Perspectives

Time reversal is a physical principle well known for its deterministic focusing effect. Recently discovered statistical effects show that the time reversal focusing spot is not a point but has a Bessel power distribution. This finding offers accurate and reliable speed estimation indoors, where multipaths are abundant, with mostly nonline-of-sight (NLOS) conditions, and enable various indoor applications, such as wireless sensing and tracking. No known techniques can thrive in such scenarios. In essence, time reversal is an effective tool that embraces multipaths as virtual sensors with hundreds of thousands of degrees of freedom for our utilization.

The research landscape is evolving very dynamically. This column reflects on it from a conference viewpoint and focuses on the importance of creating a more sustainable culture for the conference portfolio that the IEEE Signal Processing Society (SPS) offers. Among the different considerations, the role that virtual conferences can play is highlighted.

The year 2023 marked the 75th anniversary of the IEEE Signal Processing Society (SPS), which was founded in 1948 as the “Professional Group on Audio” of the Institute of Radio Engineers (IRE), becoming the first IEEE Society. (The IRE, founded in 1912 with a focus on radio and then electronics, together with the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, founded in 1884 with an emphasis on power and utilities, were united in 1963 to form IEEE.)

This article discusses the contradiction between the exploding energy demand of artificial intelligence (AI) and the information and communication (ICT) industry as a whole and the parallel strong request for energy sobriety imposed by the need to mitigate the impact of climate change and the anticipated collapse of civilization as we know it.