Submission Deadline Extended to 13 March 2025

W15: The Next Frontier of Wireless Networks: Underwater and Underground Sensing and Communications (U2SeCo)

Co-Organizer: Deepak Mishra,University of New South Wales (UNSW), Australia
Co-Organizer: Mauro Biagi, University of Rome “Sapienza”, Italy
Co-Organizer: Jinhong Yuan, University of New South Wales (UNSW), Australia
Co-Organizer: Yahong Rosa Zheng, Lehigh University, USA

Abstract: As we become more reliant on digital services in the post-COVID era, network operators are laying more underwater submarine cables with higher capacities to support our growing need for data. These cables carry 99% of the world’s telecommunications traffic, connecting people across oceans. Organizations like Google and Microsoft have invested over $10 billion in new sub sea cables for faster speeds. This demand for underwater communication is expected to increase at a compound annual rate of 50% between 2024 and 2028. Underwater/Underground wireless Sensing and Communications (U2SeCo) needs to catch up to the significant progress of 5G/6G in wireless mobile and vehicular communication. The Internet of Underwater and Underground Things (IoU2T) has been researched for decades, and they experience more technical challenges than over-the-air or space communications. IoU2T and U2SeCo now have found important applications for the next frontier of technological advancement. Now, it is time to bring these essential research areas from specialized venues to the IEEE Vehicular Technology Society’s (VTS) flagship conference so that more VTS members are exposed to cutting-edge technologies. This workshop wishes to draw more attention to VTS talents and attract them to the challenging research areas, which in turn will advance the U2SeCo area faster to catch up with the rapid growth of RF wireless technologies. Overall, this workshop will present timely discussions around the next frontier of wireless networking of underwater and underground systems to explore the potential of 6G technology in expanding the IEEE VTS’s research beyond conventional terrestrial systems for resilient networking.

Co-Organizer’s Bios:

Deepak Mishra:

Deepak Mishra (S’13–M’17–SM’22) received his PhD in electrical engineering from IIT Delhi, India in 2017. He is a Senior Lecturer at the School of Electrical Engineering and Telecommunications, UNSW Sydney, where he joined in 2019. Previously, he was a postdoc at Linköping University, Sweden. He has been a Visiting Researcher at Northeastern University, University of Rochester, Huawei Technologies France, Southwest Jiaotong University and Queen’s University of Belfast. His research interests include underwater communications, wireless sensing, physical layer security, signal processing and green cooperative networks. He is an Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Communications, IEEE Trans. Green Commun. & Netw., IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Vehicles, IEEE Wireless Communications Letters, and IEEE Access, and has been the Guest Editor for multiple special issues of MDPI Energies journal. He is a Topical Advisory Panel Member of Energies. He has been the TPC member for top IEEE Conferences, Registration Chair for ACM SIGCOMM, Workshops Co-chair for MobiQuitous, Publication Chair for BuildSEC and the Publicity Officer for IEEE VTS. He has been a recipient of an IBM PhD. Fellowship, Raman Charpak Fellowship, Endeavour Research Fellowship, and Australian Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. He was named a Best Editor for IEEE Wireless Communications Letters in 2023 and received 5 Exemplary Reviewer awards for IEEE journals.

Mauro Biagi:

Mauro Biagi (S’99–M’05–SM’11) received the Laurea degree in communication engineering and the PhD in information and communication theory in January 2005 from the INFO-COM Department (now DIET) of the University of Rome “Sapienza” where he is an Associate Professor now. He was a visiting assistant professor at the University of British Columbia, Dept. of Elec. & Comp. Engineering in 2010. His research is focused on MIMO systems, Cognitive Radio, Underwater Communications, Smart Grids and Optical Wireless Communications. He is in the PLC Technical Committee ComSoc Group and CyberSecurity Technical Committee ComSoc Group. He was Associate Editor of IEEE Photonics Technology Letters and Guest Editor for the (2017) IEEE JSAC issue on Visible light communication, localisation and networking. He is the associate editor of the IEEE Journal of Lightwave Technology. He was TPC chair of the IEEE conference MoWNET 2014, co-chair of 5 editions of the workshop on Optical Wireless Communications hosted by ICC from 2015 to 2019, the Chair of the 1st workshop on underwater communication access and networking @ ICC 2023, and Chair of the workshop on Optical Wireless Communication and networking at PIMRC 2023. He was chair of the optical networks and systems symposium at Globecom 2021.

Jinhong Yuan:

Jinhong Yuan (Fellow, IEEE) received a Ph.D. degree in electronics engineering in 1997. He is currently a professor and head of the telecommunication group at the School of Electrical Engineering and Telecommunications, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia. He has published two books, five book chapters, more than 300 articles in telecommunications journals and conference proceedings, and 50 industrial reports. His current research interests include error control coding and information theory, communication theory, and wireless communications. He has co-authored four Best Paper Awards and one Best Poster Award. He is currently serving as an Associate Editor for IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications. He has served as the TPC CO-CHAIR FOR IEEE ICC WCS 2014, IEEE GLOBECOM CTS 2016, IEEE WCSP WCS 2017, TUTORIAL CHAIR FOR IEEE VTC 2017 SPRING, TPC Co-Chair for IEEE VTC 2020-Fall (Antennas, Propagation, and RF Design), etc. He has initiated and served as the Workshop General Chair for the 1st and 4th Workshop on OTFS and Delay-Doppler Multicarrier Communications for 6G in the last four years.

Yahong Rosa Zheng:

Yahong Rosa Zheng (S’99, M’03, SM’07, F’15) received a PhD degree from Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada, in 2002. She was an NSERC Postdoctoral Fellow for two years with the University of Missouri-Columbia. Then, she was on the faculty of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) at the Missouri University of Science and Technology for 13 years. She joined Lehigh University in Aug. 2018 as a professor in the ECE department. Her research interests include underwater and underground IoT, wireless communications, wireless sensor networks, compressive sensing, machine learning and robotics. She has served as Associate Editor for three IEEE journals and a senior editor for IEEE Vehicular Technology Magazine. She is currently an Associate Editor for the IEEE Journal of Oceanic Engineering. She was the recipient of an NSF faculty CAREER award in 2009. She has been an IEEE fellow and a Distinguished Lecturer of the IEEE Vehicular Technology Society since 2015. She has served as a Technical Program Committee (TPC) member and symposium chair for many IEEE international conferences, including ICC, Globecom, and Oceans. She recently served as TPC co-chair of the 2022 ACM WuWNet Conference and the 2024 IEEE OES Fellow Evaluation Committee chair.

To submit a paper, please visit: https://vtc2025s-rr-wks.trackchair.com/track/2373