Posters Galore: 'A Statistical Framework for the UK’s Mobile Network'

Dave Townend
University of Essex

A key challenge in researching new wireless cellular technologies and architectures is accurate modelling of their impact on a large scale network. The following research aims to provide a statistical framework to characterise a real national mobile network such that the researcher community can develop representative models and simulations to evaluate new wireless technologies.

Current industry guidelines relevant to modelling of wireless systems and their deployments, including those defined by standards bodies such as ITU and 3GPP, are often over simplified and based on generalisation of the network environment and topology.

This research details statistical deployment characteristics of mobile base station sites and their associated geographic environment based on a highly detailed 3D topology model of large areas of the UK. High resolution LIDAR (Light Detecting and Ranging) data and cell mast properties are utilised to generate statistical descriptions of urban, suburban and rural cell site types and distributions of the building and ‘clutter’ properties that can be found within each cell type’s wireless coverage area

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Posters Galore: 'Wideband RF Over Fibre/IP'

Matthew Evans
University of Essex, Aber Electronics

The outside broadcast industry is built upon the successful transmission and reception of data modulated onto RF signals. Technological advancements have not been experienced in the same way as in other industries; solutions simply rehash old ideas. Some applications have moved towards the use of optical fibre transmission mediums for RF signals bolted onto existing installations; this project was targeted towards a new integrated adaptable solution.

The project was a Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) collaboration between ABER Electronics Ltd. and the University of Essex; partially funded by Innovate UK.

The first stage of the project was to design and develop a highly versatile downconverter, integrated with an improved custom antenna design and an existing radio-over-fibre (RoF) transmitter. The RoF transmitter (and subsequently receiver) are existing products on the market so a key partnership was setup to allow for easier integration and support of the system. The second stage of the project was to develop a high bandwidth bi-directional RF over IP system using a software defined radio (SDR) module. The third, and final, stage was to redesign the existing range of power amplifiers offered by the host company; to significantly improve their operating efficiencies.
This has since morphed into a full-blown PhD research project with exciting ideas and developments being explored. Future work is to be focussed around the completion of the green amplifiers research PhD as well as developing a fully end-to-end solution for the outside broadcast industry with one eye on advancements made in the 5G research area.

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Thought Leadership Event: Russell Beck of ImagineThinkDo on 'The Future of Work'

Thought Leadership Event
Speaker: Russell Beck, ImagineThinkDo
Title: The Future of Work

Russell Beck, ImagineThinkDo, recently presented our latest Applied Research & Tommy Flowers Network thought leadership event.

Focusing on “The Future of Work”, Russell took us on a journey exploring global megatrends playing out in the world and what that means to people. The important question, so what? what do these trends mean to work and our future lives as employees?

Russell covered seven points:  Work Nomads; Technology; Women; Future Skills; Be the Best, Brand and Networking.

What really came across was how to build your strengths and skills; building your own personal brand and how important networking is.

Russel was one of our speakers at the conference on 'Creating Value for Economies: Collaborate - Innovate - Educate', which we had to cancel due to the COVID-19 crisis. Please have a look at his speaker profile for more information about him and his company.

Posters Galore: 'Smarter Suffolk: sensors and data for public services'

Dr Hannah Steventon and Prof Nicholas Caldwell
University of Suffolk

As climate change necessitates energy reduction and public funds are stretched, increasingly affordable Internet of Things (IoT) sensors and cutting-edge Low Power Wide Area Networks, are changing how Suffolk delivers public services. Dr Hannah Steventon and Professor Nicholas Caldwell, from University of Suffolk, describe how the University is working with Suffolk County Council (SCC) by trialling hundreds of IoT sensors and connecting them via a new Suffolk-wide LoRa network.  The aim, to improve targeting of street lighting, winter gritting, and drainage cleaning. 

 

Showcase trials at the new UoS DigiTech centre at Adastral Park are comparing sensors across price-points - from manufacturers based in East Anglia and further afield - measuring road surface temperature, ambient lighting levels, air quality and gully operation.

 

Two case studies focus on Street Lights in Suffolk and Gritting Suffolk roads. 

• Sixty-five thousand street lights in Suffolk have an energy cost of 2.6 million each year, with associated environmental impact. SCC is continuing its leading role in energy-saving adaptive street lighting with real-time dimming of lighting on arterial routes, based on traffic-counts and ambient light levels. UoS data analysis of traffic use data, from radar around Ipswich, is increasing the understanding of road usage patterns and identification of unusual road use. 
• Gritting over two thousand miles of Suffolk roads is a major operation each county-wide gritting action. Measurement of road surface temperature at closer intervals could enable targeted gritting. IoT road surface temperature sensors from three manufacturers are being benchmarked and their results compared for veracity and reliability of temperature data. Evaluating sensors and analysing data inform meaningful cost-benefit decisions and implementation plans, therefore enabling SCC to deliver a Smarter Suffolk.

Hannah would be delighted for further discussion, comments and questions at h.steventon@uos.ac.uk

 

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Posters Galore: 'Do You Know The Impact of Your Software Choices?'

Frank Carver, PhD researcher at the University of Suffolk

"We have an insatiable appetite for software; more apps; more web and more data”, says Frank Carver, PhD researcher from the University of Suffolk. “Did you know that the ICT industry could use 20% of all electricity and emit up to 5.5% of the world’s carbon emissions by 2025? And that templates represent 40-50% of the total bytes on the web – growing at a rate of approximately 6% per year?”

Frank’s PhD research aims to find ways for software developers, architects and managers to make smarter choices about the long-term global impact of their work.

An initial feasibility study investigated the range of differences between solutions to a common problem: generating web pages from templates. A representative sample of libraries were put through a series of capability and performance test scenarios; results were analysed and compared and tests run multiple times under different loads.

The most significant finding to arise from the work so far is the surprising variety in capabilities and performance between apparently similar software libraries. For example, for some common operations, there was a 10,000 times difference between the best and the worst performers.

You can view Frank’s poster content here and read about the future research he has planned for the study and how you can get involved.

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Keep your eyes peeled: Posters Galore for real

Following the cancellation of our conference we put our thinking hats on, of how we can get through those difficult times and making use of the fantastic Poster contributions we received.

The end game is: We will give the conference 'Creating Value for Economies: Collaborate - Innovate - Educate' another go in March 21. Most of our speakers have already committed their support, and with another year of planning - this conference will be unbeatable!

We will organise - let's hope it's going to happen - another conference in October tis year, on a hard core subject: 'Let's get Physical'. We'll leave you with this thought for now!

In the meantime it's Posters Galore!

The list of posters in our respective conference post from beginning of March is 20 long, and we plan to feature them here throughout the year. This is what Tommy Flowers Network is about: Connecting young researchers with their top level research to the world - in real life and virtually!

So, if you are not on this list, but would like to publish here on our blog - whether it's a whitepaper, poster, or a do a Thought Leadership event - please fill in this Formwize.

CANCELLED - Conference on 'Creating Value for Economies'

Cancelled

As the situation around Covid-19 (Coronavirus) continues to develop, BT is stepping up precautionary safety measures to keep everyone safe. With that in mind, we’re letting you know that unfortunately we have taken the decision to cancel the Tommy Flowers Network Conference on 24-25th March.

Apologies for any inconvenience the cancellation has caused. We are thinking about running the conference as virtual conference in W/C 22nd March 2021.

Additionally we had fantastic Postgraduate poster contributions which we published here under the title 'Posters Galore'

Please look out for more information in the coming weeks about future conferences and thought leadership events.