Professor Kato graduated from the Department of Electrical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Kitami Institute of Technology in March 1972, completed the doctoral course in Electrical and Communication Engineering, Graduate School of Engineering, Tohoku University in March 1977, and joined the Electrical Communications Laboratories, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Public Corporation in the same year, engaging in research and development on satellite communications and PHS communications before retiring in 1995. Then, he started businesses in Japan and the United States, and served as Vice President and President, and he became a Program Director of the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology in 2006, and a professor at the Research Institute of Electrical Communication, Tohoku University in 2008 and an emeritus professor at Tohoku University in 2015, and is still committed to the development of technologies for electronic information communications.In the early 1980s, he developed a world’s first method that directly converts ASIC development data into FPGA design data and minimizes reworking, and as a result, rework-free (rework rate: 0/39 types) was practiced against 2.5 times, the average number of rework times in the world, and this became a precursor to the ASIC development method still used today. Using this development method, he succeeded in developing six types of general-purpose Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) ASICs that can be applied to various TDMA equipment for satellite communications, and succeeded in reducing the hardware to about 1/5 of conventional ones and in highly stable operations, and these have opened the way to the application of satellite TDMA communication systems to domestic communication networks. In addition, he succeeded in developing the world's first 2V PHS baseband ASIC as a commercial ASIC, successfully reduced the power consumption to 1/2, and in this field, with the inventions of a world's first synchronous detection and noise removal method for digital speech errors, he succeeded in developing an ASIC and mobile terminal with a total of 6 dB better receiver sensitivity than other companies' products (As of 1994), and contributed to the development of the PHS business by providing these technologies to many companies.
In order to create an IEEE standard from technologies born in Japan, a consortium was established in 2006 with 21 institutions (Japanese institutes: 20), and in addition, with the participation of overseas organizations, he managed a total of 39 international institutions and in 2009 the first millimeter-wave (60 GHz) standardization was completed by a Japanese institution’s lead from start to finish. In this process, the proposed “common mode” was successful and highly evaluated in avoiding the conflict between two camps that frequently occurred and delayed the process in IEEE standardization, and was adopted in many subsequent standardizations, and standardization work was speeded up. Furthermore, this success has greatly improved the status of Japanese institutions in IEEE standardization and has become a major foundation for subsequent IEEE standardizations led by Japanese institutions.
In academic activities, he contributed to the construction of an electronic paper submission system, halving the cost of paper submissions (as of 1995) as the Director of Editorial and Publishing Affairs of the IEICE and established a Technical Committee on short-range wireless communications centering on wireless LAN/PAN (2011), etc.. Internationally, he was an associate editor of the IEEE COMSOC journal, chairman of the Satellite and Space Communications Committee, Vice Chair of 802.15.3c Standardization Committee of the IEEE Computer Society, etc., and in 1991 he established PIMRC, the international conference on wireless communications, as a co-founder, and through raising it to the top of the world in terms of both the quality of the paper and the number of participants, he contributed to the promotion of global research and development on wireless communications. For these contributions, he has received the Best Paper Award from the IEICE, the “Satellite Communications Distinguished Service Award” from the IEEE, the “Standard Association Award” (Three times including on millimeter wave communication) from the IEEE, and the Best Paper Award from the ITU standardization division, etc.. In addition, the title of Fellow has been awarded by the IEICE and the IEEE.
As mentioned above, he has an important responsibility in the IEICE and international academic societies, companies and universities, and through his various activities, he has made extremely remarkable contributions to operations of the IEICE, the development of science and technologies in the field of electronic information and communications, fostering younger generations, and the revitalization of Japan, and we are convinced that he is truly worthy of receiving the IEICE's Distinguished Achievement and Contributions Award.
