The ANACOM-URSI Portugal Prize, Best Student Paper Award and Best Student Poster Award (2015 edition) have been handed out by Hélder Vasconcelos, Member of ANACOM's Board of Directors. The awards were made on occasion of the 9th Congress of the Portuguese Committee of URSI.
ANACOM-URSI Portugal Prize
The ANACOM-URSI Portugal Prize was won by David Emanuel Dias Fernandes of Universidade de Coimbra - Instituto de Telecomunicações (Telecommunications Institute) for the work "Diffractionless Propagation of Electron Waves in Graphene Superlattices".
The author has an Integrated Masters in Electrical and Computer Engineering with specialisation in Telecommunications at the Universidade de Coimbra. He is currently a researcher in the Antennas and Propagation group of the Instituto de Telecomunicações (Telecommunications Institute) - Coimbra.
His work stood out due to the quality and rigour of its science and for its innovation, addressing a topic of current interest related to the potential of graphene, a material which has recently received a great deal of attention in international research.
The paper proposes to modify the properties of graphene on a nanoscopic scale and so restrict the movement of electrons to one direction only by introducing a high level of directivity in an isotropic material in its pristine form. As such, the electronic waves do not undergo side scattering as they propagate through the proposed nanostructures. With this effect, these new materials can be given practical applications in electronic or optical devices with ultra rapid and sensitive responses.
The ANACOM-URSI Portugal Prize was instituted by ANACOM in 2011 in order to distinguish the best research work in the field of Radioelectricity and so encourage creativity and rigour in scientific research work in Portugal. The prize, worth 4,000 euros, is awarded to the lead author of the winning work at the annual congress of the Portuguese Committee of URSI.
Best Student Paper Award
The Best Student Paper Award was awarded to Daniel Filipe Simões Malafaia of Universidade de Aveiro for the work "Channel utilization analysis based on EM algorithm for 5G spectrum management".
In 2nd place was Hugo Miguel Nisa Café of Instituto Superior Técnico (Higher Technical Institute) for the work "Planning wireless mesh networks for IoT smart grid applications". Third place was awarded to Alexandra Isabel Galvão Mourato of Instituto Superior de Engenharia de Lisboa (Lisbon Superior Engineering Institute) for the work "Geo-positioning for UMTS networks, using fingerprinting techniques and radio channel models."
The Best Student Paper Award, with a value of 1,000 euros, is awarded by ANACOM with the aim of encouraging young authors. It is awarded for the best paper presented by a student who is its lead author and also presents it at the Congress of the Portuguese Committee of URSI.
Best Student Poster Award
The Best Student Poster Award was awarded to João Monteiro Felício of Instituto Superior Técnico/Instituto de Telecomunicações (Higher Technical Institute/Institute of Telecommunications) for the work "Microwave imaging to detect targets in human Phantoms using a radar algorithm in the frequency domain."
The Best Student Poster Award, with a value of 500 euros, is awarded by ANACOM to the best poster presented by a student at the Congress of the Portuguese Committee of URSI.
