Dr. Masahiro Umehira received the B.E., M.E., and Ph.D. degrees from Kyoto University in Japan in 1978, 1980 and 2000, respectively. He joined the YOKOSUKA Electrical Communication Laboratory of Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Public Corporation (currently NTT) in 1980 and worked as Group Leader/Senior Researcher at the NTT Wireless Systems Laboratories from 1995, and as Director of the Wireless Systems Innovation Research Department of NTT Network Innovation Laboratories from 2002. He has been active as a Professor at Ibaraki University from 2006 and as a Professor at Nanzan University since 2021.

He has been engaged in the research and development of wireless systems for many years and has had many achievements. In particular, he has made remarkable achievements in the development of compact TDMA (Time Division Multiple Access) modem for satellite communications and broadband wireless access systems for nomadic/mobile services.

In the satellite communications field, he devised the LSI/IC implementation approach of high performance, compact and economical TDMA modem and developed LSI/MMICs for high-speed and high-performance burst modem for TDMA satellite communications. This has made it possible to widely use TDMA technology in various satellite communication systems. The compact TDMA equipment was developed based on this technology to provide ISDN services in remote areas and for disaster countermeasures. Furthermore, the developed portable earth station was used to provide emergency communications at the time of the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake.

In the field of land mobile communications, he devised system architectures, modulation and demodulation technologies, error control technologies, and Quality of Service (QoS) control technologies to realize tens of Mbit/s-class broadband wireless access, which was unthinkable at the time. Under the concept of Multimedia Mobile Access Communication Systems (MMAC), he led prototype development of 80Mbit/s broadband wireless access system using the 24/27GHz band for the first time in the world and demonstrated its feasibility. He also proposed coded OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing) technology to realize high-speed and high-quality transmission in a severe frequency-selectivity fading environment. He encouraged cooperation with the Japanese, U.S., and European standard organizations regarding high-speed wireless LAN and contributed to unifying the basic specifications of the Japanese, U.S., and European standard specifications.
This technology is one of the key technologies that has supported the broadband access in various wireless systems in recent years.

After moving to Ibaraki University, he promoted education and research using his experience and knowledge of wireless technologies and conducted research on wireless transmission, cognitive radio, dynamic spectrum access, and interference reduction technologies for automotive radars, which aims to enhance spectrum efficiency.At Nanzan University, he continues to work on education and research on wireless systems.

He received many awards for the above achievements, including the IEICE's Achievement Award, IEICE's Distinguished Achievement and Contributions Award, IEICE's Educational Service Award, IEICE's Fellow, Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Award, and Telecommunications Advancement Foundation Awards. In addition, he has served as an Expert Member of the Information and Communication Council, Section Chair of the National Research and Development Corporation Council, and Chair of the Research and Development Evaluation Committee, and is making efforts to develop the telecommunications field from the aspects of radio administration and technical policy. He also contributed to activities of IEICE by serving as Chair of Technical Committee and Vice-President/President of Communications Society in IEICE.

As described above, his contributions to the development of wireless systems over the years in the areas of technology, policy, and education have been outstanding, and we recommend Dr. Umehira as an Honorary Member of the IEICE.