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[Editor’s Note: We’d like to make this column a regular feature. Please send news items from your chapter with pictures whenever possible. Send it to me at j.gant@ieee.org.]
Spain – reported by Gabriel Oliver Codina
In June 2009, the universities of Cantabria, Complutense de Madrid and UNED organized a workshop on Marine Robotics in Santander. Part of the audience appears in the picture below.
 On November 19–20, the third edition of the Martech workshop took place in Vilanova i la Beltran (close to Barcelona). Martech is a scientific and technical biannual meeting for researchers in marine technology. You can see a video of the workshop at: http://www. cdsarti.org/martech09.wmv
Martech09Video. One of the topics presented at the workshop was the undersea observatory OBSE, a cabled seafloor observatory located 4 km off the Vilanova i la Geltru coast in a fishing protected area. It is connected to the coast by a cable providing energy and communications. For further information about OBSEA visit: http://www.upc.edu/cdsarti/OBSEA/info/intro/intro_eng.html or contact Prof. Antoni Manuel, from the Technical University of Catalonia at antoni.manuel@upc.edu.
There will be a meeting next June in Santander (as you know, Santander will host the next OCEANS conference in 2011). Thus, on June 24th some of the members of the OES Spanish chapter will visit the conference facilities and will have a meeting with the local committee members. The next day, we will have a technical meeting of the Automar network. Automar is a research network that gets in contact all the Spanish research groups that work in automation in the marine environment.
San Diego, USA – reported by Kevin J. Delaney
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San Diego IEEE/OES chapter president Kevin J. Delaney discusses the role of a professional society in career development with high school students at Patrick Henry High School Career Day, March 3, 2010. |
The San Diego chapter of the IEEE Oceanic Engineering Society participated in a local high school’s Engineering, Math and Science Career Exploration Fair on March 3, 2010. The Engineering Academy at Patrick Henry High School invited a variety of universities, research organizations and professional societies to present career information to about 400 interested students during the half-day event.
Japan – reported by Kenichi Asakawa, Hitoshi Mikada and Harumi Sugimatsu
Japan chapter was organized in August 1995 by Prof. Tamaki Ura. Since then, it has been vigorously active. Now the membership of Japan Chapter is eighty-four strong (as of October 2009). The conferences and workshops it organized or co-sponsored include OCEANS’04 MTS/IEEE / TECHNO-OCEAN’04, OCEANS’08 MTS/IEEE KOBE-TECHNO-OCEAN‘08, a series of workshops “Underwater Technology” and “Scientific Use of Submarine Cables and Related Technologies”. Recently it has organized or sponsored a memorial workshop “Frontier of Geoscience and Ocean Observation Technology,” “’10  Underwater Robot Convention in JAMSTEC,” the “Workshop for Asian and Pacific Universities’ Underwater Roboticians APuuRobo 2010”, and “Forum for Underwater and Seafloor Engineers” (domestic forum in Japanese). It is now preparing to be a technical co-sponsor of “Techno-Ocean 2010” and to co-sponsor “International Symposium on Underwater Technology 2011 & International Workshop on Scientific Use of Submarine Cables and Related Technologies 2011 (UT11 & SSC11)”. Some of the recent activities of Japan Chapter are highlighted below.
’10 Underwater Robot
Convention in JAMSTEC
The ’10 Underwater Robot Convention in JAMSTEC was successfully held in Japan Agency of Marine Science and Technology on March 13–14. Twenty-five robots including ten AUVs, one UROV, one bio-mimetic robot and radio-controlled robots participated to the convention. Among the ten AUVs, one came from National Taiwan University and another one came from Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology. About 200 people including those from high schools, universities and the general public participated. (Photo 1). A delegation from Shanghai Jiao Tong University also participated in the convention. People with various backgrounds gathered together and communicated with each other.
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Enthusiastic presentation and discussion continued
until midnight of the first day. |
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The competition was held in an indoor swimming pool
of JAMSTEC. |
The convention was held for two days. On the first day, the participants set up and tuned their own robots. Experts from JAMSTEC helped those who had little experience. It should be one of merits for them to be able to get contact with technical experts and get advice.
After supper, participants had a workshop (Photo 2). Every team except radio-controlled robots had presented their robots. They were followed by useful discussion. Some participants showed very artistic and attractive presentation, drawing close attention.
On the second day, they competed with each other. There were four courses prepared for competition: (1) to touch a ball, (2) to pass a gate, (3) to follow a line on the poor’s floor, and (4) free demonstration. Every team can select any courses, and has ten minutes for the competition. The rating was made in three categories; (1) number of courses they achieved, (2) technical performance, and (3) weight. Lighter vehicles had advantages. The winner was ‘HAL urabo’ team from the University of Tokyo. Other awards including the best presentation award, the best effort award, the best performance award and the young robotician award were presented. The results of the competition will soon be posted on the homepage.
The competition is not the sole aim of the convention. It also provided a good opportunity for engineers, young engineers in particular, who engage in or have interest in underwater robots to gather together and exchange their experience and knowledge.
The first underwater robot festival in Japan was held in October 2006, in conjunction with the international conference “Techno-Ocean 2006/19th JAMSNAO Ocean Engineering Symposium” in Kobe. Since then three underwater robot festivals, three underwater robot conventions and one underwater robot competition had been held in Japan. That is almost two a year. All these events, except the first, were planned by the Underwater Vehicle Competitions Forum chaired by Prof. Tamaki Ura, the founder of Japan chapter. The next Aqua Robot Competition will be held in Kobe on October 16, 2010, in coordination with Techno-Ocean2010.
International Workshop APuuRobo 2010
Following “’10 Underwater Robot Convention in JAMSTEC,” an international workshop “APuuRobo 2010” was held at the Institute of Industrial Science (IIS), the University of Tokyo, on March 15–16; 46 researchers took part in the workshop and thirteen papers and one keynote talk were presented at the workshop. http://underwater.iis.u-tokyo.ac.jp/top/apuu/APuuRobo2010.html
This is the tenth in a series of workshops initiated by Prof. Ura. The first one “TruuRobo” was held in 2001 in cooperation with IIS, the University of Tokyo, the University of Tokyo, Seoul National University, and National Taiwan University in order to facilitate academic research and development of autonomous underwater vehicles in Asia, and to deepen mutual exchange and communication. In 2005, it was enlarged to cover Asia-Pacific as a Workshop for Asian and Pacific Universities’ Underwater Roboticians (APuuRobo), adding Hawaii University as a member. Moreover, Shanghai Jiao Tong University joined this year. Kyushu institute of Technology, Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology, Osaka Prefecture University, University of Science and Technology in Republic of Korea, National Cheng Kung University and National Sun Yat-sen University in Taiwan joined this year as friend universities. Being held in Hawaii University last year, it again returned to IIS, the University of Tokyo this year.
 Participants to APuuRobo 2010.
Frontier of Geoscience and
Ocean Observation Technology
Celebrating the elevation of Prof. Junzo Kasahara, Professor Emeritus of the University of Tokyo, to IEEE Fellow, the Chapter has organized an academic meeting jointly with the Japanese Coast Guard on the recent advancement of solid earth geosciences and the latest oceanic observation technologies with emphasis on the mutual relationship on March 18, 2009. The number of participants was 125, which was an astonishing number for the number of researchers involved in oceanic engineering in Japan (the IEEE Oceanic Engineering Society members are fewer than 100 in Japan). For this day-long meeting, we were able to review how the latest achievements in solid earth geosciences were brought about by the advancement of oceanic observation technologies, how technological development had been realized in daunting and difficult processes, and what kind of technological development is necessary to proceed further for research objectives in geosciences. At that meeting, we strove to introduce IEEE and the IEEE Oceanic Engineering Society to the audience and succeeded in inviting one professor to become a member of the IEEE Oceanic Engineering Society. Following this small success, we shall work to keep inviting non-IEEE members to become IEEE members at future IEEE-organized or IEEE co-sponsored meetings.
Upcoming Conference,
Symposium and Workshop
The Japan Chapter will be a technical co-sponsor of Techno-Ocean2010 (http://www.techno-ocean2010.com/) on October 14–16, 2010, in Kobe and will co-organize UT11 & SSC11 (http://seasat.iis.u-tokyo.ac.jp/UT11_SSC11/) on April 5–8, 2011 in Tokyo.
A series of International Conferences “Techno-Ocean” have been held in Kobe biennially since 1986. In 2004 and 2008, Techno-Ocean had been held jointly with OCEANS conference. The next one will be the thirteenth. The theme in 2010 will be “A New Era of the OCEAN.”
The first International Symposium “Underwater Technology” was held in 1998 celebrating the establishment of IEEE OES Tokyo Chapter (now called Japan Chapter) in 1995. Since then UT symposiums have been held biennially in Tokyo and Asia.
SSC11 will be the sixth workshop, among which three workshops were or will be co-sponsored by Japan Chapter. The next UT and SSC will be held jointly again as UT & SSC 07.
Chapter Contact Information
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