Sensor Array and Multichannel (SAM) TC Activities

by Kristine Bell (SAM TC Chair)

The Sensor Array and Multichannel (SAM) Technical Committee (TC) addresses the areas of sensor array and multi-channel statistical signal processing.  The committee interests span the areas of signal detection and estimation, direction-of-arrival estimation, beamforming, blind source separation, source localization and tracking, multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems and space-time coding, sensor networks, and multichannel signal processing. Our main application areas are focused on radar, sonar, wireless communications, microphone array processing, navigation, seismology, radio astronomy, and biomedicine.

At ICASSP 2009, the SAM TC collaborated with the SPTM and SPCOM TCs to organize a Thematic Symposium on Network Distributed Signal Processing.  There is growing interest in algorithms and applications, such as distributed environmental sensing, detection and estimation, filtering, adaptive networks, learning, motion estimation and scene analysis, to name a few. Beyond local computation, network distributed signal processing algorithms must also take into account the constraints and opportunities in the underlying communication network (e.g., time-varying link capacities, battery power, etc). Whereas most current research in the area is focused on sensor networks, there are emerging applications that will operate over hybrid heterogeneous networks. This symposium included three tutorials and seven sessions that covered recent developments in network distributed signal processing, filtering, estimation, and adaptation.  It also featured three overview talks by leading experts Martin Vetterli, Zhi-Quan (Tom) Luo, and Rick Blum.

Also at ICASSP 2009,  Harry Van Trees who was successfully nominated by the SAM TC received the 2008 SPS Technical Achievement Award.

In 2009, the SAM TC participated in their first TC review by the Signal Processing Society.  Part of the process involved adopting formal Bylaws, which is now posted on the SAM TC website.