The first Plenary Meeting 2009 of the IEEE 802 Standardisation Organisation was held recently in Vancouver, Canada recently. Dr. Shen Jie and Dr. Huang Heqing from Division 4, SIMIT attended the meeting. SIMIT has submitted the standard proposal for EGTS (Enhanced Guaranteed Time Slot) to IEEE802.15.4e Team in May 2008, and formed the EGTS allied standard proposal together with CUNY, ETRI, Huawei, Samsung, Arch Rock and other well-known companies and research institutes inside and outside China in September 2008. The main competitors of this allied standard proposal are DUST NETWORK, Freescale and Siemens, etc. After nearly four days of heated discussion, our EGTS allied standard proposal has acquired advantages by passing the expert voting and proceeding to the IEEE802.15.4e standard text editing stage. The meeting has successfully ensured the inclusion of the proposal with SIMIT as the main author in IEEE802 standard.

This symbolizes that China has significantly improved its international position andinfluence in IT industry, in particular the sensor network related areas. It also shows that SIMITR&D abilities and innovation activities in the sensor network and communication area has been greatly improved.

During the meeting, SIMIT delegates communicated with many delegates from well-known international organisations, who all showed their concerns about the development and market of the wireless sensor network technology in China. Some companies also expressed their intentions of close cooperation. Dr. Bob Heile, Chairman of IEEE15.4 and Zigbee Alliance, will be on invitation to visit our Institute in May.

Wireless Sensor Network is a great historical opportunity for China to acquire the power of saying in the information technology industry in the world. By fully utilising our technology and market advantages in this field and allying with domestic dominant organisations to participate proactively in the prescription of the international standard related to the sensor network, it will lay an important ground for China to take advanced position in the new sensor network field, and promote the mass production of sensor network. The international standardisation of the sensor network is a long and hard work, with opportunities here today and gone tomorrow. It requires the persistent hard-work of all researchers in the long run to take an advanced position in the industry.