For me visiting my Industrial Attachment students is an interesting experience.  Many of my students are working on or in my area of research.  It gives me the opportunity to find what is actually happening in many areas of my industrial interest.  I am lucky in that I can make the arrangements for most of my IA programmes.

My past IA students have worked on specific topics of research of mutual interest to me and the sponsoring organisations – like SingTel, Meteorological Service, DSO and DMO.  For example, over the years IA students attached to the Earth Station at Bukit Timah or Sentosa have been helping with the joint research programme we had on the effects of rain on satellite communications.  A close working relationship has been built up with these organisations.

I draw up programmes with organisations on topics of special interest.  I have supervised IA programmes with SingTel Mobile and MobileOne.  I have also been supervising projects with TAS on radio frequency spectrum management and related areas.  All parties gain in the process, I am not only able to make suggestions to the students and to the organisations but I am also able to keep in touch with current developments in the field.  I have taken on other telecommunications projects proposed by TAS.

More recently I have been able to arrange overseas IA programme.  Past contacts with ITU-R participants and renewal of such contacts at overseas conference paid off.  A joint R&D project on, “The Precipitation Remote Sensing and Propagation Studies in the Tropics”, was proposed by the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL) in UK.  During the discussions I suggested that we send IA students to RAL.  Miss Ong Shwu Fong was the first NTU student attached to RAL.  Thanks to the support given by our School, I was able to visit Shwn Fong during her attachment programme, after attending a conference in Edinburgh in 1997.

During the same visit it was suggested that I should visit our other IA students attached to various organisations in Glasgow.  For many years Dr Siew W H from the University of Strathclyde has been arranging placements for our students in UK.  Dr Siew was a staff at NTU many years ago.  After talking to the various organisations’ supervisors, I found that they were extremely happy with our IA students’ performance.

Word got round in this small close-knit community.  Dr Thurai who was supervising Shwu Fong at RAL then, contacted me to say that our colleague from British Telecom Laboratory (BTL) would like to take on IA students from NTU.  So this year we have two placements one at RAL and the other at BTL.  This year I was again able to visit our students, Chow Kok Peng and Kelvin Goh, towards the end of their placement at RAL.  Unfortunately I was not able to visit Lee Hwee Hoon and Soh Siow Meng at BTL; they had gone off for their well earned holiday in Europe.  Interestingly, while Hwee Hoon and Siow Meng were working on reviewing ITU methods and procedures fir computing interference levels for satellite co-ordination distances at BTL, Lim Shien Min in Singapore was using the same ITU recommendations for his project at TAS.