Honorary Member

  Dr. Kohichi Sakaniwa graduated from the Department of Electronic Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Tokyo Institute of Technology in March 1972. In March 1977 he completed his doctorate at the same university where he became a research associate in the Graduate School of Science and Engineering. Then, in July 1981, he transferred to the Faculty of Engineering to take on a research associate’s role. He was promoted to associate professor in April 1983 and professor in June 1991. When the university shifted its emphasis to its graduate school, he became a professor in the Graduate School of Science and Technology. He retired in March 2014. Currently, as a professor emeritus of the same university, he continues to devote himself to development in the electronics, information and communication fields.
   While at the university, Dr. Sakaniwa spearheaded research in the fields of communication theory, signal theory, signal processing algorithms and error correcting codes, which together constitute the foundation of information communication theory. Thus, he played a central role in the development of science and in the education of young researchers.
   During his doctorate course at Tokyo Institute of Technology, when digitization of communication systems were beginning to be studied, Dr. Sakaniwa undertook research on transversal equalizers, which were important elements in digital communication systems, and he earned his Ph.D. by proposing and establishing a new design method for equalizers. After becoming a faculty member, he began studying signal theory and communication theory, and he produced a number of important research results regarding a new configuration for adaptive equalizers and new equalizing algorithms. He also worked on sampling theory, which is fundamental to digital communication systems. In particular, he pointed out that conventional sampling theory-based signal restoration requires, in principle, an indefinite delay, and he demonstrated a restoration formula that uses only the samples of the past semi-infinite interval that is shorter than the Nyquist interval. This groundbreaking finding has made it possible to handle digital communication systems on a more rigorously theoretical basis and provided a new fund of knowledge for the design of interpolation filters and predictive coding, thereby making a major contribution to the development of this field. In addition, at the time when facsimile communication was beginning to spread, he showed how a facsimile signal that had been distorted due to band limitation could be restored to its original form. Thus, he elucidated the principles for transmission limits and methods for restoring facsimile signals. In 1989, in the capacity of visiting researcher for the Ministry of Education, he worked at Southwestern Louisiana University, where he initiated research on error correcting codes, which is the basic technology supporting information and communication systems. He made significant contributions to establishment and development of this area of research by working on new fields of endeavor in error correcting codes, such as codes on real numbers and the ring of integers, algebraic-geometric codes, and low-density parity check (LDPC) codes.
   As a professor at Tokyo Institute of Technology, he taught more than 180 undergraduate and graduate students, including 28 doctors. Thus, he developed outstanding young researchers who were to shape the future of the electronics, information and communication field. He has also played a key role in communications administration policy and stability of the communications business in Japan by serving on a number of government and industry advisory bodies, including his time as chair of the Telecommunications Dispute Settlement Commission, Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications. He also drove academic activities by taking leadership positions. He was president of the Society of Information Theory and Its Applications. Within the IEICE, he has held important posts, such as president of the Engineering Sciences Society, chair of the Tokyo Section, director of general affairs, and director of publications.
   For the above-mentioned achievements, he has received the Distinguished Achievement and Contributions Award and four Best Paper Awards from the IEICE and was raised to the status of fellow by the institute.
   As mentioned above, his achievements in developing the electronics, information and communication field and his contributions to research education and to society are outstanding, and we hereby recommend that he be designated as a fellow, honorary member of the IEICE.