation, navigation signals and more. This special session aims at bringing together researchers and professionals from academia and industry to share and debate recent and future advances.

SPS18 – Practical evaluation of key scientific problems, strategies and technologies for integrated communication and sensing in 6G (organizers: José Rodríguez-Piñeiro, Xuesong Cai, José Antonio García Naya)

The advent of sixth-generation (6G) communication systems brings with it the potential for fully integrated sensing and communications (ISAC) support, which will increase the efficiency of spectrum usage by incorporating sensing capabilities into communication signals. As a matter of fact, ISAC is widely regarded as a transformative technology for 6G. By incorporating sensing capabilities into communication signals, ISAC will expand the scope of conventional communication and enable new applications such as location/environment-aware communication, intelligent autonomous systems, and Industry 5.0. However, realizing the promise of a ubiquitous and efficient ISAC network presents several challenges, including: (i) developing appropriate channel modeling strategies for new frequency bands (e.g., terahertz) and joint channel estimation and scatterer detection; (ii) addressing the issue of sensing ambiguity caused by imperfect synchronization between nodes; (iii) optimizing waveforms for both communication and sensing; and (iv) integrating novel strategies such as reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RIS) into ISAC. These challenges require extensive measurement-based results to establish reference models and strategies, due to the complex interplay of various parameters involved. This has led to a surge in research interest in ISAC, spanning a wide range of topics, including theoretical trade-offs between sensing and communication, signal theory, high resolution theory, new hardware designs, and the exploitation of cutting-edge antenna technologies such as ultra massive MIMO and reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RIS). Hence, this session will focus on algorithms and modeling techniques to overcome the scientific challenges posed by ISAC in 6G, with a strong emphasis on experimental results that demonstrate the effectiveness of proposed solutions. By presenting different strategies and approaches for advancing the development of ISAC in 6G, this session will provide valuable insights and guidance for researchers and practitioners in the field.

SPS19 – Antennas for physiological parameters and electrical properties monitoring (organizers: Emanuele Piuzzi, Marta Cavagnaro, Stefano Pisa, Erika Pittella)

Fast advances in technology have resulted in significant improvements in health care using highly sophisticated equipment. Correspondingly, advancements in antennas used in medicine were developed at a rapid pace.
This special session is especially focused on antennas used in medical applications including, for example:
– therapeutic radiofrequency thermal ablation and hyperthermia antennas;
– antennas for vital sign monitoring;
– wearable, flexible, and stretchable antennas for bio-integrated electronics;
– RFID sensor technology.

SPS20 – Microwaves with artificial intelligence: a new paradigm for improved diagnostics applications (organizer: Sandra Costanzo)

The adoption of microwaves and millimeter-waves for data acquisition can provide a challenging alternative for a number of non-invasive applications, such as, for example, in the biomedical context, where safe, low-cost and patient-friendly devices can be realized, as compared to standard approaches based on ionizing radiations. The integration of artificial intelligence methods can successfully enhance the novelty and usefulness of microwaves techniques, to implement fast and accurate procedures leading to non-invasive monitoring and diagnostics.
This special session will host contributions mainly focused, but not limited to:
– Microwave wearable sensors;
– Artificial Intelligence methods in electromagnetics for biomedical applications;
– Artificial Intelligence methods in electromagnetics for arrays diagnostics;
– Signal processing techniques on microwaves data;
– Microwave medical imaging;
– Medical image processing;
– Advanced measurement techniques for microwave imaging applications;
– Intelligent microwave diagnostics.

SPS21 – Emerging antenna techniques and applications for NextG new radios (organizers: Zijian Shao, Jiexi Yin)

As the demand for high-speed wireless connectivity and low-latency communication continues to grow, the design of antennas and radio systems is becoming more challenging than ever before. The next generation of wireless networks will require novel antenna techniques that can support higher data rates and multiple frequency bands.
This special session aims to bring together researchers, engineers, and practitioners to discuss the latest advances in antenna techniques and systems for NextG new radios. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:
– Millimeter-wave and THz antennas and systems
– Reconfigurable antenna and intelligent surface techniques
– Machine-learning-assisted antenna design and testing techniques
– Full-duplex antennas and systems for integrated sensing and communications
– Emerging antennas techniques and applications for autonomous vehicles, satellites and IoTs

SPS22 – Antenna measurement for wireless related features and applications (organizers: Fabien Ferrero, Walid El Hajj)

Nowadays, more and more applications required specific antenna characteristics in order to satisfy the application requirements and to guarantee good user experience.  Proximity, motion, and gesture sensing, as well as localization, and health monitoring, etc. are some applications examples.
The objective of this convened session is to gather worldwide experts from academic and industry to discuss possible measurement methods of these specific metrics related to corresponding features.
The dedicated measurement methods could address the specific needs of some parameters beyond the basic antenna parameters. For instance phase stability, the phase difference of arrival, isolation between multiple antennas, the field of view, dynamic variation of antenna positions within a device, interaction with the human body, etc.

SPS23 – Progress in computational electromagnetic imaging (organizers: Thomas Fromenteze, Okan Yurduseven)

The field of electromagnetic imaging, specifically in the microwave and millimeter-wave bands, has experienced remarkable growth and transformation, fueled by the ongoing evolution of powerful, yet cost-effective computational resources. Consequently, computational imaging has experienced considerable development, introducing novel components and associated imaging techniques that effectively address hardware limitations by solving inverse problems within the digital domain. In the early stages, these techniques successfully demonstrated their ability to replace high-resolution imaging systems operating in real time, achieving this at a fraction of the cost. More recent advancements have pushed the boundaries even further, introducing novel operating modalities with levels of complexity thad not been reached by conventional approaches. This special session is dedicated to exploring the most recent advancements in this field.

SPS24 – Smart sensors and antennas for IoT devices (organizers: Simone Genovesi, Leonardo Lizzi)

The IoT paradigm promises ‘connectivity for anything’ but this goal still requires antenna solutions that can cope with several challenges. Reconfigurabilty, compactness, energy-saving, low-cost and integrability are just some of the desired features that must be exhibited by innovative intelligent antennas and devices capable of operating in complex scenarios such as crowded outdoor environments or harsh indoor environments.

SPS25 – Wearable antennas (organizers: Simone Genovesi, Smail Tedjini)

Wearable devices are receiving more and more attention by the ICT consumer market for on-body communications as well as in applications related to safety in working environment and for homecare for elderly. One of the most challenging aspects of designing wearable antennas is making them compact, conformable and easy wearing as well as minimizing the interaction between the antenna and the human body.  All these requirements are fostering new antenna technological designs to satisfy the requirements of wearable devices (flexible, conformal, integrable with clothes or accessories, small, low profile, low cost) for a plethora of applications, e.g. medical devices/sensors, remote health monitoring, entertainment. Inkjet-printing, textile sewing and 3D printing are some of the tools that the antenna designer can exploit to cope with these challenges.

SPS26 – Emergent technologies in wireless communication systems (organizers: Kwok Wa Leung, Shawn S. Y. Zheng)

5G has recently been created and deployed to meet the different vertical sectors such as industries, intelligent transportation systems and smart cities.However, the future of society’s sustainable growth will necessitate new services and applications. The next-generation wireless communication systems are expected to support ever-advanced services and applications with peak data rates of up to 1 Tbps per user, making life smoother and safer. They will also provide more ubiquitous, reliable and near-instant services. Therefore, various new technologies are demanded to fulfill all these stringent requirements. 
This special session will cover the recent advances in relevant technologies.
Topics of interest include but are not limited to:
–       Antennas
–       Passive circuits
–       Active circuits
–       Front ends
–       Challenges and future directions for research in wireless communication systems

SPS27 – Advanced millimeter-wave and THz-wave systems and applications (organizers: Nguyen Ngoc Mai Khanh, Tetsuya Kawanishi)

Millimeter waves at frequency regime of over 100 GHz and terahertz (THz) waves with enormous bandwidth are expected to explore the potential application fields of future information and communications technologies and open huge perspectives for THz systems and applications. This section will focus on significant and novel signal-processing devices/systems and applications operating in the millimeter-wave and THz regions for advanced wireless communication systems as well as spectroscopic/imaging sensing systems. 

SPS28 – Antenna metrology, precision antenna measurement and related technologies (organizers: Satoru Kurokawa, Michitaka Ameya)

The topics covered by this session are Antenna Metrology, Electromagnetic Metrology, Precision Antenna Measurement and Related Techniques, Near-Field and Far-Field Techniques.

SPS29 – Broadband and reconfigurable antenna (organizers: Nguyen Binh Duong, Pham Trung Kien)

Broadband antennas and antenna arrays have contributed significant designs and researches in wireless technologies (MIMO, 5G/6G, SATCOM, etc…). These demand designs in multiband and wideband antennas to fulfill the high data rate requirement of the next generation system. In addition to wideband operation, reconfigurable antennas/ antenna arrays have been of interest over decades to operate the smart and adaptive systems in communications. Some applications relate to the beamforming, multi beams, electronically beam scanning/steering, pattern shaping and contemporary solutions for harsh environments. This session welcomes papers on Broadband antennas and Reconfigurable antennas.

SPS30 – Information in quantum sensing (organizer: Roderick Davidson)

Quantum sensors leverage a quantum object, quantum coherence, or entanglement to measure various physical phenomena.  In this special session, we welcome developments not only on the novel approaches to quantum sensing applied to fields such as of gravimetry, magnetometry, electrometry, and imaging, but also in quantifying the information that can be obtained from these sensors.

SPS31 – Antenna solutions for satellites applications (organizers: Leonardo Lizzi, Luca Santamaria)

This session is dedicated to the latest advancements in the field of antennas used in satellite communications. The session will focus on the design, development, and deployment of antenna systems for various satellite applications, including satellite-based communications, satellite-IoT, non-terrestrial networks, earth observation, remote sensing, and navigation. Participants will have the opportunity to learn about the latest technologies and techniques in the field and engage in discussions with leading experts in the area.

SPS32 – Technologies and architectures of steerable antenna array: new trends and challenges (organizers: Raffaele Solimene, Antonio Manna)

Phased arrays, and more in general steerable antennas, play a key role in advanced wireless systems thanks to their ability to easily shape, switch, or scan the propagating beam (e.g. for tracking purposes, for spatial filtering functions etc..). For these reasons they are employed in countless contexts ranging from space to terrestrial systems, from military to civilian applications.
Although steerable antennas have been around since long ago, advancements in hardware and computational power as well as the developments in signal processing continue to feed the interest and hence the research on this topic. Indeed, while new perspectives continue to open, new challenges need to be addressed to deal with the analysis, the synthesis, the diagnostic and the realization of steerable antennas.

The aim of this session is to collect contributions which account for recent achievements on steerable antennas coming from academia and industry, in particular addressing very high frequency band arrays, sparse non-uniform arrays, multifunction antennas, digital beam forming architecture (e.g for multibeam or ubiquitous purposes), instantaneous transmit and receive solutions, new synthesis methods, near-field applications, array diagnostics even by phaseless data, DoA algorithms.

SPS33 – Applications of machine learning in antennas and electromagnetic systems (organizers: Danilo Erricolo, Pai-Yen Chen, Hakan Bagci)

The purpose of this special session is to showcase recent developments, advances, and new frontiers in the framework of ML algorithms and their potential applications to antennas, radar, and propagation problems, as well as to increase their visibility within the electromagnetics community.
Sample contributions include, but are not limited to, the following areas:
• Theoretical advances on ML algorithms specified for electromagnetic applications. Particularly, authors are encouraged to apply ML to address key EM-related challenges in autonomous vehicles, internet-of-things, nextG communication systems and beyond.
• Electromagnetic signal processing, image interpretation, EM-based diagnosis and detection, and uncertainty quantification using ML algorithms.
• Geometric and topological optimization and designs of elementary and arrayed radiation apertures, metamaterials and metasurfaces, and other electromagnetic devices.
• Novel real-life data-driven applications to radar, remote sensing, telemetering, wave propagation, and electromagnetic engineering
• Artificial intelligence for Computational Electromagnetics including data-driven ML for EM modeling and simulation, fast data generation and reduced-order modeling for ML, and AI-accelerated or AI-based solvers for CEM.

Notes

  1. A special session is expected to have 5 papers. If more papers are received for a special session, the committee will consider splitting the session into different parts.
  2. All papers must be submitted by June 30, 2023, and should conform to the same specifications as regular papers.
  3. All organizers and speakers are required to register for the conference with corresponding registration fees.
  4. The special sessions may be canceled or combined with other sessions of similar topics should there be an insufficient number of speakers.