by Torsten Braun
A new ERCIM Working Group 'eMobility' was established in January 2007. The main research areas are mobile applications and services, middleware for mobile communications, security mechanisms, network architectures, technologies, and protocols for wireless and mobile communications. The working group aims to encourage collaborations and information exchange among researchers in the area of both mobile services and wireless communication systems.
The eMobility working group is closely related to the topics addressed by the eMobility European Technology Platform (ETP). Several members of the eMobility working group are already members of the eMobility ETP. To complement the activities of the eMobility ETP, the ERCIM working group eMobility focuses on more theoretical basic research issues. The working group aims to have a longer term research scope and rather address research topics that might become practically important in ten to fifteen years. Also, the lifetime of the working group should be rather in a longer time-scale, exceeding project or research framework lifetimes significantly. A major difference compared to the eMobility ETP is that the topics addressed by the ERCIM working group eMobility should not be limited to any commercial constraints and also have a stronger focus on social and environmental interests. The working group is mainly driven by public research organizations and academia, while the eMobility ETP is driven by the major industry companies active in mobile communications. The eMobility working group should also allow for the investigation on disruptive technologies to drive the evolution of todays mobile applications and wireless technologies.
The eMobility working group intends to organize meetings as well as workshops and to encourage collaboration among participating institutions. Other objectives are dissemination and discussion of research results as well as the participation in the ERCIM Alain Bensoussan Fellowship Programme. Since several involved organizations are interested in experimental research based on test-beds, it is planned to share such test-beds for experimental research activities. The eMobility working group also aims to develop a strategic basic research agenda and project proposals (for example in FP7) in the area of mobile and wireless communications.
ERCIM instititutes participating in the eMobility working group include CNR, CWI, FNRS/FWO, FORTH, NTNU, SARIT, SICS and SpaRCIM. In addition, several other universities and research organizations already joined the working group: University of Cantabria and University of Granada (Spain), TNO (The Netherlands), Czech Technical University Prague (Czech Republic), Tampere University of Technology (Finland), University of Coimbra (Portugal), Demokritos University of Thrace (Greece), Politecnico di Bari (Italy), Karlstad University (Sweden).
During the kick-off meeting on 27 October 2006, in Basel, Switzerland, Prof. Torsten Braun from the University of Bern/SARIT and Prof. Dimitri Konstantas from the University of Geneva/SARIT have been elected as chair and deputy chair, respectively. Dr. Markus Wulff from the University of Bern will act as a secretary general.
A presentation about the new working group has been given by Torsten Braun at a networking session organized by the eMobility ETP during the IST 2006 conference in Helsinki on 22 November 2006.
A working group meeting has been held at the University of Malaga on 15 February 2007, co-located with a COST 290 action meeting. The main goal of this working group meeting was to prepare the eMobility workshop to be held at the University of Coimbra on May 21, 2007, co-located with the 5th International Conference on Wired/Wireless Internet Communications. More information about the working group and the upcoming workshop including the call for papers is available at http://www.emobility.unibe.ch.
Scientists interested in joining the working group should contact the working group coordinator.
Link:
http://www.emobility.unibe.ch/
Please contact:
Torsten Braun
eMobility WG coordinator
University of Bern
E-mail: braun
iam.unibe.ch
