CHEDDAR: Communications Hub For Empowering Distributed ClouD Computing Applications And Research
Lead Research Organisation:
Imperial College London
Department Name: Computing
Abstract
From our mobile phones, to large datacentres to the thousands of sensors in our cars, hospitals, and electrical grids, there is no denying the influence that modern computing has. The glue that underpins all these systems is the communications networks. Much like how our railways and roads connect where we live and underpin the prosperity of a country so too do our communications infrastructure, but perhaps even more so as we live in an increasingly digital age.
We are currently at the intersection of two major drivers for changing the way we design and use communication networks: (1) rapid revolutions bring about a new continuum of computing types (e.g., ranging from silicon-based edge to cloud compute, to quantum, neuromorphic, molecular computing, etc.) - offering unprecedented speed, parallelism, and miniaturization; and (2) increased use of autonomy across society and industry which is changing our expectations of a network and the way we articulate the ability of our networks to serve us. In short, traditional communication systems are now a step behind where they need to be to fully unleash the potential of emerging cloud and distributed computing. Not only that, without the joint up thinking between those who research the fundamental parts of a communications network; the signal processing, spectrum utilisation and network interoperability people etc. and those who research the next generation autonomy and computation, we are simply not able to build agile fit-for-purpose communications infrastructures to catch up.
The CHEDDAR: Communications Hub for Empowering Distributed clouD computing Applications and Research lies on this interface between communications fundamentals and an infrastructure that serves our many communities. Bringing together a spectrum of experts not only in communications but across quantum, neuro-symbolic AI, autonomy etc who have worked in application areas from Farms to Space via Smart Cities, and who understand security and privacy, CHEDDAR aims to build a community that will provide the step change in research and be agile to address new opportunities as they arise.
CHEDDAR also aims to take a different and inclusive approach to this research which includes clear opportunities for community engagement and dialogue across the UK, and in researcher development providing both technical and soft-skills round inclusivity and responsible research. With a particular focus on security/privacy and sustainability and resilience this Hub aims to accelerate the national scale innovation process in connected computing research and make UK a lighthouse globally.
This is necessary as the UK has demonstrated its ability to be world leading in topics such as AI, Autonomy etc., but many EPSRC and UKRI funded advances are set to unleash their £Bn's of potential on the economy - it requires new communication interfaces to connect them and unleash these benefits, whilst mitigating the new risks that emerge. We aim to develop the pathways to enabling new communication network design and innovation, through connections with the other 2 hubs, with centres of doctoral training and innovation knowledge centres, institutes, government and standards bodies etc. and identify mechanisms for joint capability and facility sharing and cross-fertilize the co-design of connected computing capabilities.
We are currently at the intersection of two major drivers for changing the way we design and use communication networks: (1) rapid revolutions bring about a new continuum of computing types (e.g., ranging from silicon-based edge to cloud compute, to quantum, neuromorphic, molecular computing, etc.) - offering unprecedented speed, parallelism, and miniaturization; and (2) increased use of autonomy across society and industry which is changing our expectations of a network and the way we articulate the ability of our networks to serve us. In short, traditional communication systems are now a step behind where they need to be to fully unleash the potential of emerging cloud and distributed computing. Not only that, without the joint up thinking between those who research the fundamental parts of a communications network; the signal processing, spectrum utilisation and network interoperability people etc. and those who research the next generation autonomy and computation, we are simply not able to build agile fit-for-purpose communications infrastructures to catch up.
The CHEDDAR: Communications Hub for Empowering Distributed clouD computing Applications and Research lies on this interface between communications fundamentals and an infrastructure that serves our many communities. Bringing together a spectrum of experts not only in communications but across quantum, neuro-symbolic AI, autonomy etc who have worked in application areas from Farms to Space via Smart Cities, and who understand security and privacy, CHEDDAR aims to build a community that will provide the step change in research and be agile to address new opportunities as they arise.
CHEDDAR also aims to take a different and inclusive approach to this research which includes clear opportunities for community engagement and dialogue across the UK, and in researcher development providing both technical and soft-skills round inclusivity and responsible research. With a particular focus on security/privacy and sustainability and resilience this Hub aims to accelerate the national scale innovation process in connected computing research and make UK a lighthouse globally.
This is necessary as the UK has demonstrated its ability to be world leading in topics such as AI, Autonomy etc., but many EPSRC and UKRI funded advances are set to unleash their £Bn's of potential on the economy - it requires new communication interfaces to connect them and unleash these benefits, whilst mitigating the new risks that emerge. We aim to develop the pathways to enabling new communication network design and innovation, through connections with the other 2 hubs, with centres of doctoral training and innovation knowledge centres, institutes, government and standards bodies etc. and identify mechanisms for joint capability and facility sharing and cross-fertilize the co-design of connected computing capabilities.
Organisations
- Imperial College London (Lead Research Organisation)
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) (Collaboration)
- University of L'Aquila (Collaboration)
- Ericsson (Collaboration)
- University of Toronto (Collaboration)
- UNIVERSITY OF YORK (Collaboration)
- InterDigital (Collaboration)
- Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur (Collaboration)
Publications
Abdelnasser H
(2024)
Drone Propeller Speed Measurement: Case Study Using 5GHz RF and mmWave Radar
Abdelnasser H
(2023)
Multirotor Motion Enhancement using Propeller Speed Measurements
Abdelnasser H
(2024)
RaDro: Indoor Drone Tracking Using Millimeter Wave Radar
in Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies
Abualhayja'a M
(2024)
Exploiting Multi-Hop RIS-Assisted UAV Communications: Performance Analysis
in IEEE Communications Letters
Al-Quraan M
(2024)
Enhancing Reliability in Federated mmWave Networks: A Practical and Scalable Solution Using Radar-Aided Dynamic Blockage Recognition
in IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing
Alidoost Nia M
(2024)
Efficient Model Verification at Runtime through Adaptive Dynamic Approximation
in ACM Transactions on Autonomous and Adaptive Systems
| Title | Swarm Dance: AI-powered silent disco, become part of a single-intelligent being as you dance |
| Description | A dance troupe are divided into sub groups and use sensing to inform their behaviours and these behaviours are driven by the emergent algorithms we developed for sensor network routing. Imperial lates is a science oriented evening for the general public. |
| Type Of Art | Performance (Music, Dance, Drama, etc) |
| Year Produced | 2024 |
| Impact | Early days |
| URL | https://www.imperial.ac.uk/events/173454/imperial-lates-ai/ |
| Description | Arrow Innovation Advisors - Hongjian Sun, Anas Bisu |
| Geographic Reach | Local/Municipal/Regional |
| Policy Influence Type | Participation in a guidance/advisory committee |
| Description | Building Europs |
| Geographic Reach | Europe |
| Policy Influence Type | Contribution to a national consultation/review |
| URL | https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3pjlywwvJeR9M1MxANgVFKoVU9cR9j6l |
| Description | Contribution to UKTIN Academic Strategy Group Whitepaper |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Participation in a guidance/advisory committee |
| Impact | The whitepaper places UK in context to global landscape and makes concrete recommendation for policy makers. |
| URL | https://uktin.net/whats-happening/resources/strategic-working-group-report-future-networks |
| Description | Future Telecoms Roundtable chaired by Angela McLean |
| Geographic Reach | Europe |
| Policy Influence Type | Contribution to a national consultation/review |
| Description | Harrogate Newspaper Evidence for Safety of 5G Masts |
| Geographic Reach | Local/Municipal/Regional |
| Policy Influence Type | Participation in a guidance/advisory committee |
| Impact | The scientific advice can potentially elevate the concerns of safety increasing adoption of 5G. |
| URL | https://thestrayferret.co.uk/news/latest/why-does-harrogate-need-5g-masts |
| Description | IEEE Roadmap on Verification of Autonomous Systems |
| Geographic Reach | Multiple continents/international |
| Policy Influence Type | Membership of a guideline committee |
| Description | Mentorships of civil servants |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Participation in a guidance/advisory committee |
| Description | The Second National Infrastructure Assessment |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Participation in a guidance/advisory committee |
| Impact | The NIA guidance feeds into public policy making for future investments in 5G infrastructure. |
| URL | https://nic.org.uk/app/uploads/Final-NIA-2-Full-Document.pdf |
| Description | UK Future Telco expert panel |
| Geographic Reach | Europe |
| Policy Influence Type | Contribution to a national consultation/review |
| Description | UKTIN Expert Wireless Working Group |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Participation in a guidance/advisory committee |
| Impact | The white paper provided detailed insights into the UK's wireless capabilities and identified key gaps, contributing to the enhancement of education and skill levels within the telecom industry workforce. |
| URL | https://uktin.net/sites/default/files/2024-02/FCP%20Wireless%20Networking%20%28C%29.pdf |
| Description | APP17382: EPSRC-SFI: Active intelligent Reconfigurable surfaces for 6G wireless COMmunications (AR-COM) |
| Amount | £960,575 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | EP/Z533609/1 |
| Organisation | Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 01/2025 |
| End | 01/2028 |
| Description | Co-Designing Clean Energy for Rural Africa with Service Innovations and Digital Twins (CREDiT) |
| Amount | £2,800,000 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | UKRI318 |
| Organisation | United Kingdom Research and Innovation |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 01/2025 |
| End | 12/2027 |
| Description | HarmonicAI: Human-guided collaborative multi-objective design of explainable, fair and privacy-preserving AI for digital health |
| Amount | £140,253 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | EP/Y03743X/1 |
| Organisation | Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 02/2024 |
| End | 01/2028 |
| Description | REMOTE: Resilient and Secure Multi-Access Interoperable Communication Fabric for TinyEdge |
| Amount | £444,867 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | EP/Y019229/1 |
| Organisation | Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 04/2024 |
| End | 04/2027 |
| Description | Reliable Communication for Control (ReCoCo) |
| Amount | £60,000 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | PB2014 |
| Organisation | National Nuclear Laboratory |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 03/2024 |
| End | 11/2025 |
| Description | Safety Assurance of Frontier AI for Automated Driving Systems |
| Amount | £460,345 (GBP) |
| Organisation | Advanced Research and Innovation Agency (ARIA) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 01/2025 |
| End | 04/2026 |
| Description | Satellite-Aided Technologies for advancing resilience - Guarding energy services under climate hazards, risks, and disasters (SAT-Guard) |
| Amount | £998,267 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | MR/Z50578X/1 |
| Organisation | Durham University |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 01/2025 |
| End | 12/2026 |
| Description | Universal Stochastic Modelling, Verification & Synthesis Framework |
| Amount | £302,011 (GBP) |
| Organisation | Advanced Research and Innovation Agency (ARIA) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 08/2024 |
| End | 09/2025 |
| Title | Language model for telecom specification |
| Description | A LLM for translating natural service requirements into telecom, edge AI, and other requirements for designing future networks. |
| Type Of Material | Improvements to research infrastructure |
| Year Produced | 2024 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | Widely used and cited in industry and demoed at many conferences and trade shows |
| URL | https://ntutangyun.github.io/llm_6g_frontend/use-cases |
| Title | Time synchronisation through telecoms |
| Description | National timing centre innovation node upgrade connected to Joiner and ORAN, facilitates traceable UK atomic clock signal to synch different tethered and wireless services. L2 tunnelling provided by iQuila and security provided by QuantumDice. |
| Type Of Material | Improvements to research infrastructure |
| Year Produced | 2024 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | Research tested demonstrated first drone flight in summer 2024 without GPS |
| Title | DiffAR: adaptive conditional diffusion model for temporal-augmented human activity recognition |
| Description | Human activity recognition (HAR) is a fundamental sensing and analysis technique that supports diverse applications, such as smart homes and healthcare. In device-free and non-intrusive HAR, WiFi channel state information (CSI) captures wireless signal variations caused by human interference without the need for video cameras or on-body sensors. However, current CSI-based HAR performance is hampered by incomplete CSI recordings due to fixed window sizes in CSI collection and human/machine errors that incur missing values in CSI. To address these issues, we propose DiffAR, a temporal-augmented HAR approach that improves HAR performance by augmenting CSI. DiffAR devises a novel Adaptive Conditional Diffusion Model (ACDM) to synthesize augmented CSI, which tackles the issue of fixed windows by forecasting and handles missing values with imputation. Compared to existing diffusion models, ACDM improves the synthesis quality by guiding progressive synthesis with step-specific conditions. DiffAR further exploits an ensemble classifier for activity recognition using both raw and augmented CSI. Extensive experiments on four public datasets show that DiffAR achieves the best synthesis quality of augmented CSI and outperforms state-of-theart CSI-based HAR methods in terms of recognition performance. The source code of DiffAR is available at https://github.com/huangshk/DiffAR. |
| Type Of Material | Computer model/algorithm |
| Year Produced | 2023 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | Early days |
| URL | https://www.ijcai.org/proceedings/2023/0424.pdf |
| Title | LoED: The LoRaWAN at the Edge Dataset |
| Description | This repository contains dataset from nine LoRaWAN gateways collected in an urban environment. The dataset contains raw payload information, along with other metadata from the gateway. The dataset can be cited at: Dataset: LoED: The LoRaWAN at the Edge Dataset Laksh Bhatia, Michael Breza, Ramona Marfievici, Julie A. McCann Proceedings of the Third Workshop on Data Acquisition To Analysis (DATA '20), 2020 Files in the folder README.md A readme file detailing the gateway location, model and statistics about the data collected at each of the gateways. Laksh_Bhatia_LoED_LoRaWAN_at_the_edge.pdf A readme file detailing the gateway location, model and statistics about the data collected at each of the gateways. LoED_LoRaWAN_at_edge_dataset.zip A zip file containing all data files. Data files are in dd_mm_yyyy.csv format with one file for every day of the collection campaign LoED_LoRaWAN_at_edge_dataset-SAMPLE.zip Sample folder with only six days of data collection. LoED_parser.ipynb A jupyter notebook to generate statistics of the dataset LoED_parser.html HTML rendering of the LoRaDatasetParser.ipynb notebook LoED_parser.py A python file to generate basic statistics from the dataset |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Year Produced | 2020 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | It has been used by further researchers and referenced. |
| URL | https://zenodo.org/record/4121430 |
| Title | Quantum Data Centres in the Presence of Noise data |
| Description | This dataset contains all of the raw data needed to reproduce the work in arXiv:2407.10769 and any future publications of that work. It also includes data on a variety of edge cases and related investigations that could not be included in the main paper. The file names and directory names are verbose and intended to indicate what they contain. The terms F_werner and F_w refer to the Werner state fidelity and are used interchangeably. p_error and p_depolar_error_cnot, etc are also interchangeable and refer to the error probability of imperfect two-qubit gate operation (this appears as \epsilon_{cnot} in the aforementioned paper). alpha, where it appears, refers to the coefficient of |0> in the input state of the control qubit when a single remote CNOT gate is considered. Phase refers to the relative phase between the coefficients of |0> and |1> in the same context. These parameters also appears in some of the data from larger circuits (marked MQT bench after the benchmarking suite that the circuits come from) but should be ignored as they do not influence the result in that case and are instead indicative only of certain (now deprecated) simulator settings (indicating the possibility of creating the relevant input state) when the data was taken. The inclusion of those parameters in the data files was erroneous. The input state indicated by the parameters in that context was not inputted to the circuit. Instead the circuits were initialised as described in the relevant circuit description. The relevant QASM files can be found on the MQT bench website, which is formally referenced in the work cited above. |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Year Produced | 2024 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | It has been used by further researchers and referenced. |
| URL | https://zenodo.org/doi/10.5281/zenodo.13773229 |
| Title | White-box 3D-OMP-Transformer for ISAC |
| Description | An open-sourced white-box transformer model for OFDM-based radar sensing. The implementation of other baseline models is also released. |
| Type Of Material | Computer model/algorithm |
| Year Produced | 2025 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | It can facilitate the research progress of others in this field. |
| URL | https://github.com/Bowen-zhang96/White-box-3D-OMP-Transformer |
| Title | WiMANS: A Benchmark Dataset for WiFi-based Multi-user Activity Sensing. |
| Description | WiFi-based human sensing has exhibited remarkable potential to analyze user behaviors in a non-intrusive and device-free manner, benefiting applications as diverse as smart homes and healthcare. However, most previous works focus on single-user sensing, which has limited practicability in scenarios involving multiple users. Although recent studies have begun to investigate WiFi-based multi-user activity sensing, there remains a lack of benchmark datasets to facilitate reproducible and comparable research. To bridge this gap, we present WiMANS, to our knowledge, the first dataset for multi-user activity sensing based on WiFi. WiMANS contains over 9.4 hours of WiFi Channel State Information (CSI), monitoring simultaneous activities performed by multiple users in various environments. Compared to existing datasets, WiMANS not only collects the CSI of dual WiFi bands but also includes synchronized videos. We exploit WiMANS to benchmark the performance of state-of-the-art WiFi-based human sensing models and video-based models, posing new challenges and opportunities for WiFi-based multi-user identification, localization, and activity recognition. We believe that WiMANS can push the boundaries of current WiFi-based human sensing and catalyze the research on multi-user activity analysis. |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Year Produced | 2023 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | Early days |
| URL | https://github.com/huangshk/WiMANS |
| Description | Collaboration with University of York |
| Organisation | University of York |
| Department | Department of Computer Science |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Application of probabilistic markov decision process to social networks. Recently, collaboration on process safety and responsible AI. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Use of online learning approach to social network. Recent collaboration is in the context of CHEDDAR project and more generally on approaches for responsible AI. Co-written more than one grant proposal. |
| Impact | No output yet. |
| Start Year | 2016 |
| Description | Ericsson and CHEDDAR Collaboration |
| Organisation | Ericsson |
| Country | Sweden |
| Sector | Private |
| PI Contribution | CHEDDAR consortium was invited to IVA-NAE workshop by Ericsson. As a result we have started now collaborating with the Ericsson on the 6G technologies. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Ericsson's CTO is part of CHEDDAR's advisory board team. He is actively contributing in deriving the agenda and programme for the 6G development. |
| Impact | No outputs yet. |
| Start Year | 2023 |
| Description | IIT Kanpur - India and SystronLab |
| Organisation | Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur |
| Country | India |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | The Research Knowledge Transfer collaboration with c3iHub - https://c3ihub.org/ |
| Collaborator Contribution | The Research Knowledge Transfer collaboration with c3iHub at IITK- https://c3ihub.org/ |
| Impact | The research visit and collaboration provide a better understanding of the research facilities and cybersecurity expertise at c3iHub at IITK, potentially paving the way for long-term research collaboration. |
| Start Year | 2024 |
| Description | InterDigital |
| Organisation | InterDigital |
| Department | InterDigital Europe |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Private |
| PI Contribution | The main scenarios and technical knowledge comes from Imperial. |
| Collaborator Contribution | The know-how of standards and navigating the meetings etc. comes from InterDigital. |
| Impact | We have collaborated on work items for ETSI based on CHEDDAR work. |
| Start Year | 2024 |
| Description | Interdigital |
| Organisation | InterDigital |
| Department | InterDigital Europe |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Private |
| PI Contribution | ETSI ISAC |
| Collaborator Contribution | Working on USEcase for ETSI ISAC |
| Impact | NA |
| Start Year | 2024 |
| Description | NASA Ames |
| Organisation | National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) |
| Department | NASA Ames Exploration Center |
| Country | United States |
| Sector | Public |
| PI Contribution | Basic research on quantifying the uncertainty of deep-learning perception components for autonomous systems. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Use cases, data sets, machine learning models, deep-learning expertise. |
| Impact | Basic research described in two papers currently under review. |
| Start Year | 2022 |
| Description | University of L'Aquila, Italy |
| Organisation | University of L'Aquila |
| Country | Italy |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Joint research on social, legal, ethical, empathetic and cultural requirements for autonomous systems. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Joint research on social, legal, ethical, empathetic and cultural requirements for autonomous systems. |
| Impact | N/A |
| Start Year | 2024 |
| Description | University of Toronto, Canada |
| Organisation | University of Toronto |
| Country | Canada |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Contributions to joint research papers, and to joint research grant application. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Contributions to joint research papers, and to joint research grant application. |
| Impact | Research papers at top conferences Automated Software Engineering 2023, and International Conference on Software Engineering 2024. Funded Responsible AI International Partnership. |
| Start Year | 2023 |
| Title | CSP Models and Sound Animation for Security Protocols: Diffie-Hellman and Needham-Schroeder |
| Description | This repository (https://github.com/SystronLab/animation-of-security-protocols) contains CSP models for two security protocols: the Diffie-Hellman key exchange protocol and the Needham-Schroeder public key protocol. These models are used in Isabelle/HOL to generate Haskell code for sound animation. The generated code is also available in this repository. Further details can be found in the paper "User-Guided Verification of Security Protocols via Sound Animation" (DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-77382-2_3). |
| Type Of Technology | Software |
| Year Produced | 2024 |
| Open Source License? | Yes |
| Impact | The repository provides a valuable resource for the formal verification and analysis of security protocols by offering CSP models of the Diffie-Hellman key exchange protocol and the Needham-Schroeder public key protocol. By leveraging Isabelle/HOL to generate Haskell code for sound animation, this work enhances the accessibility and practicality of verifying security protocols, ensuring their correctness and robustness. The ability to animate these protocols allows researchers and practitioners to better understand potential vulnerabilities, explore attack scenarios, and validate protocol properties in a more interactive and intuitive manner. Furthermore, by making the generated code publicly available, the repository fosters collaboration and further advancements in the field of security protocol verification, contributing to the broader goal of building more secure and resilient communication systems. |
| URL | https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/978-3-031-77382-2_3 |
| Title | Commercial E2 Node (VIAVI Tester) with Open-Source RIC (OSC) |
| Description | The source code of the OSC RIC was modified to address interoperability issues encountered during its integration with the VIAVI tester. The modified OSC RIC was successfully integrated, and currently an xApp is able to fetch KPMs from the VIAVI tester. |
| Type Of Technology | Software |
| Year Produced | 2024 |
| Impact | The modifications to the OSC RIC source code significantly enhance interoperability, enabling seamless integration with the VIAVI tester. This improvement ensures that an xApp can reliably fetch Key Performance Metrics (KPMs) from the VIAVI tester, facilitating real-time monitoring and analysis of network performance. By addressing these integration challenges, this work contributes to the broader adoption and deployment of Open RAN solutions, promoting standardization and interoperability across diverse network components. The successful implementation not only improves the robustness of O-RAN deployments but also supports more efficient and data-driven network optimization, ultimately benefiting researchers, developers, and telecom operators working on next-generation wireless systems. |
| URL | https://systronlab.github.io/projects/interoperability |
| Title | Jammer Detection in Multi-hop IoT Networks |
| Description | The presence of a jammer in an IoT network severely degrades all communication efforts between adjacent wireless devices. The situation is getting worse due to retransmission attempts made by affected devices. Therefore, jammers must be detected or localized quickly to activate a series of corrective countermeasures so as to ensure the robust operation of the IoT network. This paper proposes a novel metric called the number of jammed slots (NJS). It can detect and localize both reactive and proactive jammers that follow arbitrary jamming attack patterns. NJS is applicable to all communication paradigms such as unicast, broadcast, and multicast. In NJS, the wireless medium status is monitored by IoT devices and summarized reports are sent to a central node. Then, the central node determines the jamming duration, the affected nodes, and the approximate location of the jammer(s). |
| Type Of Technology | New/Improved Technique/Technology |
| Year Produced | 2024 |
| Open Source License? | Yes |
| Impact | Relevant publications were cited, meaning someone using our software. |
| URL | https://github.com/abdolahi68/NJS_code/tree/main |
| Title | ORAN: Integration of the open-source E2 node srsRAN with open-source RICs like OSC and FlexRIC. |
| Description | The integration of the open-source E2 node srsRAN with open-source RICs, such as OSC and FlexRIC, has been implemented in three different setups, each with distinct software and hardware requirements: (1) srsRAN with ZMQ - A software-based setup using ZeroMQ for communication. (2) srsRAN Over-the-Air (OTA) Setup with USRP x310 - Utilizing USRP x310 for wireless transmission. (3) USRP with Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) UEs - A hardware-based setup incorporating USRP devices with COTS user equipment. |
| Type Of Technology | Software |
| Year Produced | 2024 |
| Open Source License? | Yes |
| Impact | The integration of the open-source E2 node srsRAN with open-source RICs, such as OSC and FlexRIC, enhances the flexibility, scalability, and interoperability of Open RAN deployments. By supporting multiple configurations-from software-based communication with ZeroMQ to Over-the-Air (OTA) setups using USRP x310 and COTS UEs-this work provides a comprehensive framework for testing and optimizing RAN control applications. These setups enable researchers and industry practitioners to evaluate real-world network scenarios, improve network automation, and advance the development of intelligent xApps and rApps. The ability to experiment with different software and hardware configurations fosters innovation, accelerates the adoption of Open RAN technologies, and contributes to the evolution of more adaptive and efficient next-generation wireless networks. |
| URL | https://systronlab.github.io/projects/interoperability |
| Title | Probabilistic PRISM Models for QoS Analysis in O-RAN xApps: Energy Efficiency and Service Availability |
| Description | This repository (https://github.com/SystronLab/ORAN-xApp-QoS-PRISM-Models) contains the probabilistic PRISM models used to analyse QoS (energy efficiency and service availability) in O-RAN xApps, and corresponding analysis results. The model and results are discussed in the paper "Towards Achieving Energy Efficiency and Service Availability in O-RAN via Formal Verification" (doi: 10.48550/arXiv.2411.03943), to appear in the DataMod2024 proceeding. |
| Type Of Technology | Software |
| Year Produced | 2025 |
| Open Source License? | Yes |
| Impact | This repository provides a critical resource for researchers and practitioners in the field of Open RAN (O-RAN) by offering probabilistic PRISM models for analyzing Quality of Service (QoS), specifically focusing on energy efficiency and service availability in xApps. By leveraging formal verification techniques, these models enable precise evaluation of trade-offs between energy consumption and service reliability, contributing to the development of more sustainable and resilient network infrastructures. The analysis results included in the repository support data-driven decision-making for optimizing O-RAN deployments, ensuring efficient resource utilization without compromising performance. By making these models publicly available, this work fosters collaboration, accelerates advancements in energy-efficient networking, and provides a foundation for future research in the formal verification of next-generation telecommunications systems. |
| URL | https://arxiv.org/abs/2411.03943 |
| Title | Simulator for UAV assisted networks |
| Description | The software is used to generate agentic AI models for UAV based wireless comms. The software is written in Three.JS |
| Type Of Technology | Webtool/Application |
| Year Produced | 2024 |
| Open Source License? | Yes |
| Impact | The publication resulting from this software is under review. |
| URL | http://github.com/cheddarhub |
| Title | Tools for evaluating cyber security in communications |
| Description | In this work, we conduct real-world platform investigations to evaluate TLS/TCP and QUIC/UDP in maintaining communication, security and efficiency under three different types of popular cyber-attacks. |
| Type Of Technology | New/Improved Technique/Technology |
| Year Produced | 2024 |
| Impact | Used in researchers' work for supporting their research. |
| URL | https://github.com/andrews891/quicvstcpanalysis |
| Company Name | Velinkx Ltd |
| Description | |
| Year Established | 2024 |
| Impact | Advancing ultra-low latency communication requirements of connected autonomous vehicles. |
| Description | 2024 6th Distinguished Lecture for Thailand Electrical Engineering/Electronics, Computer, Telecommunications and Information Technology (ECTI) Association |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Pioneering the Future: Autonomous Systems, 6G, and Cybersecurity Innovations |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| Description | 34th Irish Signals and Systems Conference, ISSC 2023 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | The IEEE Irish Signals and Systems Conference (ISSC) is one of the longest-running and most important local conferences in Ireland for engineers and scientists looking to publish novel work in Signals, Systems, Control and Communications. This year represents the 34th year of operation of the ISSC |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| URL | https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/iel7/10161993/10161996/10162049.pdf |
| Description | Chair International Workshop on "Blockchain for Secure Software-defined Networking in Smart Communities" |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Addressing the need for a secure network architecture that adapts to the diverse requirement of smart communities, this workshop aims to serve as a platform for researchers from academia and industry, to present their new developments, related to the usage of blockchain for Secure software defined networks. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| URL | https://globecom2024.ieee-globecom.org/workshop/ws-21-workshop-blocksecsdn-blockchain-secure-softwar... |
| Description | Contribution to UKTINs AI Future Outlook report |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | I was interviewed by the UKTIN for the AI Future Capabilities Whitepaper for Telecommunication Sector. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| URL | https://uktin.net/whats-happening/resources/artificial-intelligence-future-capability-paper |
| Description | DSIT International Telecoms Conference techuk |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | The first UK-hosted International Telecoms Conference, as part of the 10th London Tech Week. The conference will provide a unique opportunity for international government stakeholders, regulators, and industry players to convene and collaborate in person to: examine the key foundations for a secure and resilient global telecoms supply market; explore how governments, regulators and industry can work together to tackle shared risks and challenges, such as telecoms security; share international approaches to open and interoperable networks; and determine how we can use these learnings to shape next generation networks, including 6G. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| URL | https://www.techuk.org/what-we-deliver/flagship-events/dsit-international-telecoms-conference.html |
| Description | Dagstuhl Seminar on Resilience and Antifragility of Autonomous Systems |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | This Dagstuhl Seminar aimed to unify the international research on resilient and antifragile autonomous systems (RAAS), leading to faster scientific advancements and industrial adoption. To that end, the seminar wants to bring together leading researchers and practitioners with expertise in autonomous system resilience, antifragility, safety, and ethics from disciplines including Computer Science, Computational Biology, and Ethics, to share and discuss each other's understanding of, methods for, and open challenges related to RAAS. These participants will work closely together to: (1) survey the current RAAS research in order to develop and document a common understanding of the RAAS research landscape; (2) identify RAAS open challenges and promising preliminary approaches to tackling them; (3) set an international research agenda for addressing these challenges; (4) define a roadmap for the delivery of this agenda; and (5) agree on use cases (e.g., from health and assistive care, transportation, aviation and aerospace) that can be used as a benchmark for the evaluation of future RAAS solutions. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| URL | https://www.dagstuhl.de/en/seminars/seminar-calendar/seminar-details/24182 |
| Description | Engagement with AI for Collective Intelligence (AI4CI) in Bristol |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Discussed collaboration, engagement, outreach, partnership opportunities between TAS-S node and 6G hubs with the new AI hub at Bristol. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| Description | Engagement with HITACHI |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | Presentation of advancement of Explainable AI to explore collaborations in future international projects. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| Description | Engagement with Nvidia |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | On 27 Feb 2024, we organised a meeting with Nvidia (2 staff) and several of our researchers to discuss our research projects particularly VPP-WARD project and CHEDDAR project, and training and collaborative research opportunities. The discusions were about AI/ML and how data could be used in energy systems for supporting decision makings. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| Description | First demonstration of a LLM driven 6G requirement generation engine for ORAN innovators. |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | First demonstration of a LLM driven 6G requirement generation engine for ORAN innovators at 6G Summit at IEEE International Conference on Wireless Networks and Mobile Communications in Leeds |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| Description | Hands on tutorial for Digital Security on Embedded Devices at IEEE WCNC 2023 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | I delivered hands on tutorial at IEEE WCNC 2023 for cybersecurity. It was attended by the attendants' of the conference. This was free event for the registered participants. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| URL | https://wcnc2023.ieee-wcnc.org/program/wcnc-2023-training |
| Description | Host DESNZ visitors at Durham lab |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an open day or visit at my research institution |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | 25+ visitors from DESNZ visit Durham lab, where researchers from both Cheddar hub project and VPP-WARD project presented and demonstrated their research using lab facilities. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| URL | https://www.durham.ac.uk/research/institutes-and-centres/durham-energy-institute/about-us/news/enhan... |
| Description | IEEE Globecom Talk - Industry Panels- IPA-06: IEEE Future Networks Roadmap for 6G |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Industry Panels- IPA-06: IEEE Future Networks Roadmap for 6G |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| Description | IEEE ICC Panel - Future networks roadmap for 6G: Open-RAN architecture for Air Mobility Use Case |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Future networks roadmap for 6G: Open-RAN architecture for Air Mobility Use Case |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| Description | IEEE IoT Distinguished Lecturer Programme |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Organise distinguished lectures to share knowledge, expertise, and insights, supporting the growth of the future of IoT technology and increasing the awareness about pivotal topics in IoT technologies. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024,2025 |
| URL | https://iot.ieee.org/education/distinguished-lecturer-program.html |
| Description | Invited talk at Budapest University of Technology and Economics |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Invited talk, academic discussion, and demonstration between Cranfield and Budapest University of Tech. and Economics, on common areas in drones, sensing, and discussed future European project bids. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| Description | Josh Levett presented at RIPE88 plenary session |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | The presentation covered an approach to Internet topology collection and measurement using publicly available Internet data, including sources from the RIPE NCC, along with key insights and results. This serves as a valuable knowledge transfer from academia to industry professionals. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| URL | https://ripe88.ripe.net/programme/meeting-plan/plenary/#tue2 |
| Description | Josh Levett presented at the Yorkshire Innovation in Science and Engineering Conference at the University of Hull |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | In the work presented at YISEC 2024, we outline our approach to building a new, Internet-scale virtual testbed for internetwork routing protocols. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| URL | https://systronlab.github.io/news/yisec-2024 |
| Description | Keynote at 34th IEEE International Symposium on Software Reliability Engineering |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | A diverse audience of over 50 researchers attended the keynote presentation, which mapped the research landscape and open challenges from the area of autonomous system resilience, thus influencing their future research. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| URL | https://issre.github.io/2023/program_keynotes.html |
| Description | Keynote at British Council and Pakistan Future Technologies Workshop at University of Hull |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | I was invited to give a talk at British Council UK and HEC Pakistan's joint workshop which had more than 100 academics attending at the University of Hull. I described the work being carried out in 6G space and how we are addressing some fundamental challenges in CHEDDAR. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| Description | Keynote at NUST on 6G Technologies |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Undergraduate students |
| Results and Impact | I delivered invited talk at NUST-SEECS on the 6G technologies in December. I also attended COP28, so we discussed sustainability aspects in details. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| Description | Keynote at the IEEE VTC 2023 Workshop |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | I gave keynote for IEEE VTC 2023 workshop on 6G and Digital Twins. The talk is available on YouTube as well. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| URL | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_evb2K4N4rk |
| Description | Keynote speech in 2023 ABCP Annual Conference: Climate Change, Energy and Sustainability |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Gave a keynote speech with the title of Energy Data: Empowering a Sustainable Future |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| URL | https://abcp.org.uk/abcp2023-climate-energy-sustainability/#day2 |
| Description | Keynote talk in 4th IEEE International Workshop on Smart Computing for Smart Cities, 12th June 2023. |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Gave a keynote talk with the title of Energy Data: Empowering a Sustainable Future for 4th IEEE International Workshop on Smart Computing for Smart Cities, 12th June 2023. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| URL | https://coe.northeastern.edu/Groups/wowmom2023/workshops_program.html |
| Description | Ministerial Announcement of the Open Networks Ecosystem projects and Open Networks Programme Collaboration Event |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology invites you to the Ministerial launch of the Open Network Ecosystem (ONE) projects, announced by John Whittingdale, Minister for Data and Digital Infrastructure. The event is set up to provide a mixture of conference, exhibition and networking opportunities, and aims to: Grow the UK Open RAN R&D community Stimulate inter-project collaboration Disseminate insights from the Open Networks Research and Development Fund projects and enable projects to learn from each other Discuss specific market and technical issues Complement individual project showcase events and celebrate the programme's full impact. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| URL | https://uktin.net/whats-happening/events/ministerial-announcement-open-networks-ecosystem-projects-a... |
| Description | Online Seminar with University of Surrey and Pengcheng Lab in China |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | 40 people attended for the online seminar, which sparked questions and discussion afterwards, and the Peng Cheng Lab in China reported increased interest in related subject areas |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2025 |
| Description | Poonam presents to the IoT Working Group at RIPE88 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | The RIPE IoT Working Group was informed about the identification of security weaknesses in Thread networks for the Internet of Things (IoT). Recognizing these vulnerabilities is essential for improving the resilience and reliability of connected devices. This research facilitates the development of stronger security protocols to protect IoT ecosystems from threats such as unauthorized access, data breaches, and denial-of-service attacks. Enhancing Thread network security benefits various sectors, including smart homes, industrial automation, and healthcare, while fostering greater trust in IoT adoption. This work advances secure IoT frameworks, ensuring that future deployments remain robust and scalable against evolving cybersecurity challenges. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| URL | https://ripe88.ripe.net/programme/meeting-plan/iot-wg/ |
| Description | Research seminar with Oracle |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | We organised a research seminar with about 20 researchers and Oracle visitors to showcase our latest research about wireless communications, machine learning and cloud computing for virtual power plants. This led to fruitful discussions about the role of cloud/distributed computing in future practical applications, including power grid and transportation, and also higher education sector to achieve net zero target. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| Description | Role of Digital Technologies for Sustainable Future |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | I was invited by the University of West of Scotland for a Panel discussion on Role of Digital technologies for sustainability. This panel was attended by both international and national delegates including industrial stakeholders. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| URL | https://sites.google.com/view/dcisf/home |
| Description | The DNV Spadeadam Research and Testing facility |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | Dr. Poonam Yadav's and Dr Olufemi Olayiwola from the Cehddar team visited to the DNV Research and Testing Facility at Spadeadam, alongside members of the University of York's Centre for Assuring Autonomy, fostered valuable discussions on safe and ethical AI and autonomous systems. Hosted by Graham Faiz and the DNV team, the visit provided critical insights into de-risking energy transition and ensuring the resilience of autonomous technologies in high-stakes environments. This engagement strengthens industry-academia collaboration, supporting the development of rigorous safety frameworks and best practices for AI-driven decision-making in critical sectors such as energy, transportation, and infrastructure. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| URL | https://systronlab.github.io/news/visit-to-dnv-digital-energy |
| Description | UKI-FNI Hothouse in Future Networks-Delivering Social Good in an Uncertain world, BT Adastral Park in Martlesham, Suffolk, UK, 24-25th October 2024 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | An opportunity to engaged with experts in telecoms from both industry and academia. We had several thought-provoking engagements and themed breakout sessions facilitated by experts who are working in Future Telecoms research in UK and India. Highlighted and addressed the key social, environmental, technical, engineering, regulatory and business challenges around Future Networks- particularly against the backdrop of increasing diversification in the telecoms equipment supply chain. Identified best practice to demonstrate how research and innovation in Future Networks can stimulate and support social good. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| Description | Women in telecoms roundtable event 30th January 2024 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | The Women in Telecoms Group is focused on supporting under-represented groups in their telecoms careers. The Group is a joint initiative formed by DSIT, Ofcom Together in Tech, UKTIN and techUK. The Group is comprised of industry figures, policymakers and academia who are convened to help boost the gender diversity and inclusion of the UK telecoms sector |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| URL | https://www.techuk.org/group/women-in-telecoms.html |