2025 IEEE CAMA
Special Session
IEEE Antennas & Propagation Society (AP-S) SIGHT (Special Interest Group on Humanitarian Technology) and COPE (Committee On Promoting Equity)
Antenna Design for Low-Cost, High-Impact Humanitarian Projects
Organizers: Jawad Y. Siddiqui, Royal Military College of Canada; Satish K. Sharma, San Diego State University, USA; Vikass Monebhurrun, CentralSupélec, Université Paris-Saclay, France; Yahia Antar, Royal Military College, Canada
The IEEE Special Interest Group on Humanitarian Technology (SIGHT) is a global network of IEEE volunteers partnering with underserved communities and local organizations to leverage technology for sustainable development (https://sight.ieee.org).
IEEE has placed great emphasis on Humanitarian Technology Activities, instituting the Humanitarian AdHoc Committee (HAHC) in 2011. As part of a strategic effort toward member engagement, HAHC instituted a program called Special Interest Group on Humanitarian Technology (SIGHT). Under the IEEE SIGHT, the Antennas and Propagation Society (AP-S) SIGHT group formed with the vision to strengthen the world by solving the existing humanitarian challenges in the world.
Major SIGHT projects aims are as follows:
Support sustainable technology business initiatives seeking to have a measurable impact in alleviating global poverty of energy, health care, sanitation, interconnectivity and other technology-dependent solutions among the low-income 1.4 billion people;
Develop open source technology solutions and avoiding intellectual property restrictions that keep costs artificially high and deny affordable access;
A few of the major needs that SIGHT groups aim to address are affordable reliable electricity, lighting and power tools, communication and entertainment, clean water, cooling and refrigeration, and remote learning centres for technical education and adult education.
Focus Areas of IEEE AP-S SIGHT
- Inspire students and practitioners to make a difference in solving chronic problems including crises with food, water, communications / information access, and power / lighting.
- In times of disaster, IEEE AP-S members can help provide emergency communications online so that relief agencies can bring the needed medical, food, and shelter supplies to the regions of greatest need.
- Disaster Monitoring & Relief, Dissemination of Warning, Healthcare Monitoring, Telemedicine, Hazards Monitoring and Alert, Environmental Monitoring, and so on.
- Technical sessions and workshops on Wireless Sensor Networks for First Responders/Disaster Relief.
- Leverage Local Chapters for membership growth activities, collaborations, networking, and interactions with the local universities, institutes, and government agencies to deliver technical talks by AP-S SIGHT.
CONTEST FOR
LOW-COST, HIGH-IMPACT ANTENNA SYSTEM FOR HUMANITARIAN APPLICATIONS
CALL FOR PROPOSALS
Share your ideas about possible low-cost antennas systems
Wireless technologies, thanks to their great versatility, ease of installation, and low cost, have a significant impact on the accessibility of services in any remote location on the planet. For the same reasons, wireless systems are potentially of impact for humanitarian applications. 2025 IEEE CAMA is to announce a contest for students from undergraduate to PhD on the topic of low-cost, high impact antenna systems for humanitarian applications.
The 3 best projects will be selected and presented at 2025 IEEE CAMA during the SIGHT-COPE Special Session
At the end of the presentation, the 3 projects will be ranked first, second and third.
The first project will receive a certificate and a monetary prize/honorarium of $200 and would be eligible for project funding (it will need to submit a full project proposal) up to USD$ 3000.
The second project will receive a certificate and a monetary prize/honorarium of $100
The third project will receive a certificate and a monetary prize/honorarium of $50
To guide you in your application, here are examples of 3 selected projects in 2024:
– Creating an Impactful and Cost-Effective Data Platform for Flood Forecasting
As an attempt to predict and mitigate flooding, a web platform named Floodwatch (floodwatch.io) is developed as a cyber-physical system infrastructure for disaster intelligence and forecasting. To collect weather information, Internet of Things (IoT) devices need to be placed across Vietnam to gather and send data to FloodWatch for its services. Using IEEE 802.11 wireless network (Wi-Fi) seems probable to allow IoT devices to send and collect weather data, but Wi-Fi is not readily available at a steady stream within Vietnam, and it is power intensive, making it impractical to run on low-power IoT devices. To solve this issue, LoRa, a low-powered long-range protocol, can be leveraged. LoRaWAN is a software layer that defines how devices use the LoRa hardware, such as when they transmit and the format of messages.
– Predictive Modeling of Lung Water Content with Machine Learning and RF Sensor
This work addresses the challenges of early detection of pulmonary edema by predicting lung water content from reflection coefficient data using a single RF sensor. A printed microwave antenna, used as the sensor, collects S11 data when placed on simulation blocks emulating the human thorax region over the lungs. Data for several demographic groups was substituted in the simulation blocks, and machine learning models were trained using the available data to build a dataset to predict the severity of pulmonary edema. This is believed to be the first of its kind approach in demonstrating the effectiveness of using microwave technique in early detection of pulmonary edema.
– Design of Flower Shaped CSRR UWB Antenna with Integrated Bluetooth and Wi-Max Band-Notched Characteristics
Integrated Bluetooth and Wi-Max band – notched flower shaped printed UWB antenna is designed and investigated. A novel circular complementary split ring resonator (CSRR) is etched in the flower shaped radiating patch. The proposed antenna allows operations in the Bluetooth and UWB frequency band from 2.4 to 2.5 GHz and 3.1 to 11.7 GHz respectively.
Past Project
– Remote Diagnosis and Patient Monitoring for Cardiac Vital Signs in Rural India using Wireless Communications.
Application:
- Project’s description: 5 pages max. + annexes
The project description shall include the context of application, objectives, and preliminary antenna and system designs. The description is limited to 5 pages, but annexes can be added if needed.
- Application deadline: November, 3d 2025
- Application shall be sent by email to christian.pichot@univ-cotedazur.fr
Eligibility:
Students from undergraduate to PhD level
Selection for the oral presentation at the SIGHT special session:
Results announced on the website on November 11th, 2025
Presentation: 25 min