Communication Networks and Systems

Our research focuses on optical wireless systems, optical transmission systems modelling, quantum communication, fibre-wireless systems, communication system theory, storage area networks, next generation IP networks, WDM networks, wired-wireless networks, telematics and vehicular networks, and energy efficient Internet designs.

In quantum communication, the interest is in single-photon technology: heralded single photons using parametric down-conversion, quantum computation with weak nonlinearities, hot-cavity loading and long-distance quantum communications.  In classical optical communications there is interest in wireless (atmospheric) optical communications and optical CDMA systems.  In communication system theory our interests are in the area of wireless broadband communications, with emphasis on improving both bandwidth and power efficiency of the overall system.  This includes research in forward error correction coding, space-time coding, spatial multiplexing, novel modulation techniques, multicarrier transmission, multi-user systems, and synchronization and channel estimation techniques for future wireless communication systems.

We have world-leading expertise in communication networks.  The Intelligent Airport (TINA) project introduced a new intelligent, adaptive, self-organising wired/wireless networked infrastructure with our results now being used by BAA, Hong Kong International Airport, Motorola and others.  Within the Heterogeneous IP Networks (HIPNet) project, data traffic from telematics motorway users was modelled, resulting in the first accurate statistical models for telematics traffic, now in use by Ericsson.  New content and media storage and retrieval networking concepts were developed, key to future digital services.  The associated architectures and traffic were studied in EPSRC/TSB Integrated Storage Area Networks (INSTANT) project.  The resultant new telematics, storage and media (in particular video) traffic models formed the basis for end-to-end quality-of-service studies and design within HIPNet.

New broadband last mile solutions were studied in the EU Radio-fibre Enabled Access Highway (REACH) project, and further extended in HIPNet paying particular attention to access traffic, its aggregation, statistics and the impact of growing digital end-user services on current and future access networks and core networks.

Collaborative ad-hoc and sensor networks were studied in the EPSRC Village e-Science for Life (VeSeL) project in a user centred, user driven design context.

Grid enabled services were examined in the EU Lambda user controlled infrastructure for European research (PHOSPHOROUS) paying special attention to secure services, authorisation and authentication and on demand high bandwidth services such as medical imaging.

Speech excited in-service non-intrusive measurement devices (INMD) for telecommunication network quality-of-service assessment, and a call clarity index was defined and subsequently adopted by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) as the standard.

A number of world-first contributions to optical wireless systems have been made, including a system with a world record 38 photons per information bit sensitivity demonstrated.  This was independently selected and practically demonstrated by NASA for inter-satellite and deep space communications.

The group has recently received a £5.9M EPSRC programme grant to investigate energy efficiency in the wired and wireless networks that form the Internet.  The work seeks to establish the current limits on ICT performance due to known environmental concerns and then develop new ICT techniques to provide enhanced performance.

Over the past five years we have secured total funding of over £10M from EPSRC, TSB, EU and industry.  A number of projects were carried out in collaboration with Ericsson, BT, Agilent Technologies, Motorola, O2, Freescale, Xyratex, Boeing, Laing O’Rourke, BAA, RedM, Arteysan, ALPS, Solarflare, Broadcom, Cisco, BBC, Oclaro and Avago.

Academic staff
Professor J Elmirghani
Dr M Razavi
Dr L X Zhang
+ New Communication Networks Lecturer tba 2011