# IEEE Sensors Council

The IEEE Sensors Council is one of seven technical councils of the IEEE and is focused on sensors, transducers and integrated sensor-actuators.
26 of 39 IEEE Societies are member societies of this council. Each society is represented in the Administrative Committee (AdCom) of the council through its appointed representative. This is mainly due to the highly-multidisciplinary of its aim, which is so broad based and depth in scope. The combined membership of the 26 member societies is over 260,000.
The purpose of the IEEE Sensors Council is to advance and coordinate work in the field of sensors carried out throughout the IEEE. The nature of the council's activities is exclusively scientific and educational. The fields of interest of the council and its activities are in the theory, design, fabrication, manufacturing and application of devices for sensing and transducing physical, chemical, and biological phenomena, with emphasis on the electronics, physics and reliability aspects of sensors and integrated sensor-actuators.

## History

The IEEE Sensors Council was founded in 1999 upon a proposal by John Vig (who later became IEEE President) and a near unanimous vote of the IEEE Technical Activities Board. Prior to 1999, IEEE had many sensor activities throughout its 39 societies but these had no focus, such as a journal or conference. Among the first acts of the council's governing body were the election of John Vig as the founding president, the creation of the IEEE Sensors Journal, which published its first issue in 2001, and the creation of the IEEE SENSORS conference. The first conference was held in 2002 in Orlando, Florida, USA. It attracted 557 paid registrants.

## Governance

The IEEE Sensors Council is run by an Administrative Committee (AdCom) comprising elected officers and members at large, council-appointed officers, representatives and editors, as well as representatives appointed by each of the 26 member societies. Besides the President, which serves four sequential two-year terms as President-Elect, President, Past-President, and Senior Past President, most positions allow re-election for two consecutive two-year terms. The Council officers meet monthly and the full Administrative Committee meets twice each year to conduct business such as review and revise operations to maximize the impact of activities, make decisions about investments of funds into new initiatives, perform strategic planning, decide on conference venues, and hold elections. The council maintains standing committees on awards, conferences, publications, publicity, Women in Sensors (WiSe), Young Professionals (YP), standards, and industry liaisons that are chaired by officers or appointed delegates.

## Conferences and Technical Meetings

The IEEE SENSORS conference is the flagship conference of the IEEE Sensors Council. It attracts typically between 600 - 900 delegates, and its venue rotates annually between the Americas, Europe/Africa/Middle East, and Asia/Pacific on a three-year cycle. All aspects of sensors and sensor systems including discrete and distributed sensors, sensor communication and IoT, sensor signal/data processing and novel sensor applications are covered by the conference. The conference includes live- demonstrations and an exhibition running in parallel.
Another well-established conference of the Sensors Council is IEEE INERTIAL (since 2013), the International Symposium on Inertial Sensors and Systems. This event focuses on the latest research, development, and commercialization results in modern inertial sensor technology. The conference covers the latest in new physical principles, innovative sensor designs, materials, microfabrication and manufacturing, systems and electronics, packaging and applications. The next conference in the Sensors Council's conference portfolio is IEEE FLEPS (since 2019), the International Conference on Flexible, Printable Sensors and Systems. The conference covers flexible and printable materials technologies for sensors and support electronics, sensor devices and systems produced from the flexible/printable materials and their applications. IEEE INERTIAL and IEEE FLEPS are also held annually. All papers presented at IEEE SENSORS, IEEE INERTIAL and IEEE FLEPS are printed in a Conference Proceedings and are also available for download from IEEE Xplore.

## Publications

The Sensors Council publishes two fully-sponsored journals:
* IEEE Sensors Journal - Started in 2001, a fully-digital publication with 1600+ papers annually, and a median time to e-publication of 6.2 weeks.
* IEEE Sensors Letters - Started in 2017, a rapid-disclosure, length-limited, online publication addresses sensor technologies and applications across all member society disciplines, with a median time to e-publication of 4.8 weeks
The Sensors Council also co-sponsors several other journals:
* IEEE Journal of Flexible Electronics (J-FLEX)
* IEEE Internet of Things Journal (IoT-J)
* IEEE Journal on Miniaturization for Air and Space Systems (J-MASS)
* IEEE IEEE Journal of Electromagnetics, RF and Microwaves in Medicine and Biology (J-ERM)
* IEEE Transactions on Big Data
* IEEE Transactions on Games

## Technical Activities

IEEE Sensors Council has been engaged in providing knowledge to the sensors community, practitioners, researchers, users, academicians and policymakers in sensors and sensing systems areas. The following activities are aimed at continuing professional education for practitioners and engineering faculty and senior students
* Educational Activities: Seasonal schools, distinguished lecturers, STEM initiatives
* Sensors Council Chapters: 30+ chapters and 20+ student branch chapters on all continents, except Antarctica
* YouTube Channel: Plenary talks, tutorials, invited talks, demos and lecture presentations of the council's conference portfolio

## Other Activities

* Women in Sensors: promoting gender diversity and the role of women in sensors
* Young Professionals: developing future technical leaders
* Standards