Prof. Yoshiaki Tanaka received a degree of Doctor of Engineering from the University of Tokyo in 1979, and became a lecturer at the same university in the same year. He became an associate professor at the same university in 1984. Since 1996, he has been a professor at Waseda University. He also served as a guest professor of Lund University, Sweden, a special researcher of Institute for Posts and Telecommunications Policy, a visiting researcher of Bank of Japan, and a visiting professor of National Institute of Informatics.He has been engaged in research on a variety of issues in the field of telecommunication engineering. In particular, he has made outstanding achievements in coded modulation, cryptography applied services, multicast communication, QoE (Quality of Experience), and pricing.
There is an intensively studied scientific field called coded modulation. Prof. Tanaka began conducting research in this field 45 years ago, and he was the first to propose this modulation scheme, which was received with amazement, because it broke through the limit of modulation performance. Today, coded modulation is widely used in wireless communication.
To create new services for telecommunication networks, Prof. Tanaka studied many services that make use of cryptography. One of his research results has been applied to the one-stop administrative service provided at post offices. He was a trailblazer, because there was virtually no study on cryptography applied services 35 years ago when he began his research. In the same year, he also led the way in initiating research on multicast communication. His research results are used in today’s IP multicast communication. In particular, the multicast teletraffic theory that he established plays an important role in research in this field.
Prof. Tanaka began studying QoE (Quality of Experience) and pricing 20 years ago, and is still busily producing results. While QoS (Quality of Service) has been commonly used to represent network quality, QoE is gaining in importance. QoE represents user satisfaction. Users pay money to get satisfaction. Using this relationship, he has linked network engineering and economics, and has conceived a number of new theories and services. He was the first to investigate this research field, which is still active today.
He has contributed significantly to development of the IEICE by serving as chair of Technical Committee on Network Systems (1999－2000), chair of Technical Committee on Telecommunication Management (2002－2003), editor-in-chief of IEICE Transactions B (Japanese edition) (2003－2004), councilor of the IEICE (2006 and 2010), director of Journal and Transactions (2008－2009), and president of Communications Society (2012). In addition, he provided his services as an expert member of the Information and Communications Council, a chair of the Editorial Committee, the ITU Association of Japan, and a director of JABEE (Japan Accreditation Board for Engineering Education). Through these services, he has made numerous contributions to society at large.
For 30 years, he has organized annual IEICE-sponsored international conferences. And, over the last 15 years, he has held English-speaking sessions within domestic IEICE conferences, putting participants in a situation whereby they spend four days speaking English only. Thus, he has contributed to globalization of the IEICE. These efforts have resulted in many highly trained researchers entering the field and many foreign students becoming active in their home countries. Through these activities, Prof. Tanaka has made notable contributions as an educator. He has also worked on spreading education on engineering ethics, both in Japan and overseas, thereby contributing to the development of a healthy "technological society."
For these achievements, he has received numerous awards, including the Best Paper Award, the Achievement Award, and the Distinguished Achievement and Contributions Award from the IEICE, the Okawa Publication Prize, and the Commendation by Minister of Internal Affairs and Communications.
As the above clearly demonstrates, his contributions to the advancement and globalization of the telecommunication field are so outstanding that we firmly believe that he is well qualified to become a fellow, the honorary member of the IEICE.
