Up to 30 students will receive travel grants to attend the 2014 Wireless Innovation Forum Conference on Communications Technologies and Software Defined Radio, to be held March 11-13 in Schaumberg, IL. The grants will provide partial support for travel, housing, and conference attendance. Software-defined radio technology will become increasingly important as the foundation of wireless communications, and attendance at the conference will expose students to many technical and practical aspects of the technology.
The purpose of this project was to provide financial support for students at the graduate and undergraduate level to attend the SDR-WInnComm Technical Conference and Product Exposition to be held March 11 to 13, 2014 in Schaumburg, IL. By attending SDR-WInnComm 2014, students were to gain exposure to industry and the real problems they will face when entering the workforce in the design, development, manufacture and deployment of advanced wireless systems. Such exposure helps them to better understand how their course work at university applies in a real world setting, and will accelerate the pace at which they become productive upon graduation. At the conference they met and interacted with the leading researchers and practitioners in this field. SDR-WInnComm 2014 had over 200 registered delegates from over 22 different countries around the world, including many of the recognized technical leaders in the reconfigurable radio community. Students attending SDR-WInnComm had access to a rich technical program advancing their domain knowledge, including: 9 Technical sessions presenting over 40 peer reviewed papers that provide a perspective on the current state of the art in reconfigurable radio technology and the practical commercialization of these technologies, future trends or technology innovations. Topics in the paper sessions include security solutions, radio frequency technologies, baseband processing, modeling, spectrum access and sensing, public safety, location based techniques, multi-mode systems and base stations. 6 half day tutorials and "expert lectures" providing hands on experience with technologies and tools 3 Workshops exploring Requirements and Opportunities for Software Defined Radio and Cognitive Radio, Policy and Regulation Demonstrations of emerging technologies and solutions to real world problems. 17 travel grant awards were made by the conference’s program committee under this project. Grants of up to $1350 were made for students. Grants were made against actual expenses, and receipts were required before payment was made. Students receiving a travel grant were required to submit a short report on their conference experience and expenses. Overall the responses were positive, with students gaining valuable insight into the industry and making important connections that will help them in years to come. The summary report from each student was provided to NSF as part of the final project report, providing additional insight into the results.
