3th International Conference - Antenna Theory and Techniques, Sevastopol, Ukraine, September 1999

  

The Third International Conference on Antenna Theory and Techniques (ICATT99) was held at the Technical State University in Sevastopol on the Crimea peninsula in the Ukraine from 8 till 11 September.

 Sevastopol, one of the most beautiful and famous cities in the former USSR has an ancient and heroic history and is very near to the location, where Greek colonists settled down in the fourth century B.C. Khersones which was destroyed in the 13th century (fig.1).The picture on the cover of the Antenna conference proceedings has its historical background as well (fig.2, Crimean war and Second World War), as a symbol for the naval city Sevastopol, harbour for the Black Sea fleet.

 Fig.1 Khersones, Greek settlement very near the current Sevastopol, destroyed in the 13th century.

 

 Fig.2 Sevastopol monument, memorial to the ‘scuttled ships’.

 With more than 200 papers submitted, a wide spectrum of topics has been covered in the convenient facilities of Sebastopol University. This is 25% more than in the previous ICATT conference two years ago in Kiev, despite current economic conditions in the Ukraine.

 Efforts of conference organisers (in particular Prof Y.S. Shifrin) and support of the Ukrainian State committee on science and intellectual property contributed to this as well as IEEE and offices of naval research and aerospace research, with financial support. The Ukrainian National Association ‘Antennas’ (NAA), the East-Ukrainian Joint IEEE chapter (AP/MTT/ED/AES /LEO/GRS-SS) and the National Technical University of the Ukraine (Kiev Politechnical Institute) as well as the hosting institute should be mentioned, which had accommodation available to the participants. Dedicated efforts were undertaken to have students and post-graduates attending the conference, with good results.

A convenient execution of the technical program with invited papers in morning

sessions and 5 or sometimes 6 parallel sessions in the afternoon for the specialised subjects, grouped under 16 topics.

Very lively discussions developed with sometimes conclusions only very late.

Following a welcome by the conference chairman and major person in the ICATT organisation, Dr.Y.S. Shifrin from Kharkov (chairman of the ‘NAA’ and East-Ukraine Joint IEEE Chapter), other participants addressed the audience: Dr. L.D. Bakhrakh (leader of the antenna community in the former USSR), L.Andrianova (Moscow Publishing House) and obviously the rector of the University Dr. V.A Karpenko.

Fig.3 Prof. L.D. Bakhrakh during the opening session.

 

The local organisation was very well indeed at the University, well situated and equipped with facilities to handle such type of conferences. Assistance of several young and enthousiastic scientists has not gone unnoticed.

The detailed program of the conference is still available on internet at the address http://www.tera.kiev.com and a copy of the proceedings might be obtained also from the conference organisation (shifrin@kture.kharkov.ua), which spent quite some effort to compose a coherent program. The conference participants and almost the complete technical committee are shown in respectively fig.4 and fig.5.

 

Invited papers covered:

- Reflector antenna synthesis,

- Electronically tunable frequency selective surfaces,

- Fast iterative methods for antenna and component design,

- Technology for a quasi-GSO satellite communication system,

- Spectral estimation and antenna arrays superresolution techniques,

- Low-loss compact multi sector antenna with distributed implicit RF beam switch,

- Fiber-optic technology for antenna signal transmission and distribution, a state and perspectives,

- The antenna subsystem for the European Meteosat Second Generation satellites,

- Atomic functions and numerical methods for antenna synthesis,

- Radiation feature of space-wave leaky mode on printed circuit transmission lines,

- Adaptive antenna arrays with microwave signal processing,

- Modern methods of analysis and computation of antenna radomes,

- A PC based program package FARFOR-99 for aperture or array antennas,

- Modelling of printed antenna arrays for various applications,

- 'Hot' radiators in antenna measurements,

 

The contributions were grouped in topical areas about:

- General antenna theory

- Reflector, lens and hybrid antennas,

- Antenna Arrays,

- Adaptive Antenna Arrays,

- Low Gain antennas, printed antennas and antennas for mobile communications,

- Broadband and multi frequency antennas,

- Computational methods,

- Antenna measurements,

- Micorwave components and circuits, fibre optical links,

- Industrial and medical applications of microwave technologies.

- Electromagnetics in high schools.

 

 

Fig.4 Photograph taken of the participants.

 

Fig.5 Most of the participants of the Technical Committee:

Prof. P.Edenhofer, Prof. N.Gorobets, Dr.A. Dudko, Dr.T.Katagi, Dr.F. Dubrovka, N. Maksimova, Prof. Y. Shifrin, Prof. L. Bakhrakh, Prof. E.Veliev, Dr. M.Omarov,

2th row: Dr. V.Rudakov, Dr. V.Katrich, Prof. A.Kirilenko, Dr.A.Ilyinsky,

Prof. M.S.Yurchenk.

 

The conference organisation dedicated special efforts with the selection of invited papers, in order to attract young participants, in fact the major part of the conference audience. The invited papers were given in English and covered usually the first half of the four conference days.

The majority of the papers was given in Russian, with 5, sometimes 6 parallel sessions, grouped into 12 directions, including adaptive antennas, general antenna theory, wideband antennas, multifrequency antennas, microwave components and circuits, microwave and biomedical applications.

Translation service might be considered more for the future, but more

useful for the technical part is really to learn each others language, otherwise several creative ideas go unnoticed, with a danger, that the wheel is re-invented again.

 

Significant attention was paid to social events, including possibilities remarkable places (fig.6). The major event was clearly the conference banquet, during which the knighting of the Chairman to Admiral took place (fig. 7), this in the naval city of Sevastopol, as confirmed by about 100 signatures on the special hat given to him. This special voting preceeded a performance of foreign participants with a song in their native language (fig.8).

 

Fig.6 A castle in Alupka, built in Winsor/Tudor Stile

Fig.7 Knighting of the conference chairman to Admiral. Later during the banquet, more than 120 participants confirmed this by a signature on that hat.

 

Fig.8 Troika, clearly harmonically explanatory, during the conference banquet, Prof. M. Yurchenko, Dr. Dubrovka, Prof. Ya.S. Shifrin.

 

There were clearly secondary beneficial circumstances thanks to the choice of Sevastopol as a venue for the conference in September (being the so-called ‘velvet’ season, with a Black Sea temperature of 23 degrees, sweet fruits and high-quality wines).

 

During the final session of the ICATT’99 the participants indicated the satisfaction with the high level of the conference, as well as the (local) organisation associated and the hospitality of the hosting institute.

This author expresses his gratitude to the conference organisation, especially to Nona Maksimova and Prof. Y.S Shifrin, who devoted a major part of their time (during the conference and in the many months before) to make this conference a very successful event.

 

 

  Fig. 9 In Jalta.

 

Kees van 't Klooster

12 Dec 1999