How can I download IEEE papers for free?

You can download the papers for free if your institute has subscribed to IEEE Digital Library (for which again the Institute has to pay fee to IEEE). Majority of the authors have their papers on their website. $30 is a way to appreciate the hardwork put in by the authors and IEEE to provide you with the latest research.

If you have any friends in a college which has subscription to IEEE Explore, then you can ask them to download it for you and take it from him. For, example I study at NITC and my campus pays the annual subscription fee which is very high and all the students in my college can access the papers in IEEE Explore on campus intranet.

Path 1 : Obtain a half yearly membership for 13.5$ and you may download 3 papers for free using the promotional offer. Path 2 : Use you IEEE membership to get paper at less than half the normal price. Path 3 : Find the paper in Xplore library and search the same title in google.If it is a popular paper , you will find the same from some other site. Path 4 : Find friends from colleges who can help you.Good colleges will most probably have Xplore subscription , you can ask them to download it for you. Path 5 : Find some professional who can help you out, as far as I know Government firms such as CSIR , CDAC etc have Xplore subscriptions.Try findng help from Trainee/Scientists at the place.

The best way to obtain access to an IEEE paper for free would be through the university library. Most of the universities and institutions have an access to the IEEE Xplore Digital Library. You can download the paper from there. If your institution does not have access to IEEE papers, ask your friends whose institutions have access to IEEE papers downloads.

Go to http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/ Select your paper, and see the URL of that page Send a mail to the email id mentioned on the paper. They would be glad to pass the paper to you Go to Google Scholar and search for paper you want. Ask a friend of IITs/NITs where the subscription is free for students is free. Check researchgate website for the paper. Look in http://booksc.org/  if its present then you are lucky.

If you work for a large company or attend a university they should have access to the IEEE Xplore database.  If not, then try ResearchGate.

If you are student of university or institute which have access of IEEE paper, than you can download it directly otherwise no method or you have registered yourself on IEEE site which is too costly. At least you can ask your friend who have such facility in that case he/she will forward you that papers. By the way if it is urgent, you can also send me detail of the papers.  I will send you at your mail id. Do it on personal message.

http://libgen.org/scimag/ This website is the best solution I have found so far. I think it has over 21 million papers so chances of finding the one you are looking for are pretty high. It also hosts a lot of ebooks (1 million I think) on a variety of subjects. It is also afaik highly illegal. Anywho, have fun. Thank me later. Just don't let the feds find out.

The easiest way is to identify someone studying in a college with full access to IEEE Xplore. Most of the NITs and IITs and some good private colleges have full access. You can ask them to download it and send it to you via email.