Preface of the XXXI Conference on Electrical and Electronic Engineering ^†

The XXXI Electrical and Electronic Engineering Conference (XXXI JIEE-2023) is an annual event organized by the Faculty of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at the Escuela Politécnica Nacional, Quito, Ecuador. This conference brings together students, professors, researchers, and professionals with the aim of disseminating their graduation projects, curricular integration initiatives, research project advancements, and engagement activities, as well as presenting academic papers.

The JIEE serves as an opportunity to promote the exchange of knowledge and experience in various fields of expertise, establish professional connections, stay updated on the latest technologies, and acquire skills to tackle the challenges presented by industry.

With more than 180 participants, the XXXI JIEE 2023 included 6 international keynote speakers, 24 oral session talks on technical papers, and 21 oral session talks on student works.

The following six tutorials were provided at the XXXI JIEE 2023:

• Mariano Baquero Escudero (Universidad Politécnica de Cataluña, Spain)—“Reconfigurable antennas for broadband communications at millimeter frequencies”.
• Luigi Vanfretti (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), USA)—“Using Probing Input Signals for Enhanced Power Grid Monitoring and Control”.
• Jorge Sá Silva (University of Coimbra, Portugal)—“Why do we need Humans in the Future Internet?”
• Marcelo Molina (University of San Juan (UNSJ) and researcher on the National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET), Argentina)—“Energy storage technologies and their decisive role in accelerating the Energy Transition”.
• Sean Charles Warnick (Brigham Young University, USA)—“IDeA Labs: An Educational Model Interweaving Computational Thinking Throughout the University”.
• Boris Bellalta (Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Spain)—“Next-generation Wi-Fi networks: From Extremely High Throughput to Ultra High Reliability”.

The XXXI JIEE-2023 was a space for collaboration between the academic community and the energy, telecommunications, and automation sectors in which the EPN showed the technological advances and challenges that the community tackled in several research and final degree projects relating to telecommunications, electronics, information technologies and electrical engineering. Among the main topics addressed in the conference were (i) smart grids, (ii) the modeling and simulation of power systems, (iii) the deployment of novel technologies for planning and operating power systems, (iv) renewable energy and storage, (v) automation, (vi) robotics, (vii) power electronics, (viii) control, (ix) radiofrequency material characterization, (x) signal processing in radar applications and (xi) 5G network performance evaluations.

The XXXI JIEE-2023 aimed to contribute to the sustainable development of the Ecuadorian energy, telecommunications, and production sectors, including the electricity sector in its generation, transmission, and distribution stages and the control, automation, and security of essential infrastructure in the country’s production. In this sense, the XXXI JIEE-2023 provided space to disseminate national and international research and development aimed at guaranteeing the future availability of energy and telecommunications services and improving the production chain in the country while promoting a lower impact on the environment.

In submitting conference proceedings to Engineering Proceedings, the volume editors of the proceedings certified to the publisher that all papers published in this volume have been subjected to a peer review administered by the volume editors. Reviews were conducted by expert referees to the professional and scientific standards expected of a proceedings journal.

• Types of peer review: single-blind; double-blind; triple-blind; open; and other (please describe): single-blind.
• Conference submission management system: SuSy (https://susy.mdpi.com/user/myprofile).
• Number of submissions sent for review: 29.
• Number of submissions accepted: 24.
• Acceptance rate (number of submissions accepted/number of submissions received): 82.75%.
• Average number of reviews per paper: 1.
• Total number of reviewers involved: 34.
• Any additional information on the review process is provided below.

Peer-review process and regulations: The review process was conducted in a single-blind manner, with the entire procedure administered through the MDPI platform. Evaluations were performed by reviewers from various universities and countries. Based on their feedback, revisions were made to each article, encompassing thorough examinations of the structure, content and writing.