Dr. Kiyohiko Itoh graduated from the Department of Electrical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Hokkaido University in 1963, and completed his master’s degree in the Graduate School of Engineering of the same university in 1965. In April of that year, he became a lecturer in the Faculty of Engineering, Hokkaido University, an associate professor in 1966, and a professor in April 1979 in the same faculty. When the university shifted its emphasis to its graduate school, Dr. Itoh became a professor of the Graduate School of Engineering. In April 2001, he was appointed as president of the National Institute of Technology, Tomakomai College. He retired from the college in March 2008. He is a professor emeritus of Hokkaido University and National Institute of Technology, Tomakomai College.Dr. Itoh drove research on antenna engineering, and recorded the following major achievements in research on slot, thin planar, and patch antennas.
First, he propelled study on slot antennas, something with a long tradition at Hokkaido University, and explored new applications for them. He invented an energy density antenna, which achieves electromagnetic diversity by making a slot antenna and a monopole cross each other, and showed how this antenna could reduce fading in mobile communication in urban areas. Next, he created a multi-element slot array antenna by placing many slot antennas on the surface of a printed circuit board and exciting the antennas through strip lines laid out on the rear of the board. This was the world’s first thin planar antenna capable of receiving radio signals broadcast from a satellite.
He then invented an efficient, thin compact planar antenna using an electromagnetic loop, thereby showing how easy it was to implement polarization diversity. This research result became the basis of a commercial product, a card-sized antenna for pagers. More than 2.7 million products containing this antenna have been manufactured.
In addition, he invented a rectangular patch antenna using electromagnetic coupled excitation from micro-strip lines. He thus became the first researcher to show that it is easy to control electromagnetic polarization electronically. It opened a new pathway to producing a polarimetric radar, which is expected to be applicable to remote sensing.
He also showed that by using a circular patch antenna as a microwave power transmission antenna (rectifying antenna), it is possible to suppress the reradiation of the harmonic components emitted by a rectifier.
For these achievements, he received the Yonezawa Memorial Young Investigators Award, the Achievement Award, the Distinguished Achievement and Contributions Award and the Communication Society Best Paper Award from the IEICE. He has also elevated to fellowship status by the IEICE and the IEEE.
Dr. Itoh has also contributed to the development of IEICE activities by serving as a councilor, chair of the Technical Committee on Antenna and Propagation, and president of the Communications Society. By serving as chair of the organizing and steering committee of an international symposium on antennas and propagation, he has also made a significant contribution to advancing international research on antenna engineering and radio propagation.
In his capacity as a faculty member of a university, a role he has occupied for a long time, he strove to educate many gifted students in the fields of electronics, information and communication. He also held the posts of councilor at Hokkaido University, director of the Center for Information and Multimedia Studies at the same university, and president of a technical college. He was also a member of the Thesis Review Committee of the National Institute for Academic Degrees. For these major contributions to education, he received the Order of the Sacred Treasure, Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon in 2015.
As mentioned above, his contributions to the development of the IEICE and of the electronics, information and communication fields are outstanding, and we recommend that he be designated as a fellow, honorary member of the IEICE.
