| Yoshiaki Tanaka |
Dr. Yoshiaki Tanaka completed his doctoral course at the Graduate School of Engineering, the University of Tokyo in March 1979, and worked as a lecturer at the same university. He became associate professor of the university in 1984, and professor of Waseda University in 1996. In 2008, he became a visiting professor of the National Institute of Informatics, the position he holds today.He has been engaged in research in the field of information communication engineering. In particular, he was one of the first researchers to study the following four technological areas: code modulation, cryptographic application services, multicast communication, and QoE (quality of experience) and pricing. He has made remarkable contributions to the advancement of research in these areas.
In the area of code modulation, he developed the multi-mode binary phase continuous FSK method, which reduces the error rate at the receiving end. This is based on the principle that the error rate can be reduced by improving demodulation at the receiving end in cases where there are correlations between the waveforms of consecutive times-lots in digital waveform transmission. For this contribution, he received the achievement award from the IEICE (1980).
In the sphere of cryptographic application services, his research results for transmission of seal-affixed documents for use in Letax (a service provided by Japan Post) were applied to the one-stop administrative service provided at post offices. This research served as a catalyst for major advances in research into cryptographic theory. For his achievement in this area, Dr. Tanaka received the Telecom System Technology Award from the Telecommunications Advancement Foundation (1995).
From his research into multicast communication, the basic principle of the routing control and the traffic design theory he proposed are used in today’s IP multicast communication.
Furthermore, he clearly defined the degree of user satisfactions, which was then a new concept related to QoE (quality of experience), an extension of the conventional QoS (quality of service), and used it as a metric to measure QoE. He applied this concept to revolutionize communication theory and communication services so that they will facilitate the integration of network engineering and economics. He received the significant recognition for this achievement as well as accolades for his role as an excellent researcher in this area. As a result, he received the Best Paper Award from the IEICE (2005).
It deserves special mention that he conducted the research described above at a time when its importance was not fully recognized, and produced remarkable results as a pioneer in the field.
He has also made notable contributions as an outstanding educator and has helped pave the way to the establishment of a soundly based technological society. He has played a significant role in organizing IEICE-sponsored international conferences, and encouraged the holding of English-speaking sessions in domestic IEICE conferences, thereby advancing their accessibility to international audiences. These efforts have resulted in many highly trained researchers entering the field. He has also worked on spreading education on engineer ethics both in Japan and abroad.
Within the IEICE, he served as chair of the Technical Committee on Network Systems (1999 - 2000), chair of the Technical Committee on Telecommunication Management (2002 - 2003), editor in chief of IEICE Transactions B (Japanese edition) (2003 - 2004), councilor of the IEICE (2006 - 2007 and 2010 - 2011), director of the Journal and Transactions (2008 - 2009) and president of the Communication Society (2012). In addition, he provided his services as member of the board of trustees of the ITU Association of Japan (2002 - 2011) and as a member of the board of the Japan Accreditation Board for Engineering Education (JABEE ) from 2011. Through these services, he has made a notable contribution to the advancement of science in the field of information communication.
In addition to these achievements, Dr. Tanaka received the Ohkawa Publications Prize in 1994, the Telecom System Technology Award from the Telecommunications Advancement Foundation in 2006, and the Minister of Internal Affairs and Communications Award in 2009. He was made a fellow of the IEICE in 2002.
As the above clearly demonstrates, his contributions to the advancement and globalization of the information communication field, including the activities of the IEICE, are so outstanding that we are convinced that he is well qualified to be the recipient of the Distinguished Achievement and Contributions Award from the IEICE.
