Future communication systems including 6G, faster internet access and cloud computing are all technologies which will be boosted by a £6m investment by EPSRC.
The Electrical Engineering Division is delighted to be playing a part in this EPSRC initiative to support innovation in Future Communications Systems via the TITAN network of networks and the All Spectrum Connectivity Hubs.
Professor Richard Penty
EPSRC has announced the recipients of the £6m fund to develop the communications technologies of tomorrow. Professor Richard Penty, Professor Seb Savory and Dr Michael Crisp in the Electrical Engineering Division will lead these new projects. The aim of these trailblazing platforms is to develop innovations in communications systems, whilst connecting the wider academic, business and international communities.
Jane Nicholson, EPSRC’s Director for Research Base, said: “Digital communications infrastructure underpins the UK’s economy of today and tomorrow and these projects will help support the jobs and industry of the future. Everybody relies on secure and swift networking and EPSRC is committed to backing the research which will advance these technologies.”
Professor Penty and Professor Savory are part of a consortium of 17 universities working on a Network of Networks. This consortium, called TITAN, will be led by Professor Harald Haas, Electronic and Electrical Engineering, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow. All universities and groups involved are leaders in crucial segments of future communication networks. The universities are also supported by four associate partners; the Digital Catapult, the Bristol Digital Futures Institute (BDFI), the Compound Semiconductor Centre (CSC) and the Fraunhofer Centre for Applied Photonics (CAP). TITAN aims to establish an open and productive platform for research collaboration and engagement across a large number of academic and industrial partners supported by a management structure which enables a flexible expansion of the platform if necessary. Together, the partners will conduct unique and highly transformative research on the interfaces of classic communication network elements to achieve the seamless, open and fully integrated network of networks.
Professor Penty and Dr Michael Crisp are also part of a second platform on Wireless and Wired Systems and Spectrum, which is led by Professor Dominic O’Brien, Professor of Engineering Science, University of Oxford. This Hub brings together eight teams from the Universities of Belfast, Bristol, Cambridge, Oxford, Southampton, Strathclyde, Imperial College and UCL, with leading expertise in a wide range of wired and wireless technologies, to address the challenge of providing high-speed, low-latency access to internet services for future fixed and mobile users. The Hub’s objectives are to advance technical capabilities, build a strong engagement between academia, industry and policy makers, and train researchers. Communications systems research is a critical area that underpins the whole future digital society and forms part of a national ambition around world-class communications systems and technology. Sustained investment in future communications systems is a vital step in achieving this ambition.
Professor Penty said: “The Electrical Engineering Division is delighted to be playing a part in this EPSRC initiative to support innovation in Future Communications Systems via the TITAN network of networks and the All Spectrum Connectivity Hubs. Communications, both wired and wireless, underpin all of our lives and it will be very exciting to contribute to how communications networks and the technologies that underpin them, such as 6G and quantum secure communications, will advance in the future.”
A third project within the framework focuses on Cloud and Distributed Computing.
