Truly ubiquitous wireless communications are often described as the next telecom frontier. As such, in-building environments have received much attention for this purpose but other peculiar environments present significant opportunities and specific niche vertical markets for the wireless industry. The mining and confined industry is one such market with a huge worldwide presence and impact. Wireless technology can be a major lever to improve the industry’s competitive edge in developed countries and to enhance operational safety in emerging economies.
The second International Conference on Wireless Communication in Underground and Confined Areas will be held in Val-d’Or, Canada, August 25-27 2008. ICWCUCA is to be a forum for academic researchers, professionals and industrial specialists that are interested in or have realized original research, innovative applications, or field trials related to telecommunications in a confined area (basement, vehicle) or an underground environment (e.g. underground city, tunnels, subway, mine, shelter). Admissible topics include but are not limited to the following.
 Antennas & Propagation : Channel Modeling, Smart Antennas, Prediction Tools
 Access & Transmission: Channel Allocation, Medium Access Control, Modulation, Coding, MIMO Systems
 Networks: Ad-Hoc Networks, Wireless Local Area Networks, Mesh Networks, Network Planning And Deployment, Architecture, Protocols, Handover, Roaming, QoS
 Performance Measurements
 Wireless Location : Algorithms, Simulation, Implementations
 Automation : Autonomous Vehicles, Telemetry, Remote Control
 Inter/Intra-Vehicle Wireless Communication, Location Techniques, Obstacle Detection, Target tracking, Collision Avoidance
 Wireless Intra-body Networking

1) Industrial Wireless Application for Confined Areas
A mine is a very harsh industrial environment. But not all industrial confined environments are mines or as a matter of fact not all Confined Areas are industrial. Mining industry representatives, users, workers or the managers and decision makers will come to expose their needs, their problems, their expectations on the applications required for more efficient operation of their facilities.
2) Wireless Technologies for Confined Areas
This second workshop’s objective is to widen the scope of the debate on Confined Areas. To establish common ground, the state of the art on wireless telecommunications in confined areas, will be discussed (VHF, UHF, ultra high frequencies, Wi-Fi, UWB, ad hoc networks, communications at very low frequencies). A prospective approach will be used to identify expectations and needs with respect to possible solutions.

Industry sessions and an exhibit are also scheduled.
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
A short (150 words) and long abstract (up to two pages) are to be written in English, and submitted simultaneously as PDF documents only. Each page must be formatted using single-column, single spacing, standard 10-point fonts (Times, Times New Roman, Courier and Symbol), one inch margins (2.5 cm) on each side of the page, using US Letter format.
Submissions must be sent using the web site www.icwcuca.ca . Please include the name, complete mailing address, telephone number, fax number and the email of the author who is in charge of the submission.
Upon acceptance, a five page full-paper will be required. Author instructions for full-paper submission will be sent with notification of acceptance.