UNLOC

Lead Research Organisation: University College London
Department Name: Electronic and Electrical Engineering

Abstract

It is recognised that global communication systems are rapidly approaching the fundamental information capacity of current transmission technologies. Saturation of the capacity of the communication systems might have detrimental impact on the economy and social progress and public, business and government activities. The aim of the proposed research is to develop, through theory and experiment, disruptive approaches to unlocking the capacity of future information systems that go beyond the limits of current optical communications systems. The research will combine techniques from information theory, coding, study of advanced modulation formats, digital signal processing and advanced photonic concepts to make possible breakthrough developments to ensure a robust communications infrastructure beyond tomorrow.

Increasing the total capacity of communication systems requires a multitude of coordinated efforts: new materials and device bases, new fibres, amplifiers and network paradigms, new ways to generate, transmit, detect and process optical signals and information itself - all must be addressed. In particular, the role of fibre communications, providing the capacity for a lion share of the total information traffic, is vital. One of the important directions to avoid the so-called "capacity crunch", the exhaust in fibre capacity - is to develop completely new transmission fibres and amplifiers. However, there is also a growing need for complimentary actions - innovative and radically novel approaches to coding, transmission and processing of information.

Our vision is focused on the need to quantify the fundamental limits to the nonlinear channels carried over optical fibres and to develop techniques to approach those limits so as to maximise the achievable channel capacity. The information capacity of a linear channel with white Gaussian noise is well known and is defined by the Shannon limit. Wireless systems can approach this limit very closely - to within fractions of a dB. However, the optical channel is nonlinear. Fibre nonlinearity mixes noise with signal. Therefore, results of the linear theories on capacity can be applied in fibre channels only in the limit of very small nonlinear effects. Optical communication systems are undergoing another revolution with the development of techniques of coherent detection, the ability to detect both the amplitude and the phase of a transmitted signal and use of digital signal processing techniques to reconstruct the original signal. Use of the optical phase in emerging coherent transmission schemes opens up fundamentally new theoretical and technical possibilities most as yet unexplored. The challenge is to understand to what degree optical nonlinearity can also be compensated or, indeed, used to unlock the fibre capacity, maximise both the information transmission rate and the total bandwidth, to determine the fundamental Shannon limit for nonlinear channels and to develop methods to approach this capacity. We propose to explore fundamentally new nonlinear information technologies and to develop a practical design framework based on integration of DSP techniques, novel modulation formats, and novel source and line coding approaches tailored to the nonlinear optical channels. We believe this to be the key to designing the intelligent information infrastructure of the future.

Planned Impact

The proposed programme UNLOC represents a broad and interdisciplinary study and development of visionary concepts and disruptive approaches to unlocking the capacity of the intelligent communication infrastructure that go beyond the limits of current optical communications technology. The first major impact will be felt by the industrial and commercial companies working on practical solutions to increase capacity of future communications systems and maximise the efficiency of the existing optical fibre infrastructure. These include telecommunication service providers: both traditional carriers and internet service providers. Further, manufacturers of telecommunication equipment at all levels: vendors of networks and high-speed transmission equipment, optical fibre and cables, sub-systems and photonic components. Thirdly, the research will benefit policy makers in providing them with the tools in driving the infrastructure to sustain and maximise the productivity and economic growth. This, in turn, will benefit the general public and wider economy through the availability of a ubiquitous and cost-effective communications infrastructure supporting economic growth and access to information and other societal benefits. Impact on the key beneficiaries: We believe the benefits will apply accrue as follows:
A. Telecommunications/data service providers: The results of this research will aid to both traditional carriers and internet service providers in better planning and evolving their networks, whilst maximising capacity of future communications systems and the efficiency of the existing optical fibre infrastructure.
B. Equipment manufacturers and vendors. The results of UNLOC will be invaluable in designing the equipment to serve the infrastructure of tomorrow maximising the speed and minimising the energy use. This will be the case for all companies contributing to the development of equipment for the infrastructure: at network, system, subsystem and component levels. The results of the research will inform the R&D directions required to be undertaken to ensure the introduction of the disruptive technologies needed to ensure that the overall challenges of providing the necessary capacity to satisfy the growing data demands in the most cost-effective way. The research will inform the strategies for fibre development, and the choice of the transmission medium, either existing or new.
C. Policy makers: Economists have identified the internet as a key driver of increased productivity growth throughout the world. The internet underpins growth in at least two ways. First, for those who produce new ideas and research it has dramatically lowered the costs of communication with fellow researchers and access to the world's knowledge base. This has raised productivity of the generators of new ideas. Second, for those who then use and commercialise these new ideas into products, the internet has also lowered the price of production and enabled whole new business models and services that have benefitted consumers. This requires the provision of an intelligent and appropriate infrastructure to support the new services and its growth in a planned and sustainable manner. The results of the research of this programme will be invaluable in informing and guiding the policy in this area, crucial for the nation's economic success.
The impact outlined will be ensured through a detailed impact plan covering programmes of (a) application and exploitation of the research outputs; (b) widespread and effective communication of these and engagement of industrial partners, policy makers and general public; through the consolidation and enhancement of the team's capability and robust advocacy of science and engineering opportunities presented by UNLOC.

Publications

10 25 50
 
Title Communicating with Light prints 
Description A series of five abstract artworks on the theme of Communicating with Light were created by artist Dara Rigal, working as the artist-in-residence for the UNLOC programme. Developed through interactions with researchers in the lab, artworks explore concepts such as noise, digital back-propagation, constellations, and enable researchers and the public to see and understand UNLOC research in new ways. 
Type Of Art Artwork 
Year Produced 2014 
Impact The artworks were displayed for the first time at the Royal Society following Prof Polina Bayvel's Clifford Paterson lecture on 27th October 2014, Communicating with Light, and viewed there by around 300 people in person and more online. They will be placed on permanent display in the UCL Electronic and Electrical Engineering department, and included in future public outreach activities. These were also used on the Royal Society website to illustrate the lecture https://royalsociety.org/events/2014/10/clifford-paterson/ and printed materials accompanying the lecture and postcards. 
URL http://www.unloc.net/index.php/unloc-art
 
Title UNLOC Introductory Film 
Description A short film was comissioned from film producers Production Mansion, to introduce the UNLOC project and some of the researchers. It will be used as a way to introduce to project to potential industrial partners and members of the public with some background knowledge of optical commmunication. 
Type Of Art Film/Video/Animation 
Year Produced 2014 
Impact As of November 2014, two months after release, the film had been viewed over 50 times each on Vimeo and YouTube. 
URL http://vimeo.com/88021881
 
Description . UNLOC has demonstrated a variety of new techniques to unlock capacity and enhance communication in the nonlinear regime. Many of the proposed techniques, including methods for simultaneously reduce energy consumption, have received widespread industrial attention, particularly by the submarine system vendors, and have been adopted by industry, including Mitsubishi, NEC, Ciena, Huawei, Oclaro, Microsoft, Nokia Bell Labs for practical transmission systems and in future R&D. UNLOC research has, to date, resulted in some 450 outputs (currently on ResearchFish), over 300 journal and conference papers, including 31 invited papers (most in collaboration with industrial partners), in high impact journals in the field, including Optica, Nature Communications, Scientific Reports, and Physical Review Letters. Highlights include:
• Showing the possibility to increase the transmission capacity by a factor of 100 (from 10 Terabit/s to 1 Petabit/s) and explaining the limits [1].
• A new transmission method, namely nonlinear Fourier transform (NFT), also known as the inverse scattering method, potentially eliminating capacity degradation due to nonlinearity [2-4], with first estimate of channel capacity for NFT-based transmission systems [5].
• Range of pioneering nonlinearity mitigation techniques, combined pulse-shaping and forward error correction, which led to: (i) transmission distances to be doubled, including multi-channel digital back propagation (DBP) [6,7]; (ii) record multi-channel, multi-terabit/s optical phase conjugation (4 Tbit/s in 2015 [8], 5.7 Tbit/s submitted to OFC2018); (iii) demonstration of capacity above the linear white Gaussian noise channel using regenerative communication channels [9]. DBP is now part of how all practical transmission systems are designed.
• Identified transceiver noise and associated noise-signal nonlinear beating as a fundamental limit to DBP gains [10] - of huge significance to transceiver design.
• First application of machine learning in multi-core/multi-mode fibre transmission [11].
• Development of high-capacity transceivers operating at up to QAM256 and demonstrating record 1.125 Tb/s super-channels using a single wideband receiver [12,13]; formed the basis of a major press release by Mitsubishi (one of only 10 press releases across company, and featured in 100 national and international media articles and TV reports).
• Development of low-complexity transceivers with significant capacity increases in metro, access and inter-data centre networks, including the first demonstration of Alamouti-coding simplified coherent transceiver [14] and Kramers-Kronig direct-detection receiver [15].
• Proposed mutual information (MI) as a metric to quantify fibre transmission system performance (cf. previously used pre-FEC BER, which was shown to be inappropriate for systems using soft FEC) [16]. MI is now the metric of choice within the research community.
• Demonstrated increases in nonlinear network throughput by adapting channel power, using adaptive transceivers, subsequently adopted by industry (e.g. Ciena's Liquid Spectrum) [17]
In each of these areas we have achieved world-leading capability and high visibility for the team's work, as evidenced by the presence of UNLOC at the world's largest conferences: Optical Fiber Communications (OFC) conference and the European Conference on Optical Communication (ECOC). A number of co-Is have given invited talks and been involved in both of these conferences during the period of the Programme. P. Bayvel was a member of ECOC2013 Organising Committee, S. Savory served as Program Chair, General Chair, and Chair of the Steering Committee of OFC. R. Killey, B. Thomsen, A. Ellis and D. Lavery have served on OFC and ECOC TPC.
Impact and collaborations The UNLOC team worked with leading UK Universities including Southampton, Bristol, Cambridge, and UK companies such as BT, BBC, NPL, Oclaro, Phoenix Photonics and Optoscribe. International partnerships covered all sectors of networks and content providers (BT, Microsoft, Deutsche Telekom), fibre equipment and sub-system manufacturers (Corning, OFS, Sterlite Technologies, Ciena, ADVA, Mitsubishi, NEC, Nokia Bell Labs (USA, Germany and France), Xtera, Finisar and Huawei Technologies as well as international universities and government labs (including Novosibirsk (Russia), Chalmers and Royal Institute of Technology (Sweden), Tianjin University (China), Ben-Gurion, Tel Aviv and Hebrew University (Israel), and Technical University of Munich (Germany). Collaborative work took place through student internships and longer-terms visits, joint experiments and jointly developed theory and modelling/simulations software, technical advice/consultancy and provisions of state-of-the art fibre, components and subsystems and their evaluation. The UNLOC digital signal processing algorithms suite and experimental test-bed infrastructure has frequently been used by academia and industry world-wide to test components, sub-systems, coding algorithms and DSP to achieve record results bringing added value and major impact for large companies and SMEs.
[1] P. Bayvel et al., "Maximizing the optical network capacity", Phil Trans Royal Soc A 374, 2014.0440 (2016)
[2] J.E. Prilepsky et al., "Nonlinear inverse synthesis and eigenvalue division multiplexing in optical fiber channels" (featured in Physics Synopsis), Phys Rev Lett 113, 013901 (2014)
[3] S.T. Le et al., "Demonstration of nonlinear inverse synthesis transmission over transoceanic distances", J Lightwave Technol. 34, 2459 (2016)
[4] S.K. Turitsyn et al., "Nonlinear Fourier transform for optical data processing and transmission: advances and perspectives" (invited), Optica 4, 307 (2017)
[5] S.A. Derevyanko et al., "Capacity estimates for optical transmission based on the nonlinear Fourier transform", Nature Communications 7, 12710 (2016)
[6] G Liga et al., "On the performance of multichannel digital backpropagation in high-capacity long-haul optical transmission", Optics Express 22, 30053 (2014)
[7] R. Maher et al., "Spectrally shaped DP-16QAM super-channel transmission with multi-channel digital back-propagation", Nature Scientific Reports 5, 8214 (2015)
[8] A.D. Ellis et al., "4 Tb/s transmission reach enhancement using 10 × 400 Gb/s super-channels and polarization insensitive dual band optical phase conjugation", J Lightwave Technol. 34, 1717 (2016)
[9] M. Sorokina et al., "Regeneration limit of classical Shannon capacity", Nature Communications 5, 3861 (2014)
[10] L. Galdino et al., "On the limits of digital back-propagation in the presence of transceiver noise", Optics Express 25, 4564 (2017)
[11] M. Sorokina et al., "Sparse identification for nonlinear optical communication systems: SINO method," Optics Express 24, 30433 (2016)
[12] R. Maher et al., "Increasing the information rates of optical communications via coded modulation: a study of transceiver performance", Nature Scientific Reports 6, 21278 (2016)
[13] D.S. Millar et al., "Design of a 1 Tb/s superchannel coherent receiver", J. Lightwave Technol. 34, 1453 (2016)
[14] M.S. Erkilinç et al., "Bidirectional wavelength-division multiplexing transmission over installed fibre using a simplified optical coherent access transceiver", Nature Communications 8, 1043 (2017)
[15] Z. Li et al., "SSBI mitigation and the Kramers-Kronig scheme in single-sideband direct-detection transmission with receiver-based electronic dispersion compensation", J Lightwave Tech 35, 1887 (2017)
[16] A. Alvarado et al., "Replacing the soft-decision FEC limit paradigm in the design of optical communication systems", J. Lightwave Technol. 33 (2015)
[17] D.J. Ives et al., "Throughput gains from adaptive transceivers in nonlinear elastic optical networks", J. Lightwave Technol. 35, 1280 (2017)
[18] A.D. Ellis, P Bayvel, and Sergei Turitsyn, "A full fibre network is the only way to future-proof Britain's digital economy", The Conversation (web link: https://theconversation.com/a-full-fibre-network-is-the-only-way-to-future-proof-britains-digital-economy-50941 accessed Oct. 2017)
Exploitation Route The UNLOC team worked with leading UK Universities including Southampton, Bristol, Cambridge, and UK companies such as BT, BBC, NPL, Oclaro, Phoenix Photonics and Optoscribe. International partnerships covered all sectors of networks and content providers (BT, Microsoft, Deutsche Telekom), fibre equipment and sub-system manufacturers (Corning, OFS, Sterlite Technologies, Ciena, ADVA, Mitsubishi, NEC, Nokia Bell Labs (USA, Germany and France), Xtera, Finisar and Huawei Technologies as well as international universities and government labs (including Novosibirsk (Russia), Chalmers and Royal Institute of Technology (Sweden), Tianjin University (China), Ben-Gurion, Tel Aviv and Hebrew University (Israel), and Technical University of Munich (Germany). Collaborative work took place through student internships and longer-terms visits, joint experiments and jointly developed theory and modelling/simulations software, technical advice/consultancy and provisions of state-of-the art fibre, components and subsystems and their evaluation. The UNLOC digital signal processing algorithms suite and experimental test-bed infrastructure has frequently been used by academia and industry world-wide to test components, sub-systems, coding algorithms and DSP to achieve record results bringing added value and major impact for large companies and SMEs.
Sectors Aerospace

Defence and Marine

Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software)

Electronics

Environment

Healthcare

Leisure Activities

including Sports

Recreation and Tourism

Security and Diplomacy

URL http://www.unloc.net
 
Description Ubiquitous information connectivity and the availability of a high-capacity, low-delay, resilient and secure communications infrastructure have transformed people's lives, improved livelihoods and are essential to the economic prosperity of all nations. The vital importance of efficient remote working, online learning and tele-medicine has been vividly illustrated during the COVID19 pandemic. These capabilities have been enabled by a network of optical fibres, which underpin the global communications infrastructure, carrying >99% of all digital data. The research in UNLOC and the highlighting of the importance of optical communications as a critical infrastructure has directly contributed to the UK Government policy changes, the inquiry on 'UK telecommunications infrastructure and the UK's domestic capability', the formation of Telecoms Diversification Task Force and the Telecoms Supply Chain Diversification (TSCD) Advisory Council, as well as the setting up of UKTIN (The UK Telecoms Innovation Network (UKTIN) and the restructuring of DCMS. It is the research within UNLOC that has answered many of the questions of how to ensure the availability of a digital connectivity and is behind many of the developments in optical fibre communications, as well as being a global advocate for their importance to society. The programme transformed the way optical communication systems are designed and analyzed and has major impact on fundamental research and key developments optical fibre transmission and optical network architectures. Every sector of the population and Government/private agencies has benefited from this research. (a) General public including (i) children, (ii) the elderly, (iii) patients and disabled, (iv) rural communities, the possibility of having ubiquitous access to bandwidth with low-delay will enable the transformation of people's lives at every stage of development: (i) children to access educational services, courses, university laboratories and expert teaching at a push of a broadband button, eliminating time lost due to illness, non-availability of specialist teachers or access to facilities; (ii) the elderly & disabled - to allow real-time monitoring and remote healthcare for housebound individual in need of care and company (iii) patients and disabled - access to leading specialists, tests and even treatment without the need to travel to appointments; (iv) rural communities - to reduce the isolation and improve the connectivity of the entire country will help reduce concentration of population in urban areas and improve national prosperity. (b) Government & government agencies, service providers: through enormous cost-savings made from the provision of flexible, secure, high-bandwidth connectivity, as well as potential improvements in productivity through availability of broadband digital services and have demonstrated that these lead to additional increases in per annum productivity by as much as 0.4%, where total productivity growth in most economies is about 1.5%. (c) Manufacturing/critical infrastructure - advances in communications and infrastructure have improved productivity and, thus, profitability. Introducing further self-driving elements will further reduce maintenance costs and improve competitiveness and very importantly - resilience and reliability. Optical networks forming the core of the communications infrastructure also control all other infrastructure - transport (rail, roads, air traffic) and utilities - their reliability and resilience and the inter-operability is key to national wellbeing, security and safety. Apart from the outstanding publications the programme has inspired and developed younger researchers. It has helped to create new school of optical communications systems and networks research with many outstanding PhD students and researchers, who are now scientific and industrial leaders in their own right, working in industry and academia, developing the next generation of the digital communications infrastructure around the world. it has identified key new directions on future transformation of optical networks making them more intelligent, adaptive, resilient, and secure and continues to lead, influence and inspire and transform research and applications worldwide. The programme proved highly effective in science advocacy and policy shaping, outreach and public engagement through its annual Open Day and workshops. The programme's message for the need of ubiquitous, high-capacity and secure optical fibre infrastructure has been presented in numerous fora. This included presentations to the Industry & Parliament Trust on 'Tech, Media and Telecoms' and Polina Bayvel's meeting with Science and Technology Select Committee members from both Houses of Parliament as part of the EPSRC RISE Connect event. These activities attracted significant attention from key stakeholders and policy makers, including Future Digital Infrastructures (DCMS) and National Infrastructure Commission and playing a key part in the debates leading to the establishment of the Digital Infrastructure Investment Fund by the Government to improve the capacity communication infrastructure. Highlighting the importance of the high-capacity, ubiquitous and secure communications infrastructure and the r,ole in it of optical fibre communications has directly led to the establishment of the government telecoms diversification taskforce and its ultimate findings: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/telecoms-diversification-taskforce-findings-and-report/telecoms-diversification-taskforce-findings-and-report. These strong messages, supported by the research and UNLOC, were taken up by UK Government through a series of government commitments on ubiquitous, high-capacity broadband, with the most recent government paper published in February 2022 - https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-8392/ - on the Government's gigabit-capable broadband targets and policy to support the roll-out of broadband by industry, something argued as essential by UNLOC throughout the project duration and subsequently under the follow-up TRANSNET programme. The work under UNLOC was also highlighted in the OFCOM Technology Futures report' Spotlight on the technologies shaping communications for the future' . These significant impacts were culmination of both the research and advocacy carried out throughout the programme. In the early stages of the programme, the UNLOC Advisory Board member, former MEP Malcolm Harbour, UNLOC disseminated the project concepts and need for advanced fibre-optic infrastructure. Andrew Ellis co-organised a Royal Society discussion meeting on 'Communication Networks Beyond the Capacity Crunch', and a joint UNLOC/Photonic HyperHighway meeting was held at the Royal Society in 2017 to discuss the strategy for evolving optical communication infrastructure and promote the UK global leadership in these areas. Wide-ranging outreach activities were undertaken by the entire team with annual Big Bang Fair participation across the UK, with multiple events focused towards the International Year of Light in 2015. Aston hosted a 'Year of Light' event in Birmingham Central Library attended by more than 12,500 people, mostly children, and Prof Bayvel gave numerous talks: her 2014 Royal Society Lecture on 'Communicating with Light' has been viewed nearly 12,000 times. Prof Ellis gave a talk at the 2014 British Science Festival on "The Broadband Capacity Crunch". UNLOC featured on the BBC flagship show, Click (worldwide audiences of 300 million viewers), and sponsored a live 360-degree video demonstration at the OFCity workshop at OFC 2017 as well as numerous communication videos explaining the research. The enormous success of UNLOC researchers and the successful career development strategy UNLOC can truly claim to have provided a new generation of leadership in optical fibre/optical communications research for the UK. As already mentioned above, a major contribution has been by way of input into UK Government policy - following significant advocacy through the programme, the UK Government has revised its policies on viewing the communications networks as part of the critical infrastructure. It set up a telecoms diversification taskforce with a focus on the importance of telecoms https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/telecoms-diversification-taskforce-findings-and-report/telecoms-diversification-taskforce-findings-and-report. The realisation that future wireless networks require robust, high-capacity and ubiquitous optical fibre infrastructure has led to the creation of "telecoms hubs" future telecoms systems platforms allowing for collaborations across telecoms domains.
First Year Of Impact 2020
Sector Aerospace, Defence and Marine,Communities and Social Services/Policy,Creative Economy,Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software),Education,Electronics,Energy,Healthcare,Government, Democracy and Justice,Security and Diplomacy,Transport,Other
Impact Types Cultural

Societal

Economic

Policy & public services

 
Description EPSRC RISE Connect event
Geographic Reach National 
Policy Influence Type Participation in a guidance/advisory committee
URL http://www.unloc.net/index.php/news-and-events/268-prof-bayvel-invited-to-strengthen-links-between-s...
 
Description Erik Agrell (Visiting Professor) ECOC tutorial on capacity bounds
Geographic Reach Multiple continents/international 
Policy Influence Type Influenced training of practitioners or researchers
 
Description Industry and Parliament Trust breakfast meeting
Geographic Reach National 
Policy Influence Type Participation in a guidance/advisory committee
URL http://www.unloc.net/index.php/news-and-events/269-unloc-expertise-sought-at-round-table-event-betwe...
 
Description Knowledge gained from UNLOC used in UCL MEng/MSc course on Optical Transmission and Networks
Geographic Reach Local/Municipal/Regional 
Policy Influence Type Influenced training of practitioners or researchers
 
Description Masterclass at SubOptic 2016, Dubai "Optical communications research - extending Capacity and Reach"
Geographic Reach Multiple continents/international 
Policy Influence Type Influenced training of practitioners or researchers
URL http://www.suboptic2016.com/blog/2015/12/06/suboptic-2016-the-programme-is-beginning-to-take-shape/
 
Description Ofcom Report: Technology Futures
Geographic Reach National 
Policy Influence Type Contribution to a national consultation/review
Impact Government recently produced recommendations on the gigabit broadbandm undoubtedly the above report impact this: https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-8392/
URL https://www.ofcom.org.uk/consultations-and-statements/category-2/emerging-technologies
 
Description Optics and Photonics: Essential Technologies for our Nation
Geographic Reach North America 
Policy Influence Type Citation in other policy documents
 
Description Royal Society Discussion Meeting:Communication networks beyond the capacity crunch
Geographic Reach National 
Policy Influence Type Influenced training of practitioners or researchers
URL https://royalsociety.org/events/2015/05/communication-networks/
 
Description Summary of RS discussion meeting in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A
Geographic Reach Multiple continents/international 
Policy Influence Type Influenced training of practitioners or researchers
URL http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/374/2062
 
Description Advanced Signal Generation And Detection System For Next-generation Ultra-wideband Communication Networks
Amount £989,900 (GBP)
Funding ID EP/V007734/1 
Organisation Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 01/2021 
End 01/2024
 
Description Alcatel Submarine Networks now Nokia - EP/R035342/1
Amount £43,410 (GBP)
Organisation Alcatel-Lucent 
Sector Private
Country France
Start 05/2018 
End 12/2018
 
Description All-Raman optical amplification for next Generation ultra-wideband Optical Networks (ARGON)
Amount £978,033 (GBP)
Funding ID EP/V000969/1 
Organisation Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 03/2021 
End 08/2024
 
Description Becas de Doctorado en el Extranjero BECAS CHILE - Convocatoria 2014
Amount $125,000 (USD)
Organisation National Commission for Scientific and Technological Research (CONICYT) 
Sector Public
Country Chile
Start 08/2014 
End 09/2018
 
Description Beyond Exabit Optical Communications: from new devices, via new dimensions to new systems (Filipe M. Ferreira)
Amount £1,224,497 (GBP)
Funding ID MR/T041218/1 
Organisation United Kingdom Research and Innovation 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 09/2020 
End 09/2024
 
Description Briazilian Government Ciência sem Fronteiras fellowship
Amount £57,300 (GBP)
Organisation Government of Brazil 
Department Science without Borders
Sector Public
Country Brazil
Start 03/2013 
End 04/2015
 
Description COIN
Amount € 1,073,894 (EUR)
Funding ID 676448 
Organisation European Commission 
Sector Public
Country European Union (EU)
Start 03/2016 
End 02/2020
 
Description Chilean Government studentship - Gabriel Saavedra Mondaca
Amount $184,268 (USD)
Organisation Government of Chile 
Sector Public
Country Chile
Start 09/2014 
End 09/2018
 
Description Collaboration enabling funding as part of University of Southampton program grant
Amount £40,000 (GBP)
Funding ID 15462/03 
Organisation University of Southampton 
Sector Academic/University
Country United Kingdom
Start 01/2016 
End 12/2017
 
Description Donation
Amount £20,800 (GBP)
Funding ID EP/R035342/1 
Organisation Microsoft Research 
Sector Private
Country Global
Start 05/2018 
End 06/2019
 
Description EC Marie Curie IEF SOLAS
Amount £170,446 (GBP)
Funding ID 627545 
Organisation European Commission 
Sector Public
Country European Union (EU)
Start 09/2014 
End 09/2016
 
Description EPSRC Established Career Fellowship
Amount £1,163,889 (GBP)
Funding ID EP/L000091/1 
Organisation Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 06/2014 
End 07/2019
 
Description EPSRC Industrial CASE Studentship for Erik Sillekens
Amount £69,480 (GBP)
Organisation Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 09/2015 
End 09/2019
 
Description EPSRC Programme Grant - TRANSNET
Amount £5,950,000 (GBP)
Funding ID EP/R035342/1 
Organisation Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 07/2018 
End 07/2024
 
Description EPSRC Standard Research - ICT Responsive Mode
Amount £527,233 (GBP)
Funding ID EP/J008842/1 
Organisation Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 05/2012 
End 12/2016
 
Description EPSRC: Standard Research
Amount £758,098 (GBP)
Funding ID EP/L026155/1 
Organisation Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 09/2014 
End 09/2017
 
Description European Comisison funding - ICONE
Amount £412,094 (GBP)
Funding ID 515512 
Organisation European Commission 
Sector Public
Country European Union (EU)
Start 02/2014 
End 01/2016
 
Description Experimental equipment at UCL: capital equipment funding
Amount £5,209,868 (GBP)
Funding ID EP/M028100/1 
Organisation Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 03/2015 
End 03/2016
 
Description Extremely Wideband Optical Fibre Communication Systems
Amount £738,958 (GBP)
Funding ID EP/W015714/1 
Organisation Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 05/2022 
End 01/2025
 
Description Funding from Semtech Corporation - research on spectrally-efficient optical signalling
Amount £78,400 (GBP)
Organisation Semtech Corporation 
Sector Private
Country United States
Start 06/2013 
End 09/2016
 
Description H2020-MSCA-COFUND-2015
Amount € 3,000,000 (EUR)
Funding ID 713694 
Organisation European Commission H2020 
Sector Public
Country Belgium
Start 09/2016 
End 10/2021
 
Description H2020-MSCA-IF-2015
Amount € 183,454 (EUR)
Funding ID 701770 
Organisation European Commission H2020 
Sector Public
Country Belgium
Start 08/2016 
End 09/2018
 
Description H2020-MSCA-IF-2016
Amount € 195,455 (EUR)
Funding ID 751561 
Organisation European Commission H2020 
Sector Public
Country Belgium
Start 12/2018 
End 12/2020
 
Description H2020-MSCA-ITN-2017
Amount € 1,081,620 (EUR)
Funding ID 766115 
Organisation European Commission H2020 
Sector Public
Country Belgium
Start 05/2018 
End 06/2022
 
Description II VI Laser Enterprise Ltd
Amount £24,000 (GBP)
Organisation Glasgow Caledonian University 
Department Vision Sciences Unit
Sector Academic/University
Country United Kingdom
Start  
 
Description INSIGHT (Cambridge)
Amount £590,487 (GBP)
Funding ID EP/L026155/2 
Organisation Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 04/2016 
End 03/2018
 
Description Impact Acceleration Award
Amount £100,000 (GBP)
Organisation Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 03/2021 
End 03/2022
 
Description International Exchanges 2017 Cost Share
Amount £10,000 (GBP)
Funding ID IEC\R2\170230 
Organisation The Royal Society 
Sector Charity/Non Profit
Country United Kingdom
Start 11/2018 
End 11/2020
 
Description Low-complexity transceivers
Amount £219,500 (GBP)
Organisation Huawei Technologies 
Sector Private
Country China
Start 03/2017 
End 02/2018
 
Description MERL 4-year donation
Amount $100,000 (USD)
Organisation Mitsubishi Electric 
Sector Private
Country Japan
Start 03/2016 
End 03/2020
 
Description MSCA-IF-2014-EF
Amount £126,521 (GBP)
Funding ID 654809 
Organisation European Commission 
Sector Public
Country European Union (EU)
Start 01/2016 
End 12/2017
 
Description MSCA-IF-2014_EF
Amount £134,796 (GBP)
Funding ID 659950 
Organisation European Commission 
Sector Public
Country European Union (EU)
Start 03/2016 
End 03/2018
 
Description Microsoft Reseach - EP/R035342/1
Amount £10,983 (GBP)
Organisation Microsoft Research 
Sector Private
Country Global
Start 04/2019 
End 06/2019
 
Description Microsoft Research Cambridge Gift Scheme
Amount £90,000 (GBP)
Organisation Microsoft Research 
Sector Private
Country Global
Start 03/2018 
End 03/2021
 
Description Microsoft research award
Amount £13,800 (GBP)
Organisation Microsoft Research 
Department Microsoft Research Cambridge
Sector Private
Country United Kingdom
Start 02/2018 
End 03/2019
 
Description Microsoft studentship
Amount £71,650 (GBP)
Organisation Microsoft Research 
Department Microsoft Research Cambridge
Sector Private
Country United Kingdom
Start 09/2016 
End 10/2019
 
Description Microsoft studentship - Allesandro Ottino
Amount £73,000 (GBP)
Funding ID EP/R035342/1 
Organisation Microsoft Research 
Sector Private
Country Global
Start 06/2019 
End 06/2022
 
Description Microsoft studentship-Hubert Dziecol
Amount £48,000 (GBP)
Funding ID EP/R513143/1 (50%) and EPSRC DTC award EP/R513143/1 
Organisation Microsoft Research 
Sector Private
Country Global
Start 09/2018 
End 09/2022
 
Description Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories-EP/R035342/1
Amount $100,000 (USD)
Funding ID EP/R035342/1 
Organisation Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories 
Sector Private
Country United States
Start 03/2016 
End 03/2020
 
Description Novel tunable dissipative optical frequency combs: from visible to mid-infrared (Auro M. Perego)
Amount £500,000 (GBP)
Organisation Royal Academy of Engineering 
Sector Charity/Non Profit
Country United Kingdom
Start 08/2020 
End 08/2025
 
Description PhD studentship for Hou Man Chin
Amount £150,000 (GBP)
Organisation Ciena Corporation 
Sector Private
Country United States
Start 01/2012 
End 07/2016
 
Description PhD studentship under EPSRC Industrial CASE award with BBC Research and Development: 2013-2017
Amount £22,481 (GBP)
Organisation British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 11/2013 
End 11/2017
 
Description Photonically-synthesized Digital-to-Analogue Conversion
Amount £368,844 (GBP)
Funding ID EP/R041792/1 
Organisation Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 07/2018 
End 03/2022
 
Description RAEng Early Career Fellowship
Amount £500,000 (GBP)
Organisation Royal Academy of Engineering 
Sector Charity/Non Profit
Country United Kingdom
Start 12/2016 
End 11/2021
 
Description RS Wolfson Research Merit Awards
Amount £90,000 (GBP)
Organisation The Royal Society 
Sector Charity/Non Profit
Country United Kingdom
Start 01/2013 
End 12/2017
 
Description Research Chairs and Senior Research Fellowship - Highly Integrated Coherent optical fibre Communications
Amount £225,000 (GBP)
Organisation Royal Academy of Engineering 
Sector Charity/Non Profit
Country United Kingdom
Start 08/2021 
End 08/2026
 
Description Royal Academy of Engineering / The Leverhulme Trust Senior Research Fellowship
Amount £48,054 (GBP)
Funding ID 10226/63 
Organisation Royal Academy of Engineering 
Department The Leverhulme Trust/Royal Academy of Engineering
Sector Charity/Non Profit
Country United Kingdom
Start 08/2014 
End 08/2015
 
Description Royal Commission Industrial Fellowship - Adam Funnell
Amount £71,500 (GBP)
Organisation Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851 
Sector Charity/Non Profit
Country United Kingdom
Start 09/2016 
End 09/2019
 
Description UCL Impact Award with Inphi Corporation providing 60% of funding
Amount £75,116 (GBP)
Organisation University College London 
Sector Academic/University
Country United Kingdom
Start 08/2014 
End 09/2018
 
Description UCL Impact Award with Inphi Corporation providing 60% of the funding
Amount £75,116 (GBP)
Organisation University College London 
Sector Academic/University
Country United Kingdom
Start 08/2014 
End 09/2018
 
Description Ultra-low latency clock-synchronised transceivers for future 6G radio access networks
Amount £625,000 (GBP)
Organisation Royal Academy of Engineering 
Sector Charity/Non Profit
Country United Kingdom
Start 07/2022 
End 07/2027
 
Description Xtera CASE Studentship for Erik Sillekens
Amount £38,740 (GBP)
Organisation Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 01/2016 
End 01/2020
 
Title Aston advanced high-speed optical communication test-bed 
Description A landline-distance straight line optical transmission testbed has been completed, which emulates installed fibre optic infrastructure used by communications companies throughout the world, and can help investigate new and legacy network configurations. The system consists of the latest single mode fibre donated by Sterlite Technologies. The fibre is spliced into 15x100km spans (19 dB/span) amplified using state of the art dual-stage erbium doped fibre amplifiers (EDFAs). The amplifier design provides a maximum output power of +23dBm, variable gain from 15 to 32dB, mid stage loss of up to 10dB, and wide optical bandwidth allowing up to 96 channels to be simultaneously amplified. The design is equivalent to that used by leading optical communication companies such as Alcatel-Lucent or Ciena. 
Type Of Material Improvements to research infrastructure 
Year Produced 2014 
Provided To Others? Yes  
Impact Developed test-bed used for a number of key experiments and evaluation of of new components/fibres/devices/subsystems. 
URL http://eepurl.com/Ck9hT
 
Title CONTEST 
Description CONfigurable Transceiver Energy uSage Toolkit (CONTEST) is an open-source model which allows the characterisation of the energy consumption of the physical layer of optical transceivers including line coding, frame alignment, channel bonding, serialisation and deserialisation, clock/data recovery and clock generation. 
Type Of Material Improvements to research infrastructure 
Year Produced 2013 
Provided To Others? Yes  
Impact 10.1109/TVLSI.2013.2283300 Funding from Inphi Corporation for PhD studentship (UCL Impact Award Scheme) 
URL http://www.ee.ucl.ac.uk/ong/contest
 
Title Optical test bed software-defined network optical transmission 
Description Software-defined test bed for experimental investigation of long-haul fibre optical transmissions systems. 
Type Of Material Improvements to research infrastructure 
Year Produced 2015 
Provided To Others? Yes  
Impact Extended test-bed infrastructure used for a number of key experiments and evaluation of of new components/fibres/devices/subsystems. This now includes 16 ECL lasers and an SS-ASE, digital transceiver with 12x92 GSample/s 8-bit digital-to-analogue converters (DAC). This means we can generat signals with a symbol rate up to 64GBd, compared to 10GBd previously. We can also now perform high order modulation formats up to 256QAM. The test bed has been updated for full C-band transmission capability using the following: - Spectrally shaped amplifier spontaneous emission noise (SS-ASE) to emulate the generation of full C-band transmission - 3xHigh power (33 dBm output power) optical amplifiers (EDFAs) to transmit full C-band - A recirculating optical loop with state-of-the-art optical fibres is used for long haul C-band transmissions. Specialist fibres now include Corning® Vascade® EX2000. We also have use of anti-resonant hollow core fibre produced by Southampton University Optical Research Centre. Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories used the test bed for a joint MERL-UNLOC paper on a dual-carrier 1Tb/s signal generation, suitable for current commercial systems. Aston University, as part of the UNLOC programme, have also used this test bed for joint work to analyse nonlinearity. Joint work with Southampton University to characterise the new anti-resonant hollow core fibre. The test bed was used for joint work with Corning on a single span transmission, where we achieved a record spectral efficiencyxdistance product. Joint work underway with Xtera to extend transmission bandwidth beyond C and L band. Numerous resulting publications presented at OFC and ECOC during 2015/16/17. 
URL http://unloc.net/index.php/research/facilities
 
Title UCL advanced high-speed, recirculating loop and straight line terabit/s optical transmission systems and network test-bed 
Description A landline-distance straight line optical transmission testbed has been completed, which emulates installed fibre optic infrastructure used by communications companies throughout the world, and can help investigate new and legacy network configurations. The system is1200km, also with 100km spans (20 dB/span) and integrated with software-defined transceivers, donated by Ciena, and a 16x16 Polatis switch to investigate networking application. 
Type Of Material Improvements to research infrastructure 
Year Produced 2013 
Provided To Others? Yes  
Impact Extended test-bed infrastructure used for a number of key experiments and evaluation of of new components/fibres/devices/subsystems. This now includes Nyquist filtering, comb generation, digital transceiver and a new super-receiver capable of detecting 63GHz electrical (125GHz optical) bandwidth. Used extensively by industrial/academic partners for evaluation and characterisation for next-gneeration of RandD components and sub-systems as well as networking applications. Numerous resulting publications presented at OFC and ECOC during 2013/14. 
URL http://eepurl.com/Ck9hT
 
Title Data underpinning article "All-optical multilevel amplitude regeneration in a single nonlinear optical loop mirror" 
Description  
Type Of Material Database/Collection of data 
Year Produced 2018 
Provided To Others? Yes  
 
Title Data underpinning article "Enhanced Transmission Performance Using Backward-Propagated Broadband ASE Pump" 
Description  
Type Of Material Database/Collection of data 
Year Produced 2018 
Provided To Others? Yes  
 
Title Data underpinning article "Experimental demonstration of 72% reach enhancement of 3.6Tbps optical transmission system using mid-link Optical Phase Conjugation" 
Description  
Type Of Material Database/Collection of data 
Year Produced 2018 
Provided To Others? Yes  
 
Title Data underpinning article "Nonlinearity compensation using Optical Phase Conjugation deployed in discretely amplified transmission systems" 
Description  
Type Of Material Database/Collection of data 
Year Produced 2018 
Provided To Others? Yes  
 
Title Data underpinning article "Performance Improvement of Nyquist DP-16QAM Over 600km System Using ANN-enhanced Post-equalization" 
Description  
Type Of Material Database/Collection of data 
Year Produced 2018 
Provided To Others? Yes  
 
Title Data underpinning article "RIN Transfer Mitigation Technique Using Broadband Incoherent Pump in Distributed Raman Amplified Transmission Systems" 
Description  
Type Of Material Database/Collection of data 
Year Produced 2018 
Provided To Others? Yes  
 
Title Data underpinning article "Symmetry Requirements for 34dB Nonlinearity Compensation in OPC Systems" 
Description  
Type Of Material Database/Collection of data 
Year Produced 2018 
Provided To Others? Yes  
 
Title Example GMI database 
Description The metric generalised mutual information (GMI) can be used to estimate the performance of a soft-decision binary forward error correction algorithm. This research brought the metric to the attention of the optical networks community, and provided an example set of GMI-BER (bit error rate) relations. 
Type Of Material Database/Collection of data 
Provided To Others? No  
Impact The work has already informed the development of coded modulation in optical communications systems, and has been referenced 38 times in the literature to date (March 2017). 
 
Title High-cardinality Geometrically Shaped Constellation for the AWGN channel and optical fibre channel 
Description Optimised constellation for the paper High-Cardinality Geometrical Constellation Shaping for the Nonlinear Fibre Channel. Each file is a constellation optimised for the SNR in dB mentioned in the filename, containing the coordinates of the constellation points as comma-separated values. Each column represents a dimension and each row is a separate constellation point. The bit labels for the generalised mutual information (GMI) are implied and follow natural mapping, the first row is 0,..,0,0 the second 0,...0,1 the third 0,..,1,0 the fourth 0,...,1,1 etc and the last 1,...,1,1. The file named gmi.txt is the GMI for the resulting constellations. 
Type Of Material Database/Collection of data 
Year Produced 2022 
Provided To Others? Yes  
URL https://rdr.ucl.ac.uk/articles/dataset/High-cardinality_Geometrically_Shaped_Constellation_for_the_A...
 
Title Impact of Dispersion Fluctuations in a Dual-core Fibre Optical Parametric Amplifier 
Description  
Type Of Material Database/Collection of data 
Year Produced 2021 
Provided To Others? Yes  
URL https://researchdata.aston.ac.uk/id/eprint/505
 
Title Nonlinear Fourier transform and DSP Algorithms 
Description A suite of DSP algorithms has been developed at UCL for equalisation and mitigation of nonlinearities under coherent detection of wide variety of high-order four-dimentional modulation formats. This is being shared with UNLOC collaborators at Aston University and used by industrial partners. Technology of nonlinear Fourier transform have been developed to a substantially new stage at Aston University to enable low complexity nonlinear channel analysis. 
Type Of Material Computer model/algorithm 
Year Produced 2014 
Provided To Others? Yes  
Impact A number of record transmisison results, inc multi-channel digital backpropagation, reported at ECOC2014 (European conference on optical communications) in the following papers: Unrepeatered Transmission over 253.4 km Ultra Low Loss Fibre Achieving 6.95 (b/s)/Hz SE using EDFA-only Pre-amplifier Galdino L, Liga G, Lavery D, Maher R, Xu T, Sato M, Killey RI, Savory SJ, Thomsen BC, Bayvel P Linear and Nonlinear Impairment Mitigation in a Nyquist Spaced DP-16QAM WDM Transmission System with Full-Field DBP Maher R, Galdino L, Sato M, Xu T, Shi K, Milmurray S, Savory SJ, Thomsen BC, Killey RI, Bayvel P Capacity-Achieving Techniques in Nonlinear Channels Turitsyn SK 
 
Title Optimized binary labelings for four-dimensional constellations 
Description This database includes the coordinates of three 4-dimensional constellations with 16, 256, and 4096 points, as well as their optimized binary labeling. This database describes the optimal way of mapping sequence of 4, 8, or 12 bits to 4-dimensional constellation points, a problem that appears in the context of coherent optical communications systems that use both polarizations of the light for data transmission. 
Type Of Material Database/Collection of data 
Year Produced 2015 
Provided To Others? Yes  
Impact Although the coordinates of the constellations can be found e.g., in http://codes.se/packings/ , the binary labeling in this database were not known before this work. This labeling maximize the transmission rates of a bit-wise receiver under certain constraints, and thus, they can be used for increasing the data rates of coherent optical systems. 
URL http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/abstractMultimedia.jsp?arnumber=7029599
 
Title Reduced subset of probabilistically shaped constellations for finite penalty 
Description A methodology and reference example for the design of practical probabilistically shaped modulation formats was developed. It was shown that, for the reference example, that just four constellations could be used to approximate the continuous distribution of shaped constellations for <0.1 dB SNR penalty. 
Type Of Material Database/Collection of data 
Provided To Others? No  
Impact This methodology has been used in a range of subsequent optical communications research investigating probabilistic shaping. 
 
Title Research Data Supporting "Using 25GbE Client Rates to Access the Gains of Adaptive Bit- and Code- Rate Networking" 
Description Raw and processed data for simulation of sequential loading of the BT core network. Raw data of demands accepted / blocked for four allocation strategies. 
Type Of Material Database/Collection of data 
Year Produced 2016 
Provided To Others? Yes  
URL https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/255993
 
Title Transceiver noise-Gaussian noise model 
Description This model enables the accurate prediction of an optical fibre communication system performance when nonlinearity has been compensated in the presence of transceiver (transmitter and/or receiver) noise. This allows both better transmission system design, but also opens an avenue of research into signal-to-noise ratio improved transceivers. 
Type Of Material Computer model/algorithm 
Provided To Others? No  
Impact Within our group, this research has informed transmission experiments, as well as research direction. 
 
Description ADVA Optical Networking and Oclaro - Piano+ IMPACT project 
Organisation ADVA Optical Networking
Country Germany 
Sector Private 
PI Contribution Using transceiver technology resulting from the UNLOC project, joint experiments were carried out with ADVA Optical Networking and Oclaro on dispersion-tolerant, spectrally-efficient direct-detection optical transmission, in a collaboration within the Piano+ IMPACT project in the FP7-ERA-NET+ scheme (funding of £166,658 from Innovate UK through the Piano+ IMPACT project).
Collaborator Contribution See above.
Impact n/a
Start Year 2012
 
Description ADVA Optical Networking and Oclaro - Piano+ IMPACT project 
Organisation Oclaro
Country United States 
Sector Private 
PI Contribution Using transceiver technology resulting from the UNLOC project, joint experiments were carried out with ADVA Optical Networking and Oclaro on dispersion-tolerant, spectrally-efficient direct-detection optical transmission, in a collaboration within the Piano+ IMPACT project in the FP7-ERA-NET+ scheme (funding of £166,658 from Innovate UK through the Piano+ IMPACT project).
Collaborator Contribution See above.
Impact n/a
Start Year 2012
 
Description Academic collaboration with Novosibirsk State University 
Organisation Novosibirsk National Research State University (NSU)
Country Russian Federation 
Sector Academic/University 
PI Contribution Conducted joint research with Dr. O. Sidelnikov, Dr. A. Redyuk and Prof. Fedoruk from Novosibirsk State University, Russia on machine learning techniques for the channel equalisation. Coordinate by Prof Sergei Turitsyn (Aston University)
Collaborator Contribution Numerical modelling and development of the original machine learning algorithms with low complexity.
Impact So far, two papers in JLT. doi.org/10.1109/JLT.2021.3051609 doi.org/10.1109/JLT.2020.2971768
Start Year 2019
 
Description Alcatel-Lucent Bell Consultancy 
Organisation Alcatel-Lucent
Department System Optimization Department
Country France 
Sector Private 
PI Contribution Intellectual input and training; access to research lab.
Collaborator Contribution Knowledge exchange.
Impact Ongoing collaboration work
Start Year 2018
 
Description BBC 
Organisation British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)
Department BBC Research & Development
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Public 
PI Contribution PhD student Adam Funnell works with BBC R&D on joint projects as part of his PhD through the IPES CDT programme. His research explores how dynamic fibre optic networks can be used to improve future communications systems. Adam's current research is looking into how future live production services such as IP Studio can be effectively delivered over all-optical systems, using rapidly reconfigurable optical hardware for high bandwidth, highly flexible networks.
Collaborator Contribution Support for Adam Funnell through his PhD research.
Impact None yet
Start Year 2014
 
Description Corning 
Organisation Corning Inc.
Country United States 
Sector Private 
PI Contribution Insights on optical fibre properties for high capacity systems.
Collaborator Contribution Provision of state-of-the art optical fibre for experiments.
Impact Joint experiments, joint publications.
Start Year 2018
 
Description Eblana Photonics 
Organisation Eblana Photonics Ltd
Country Ireland 
Sector Private 
PI Contribution Our team collaborate with Eblana photonics to develop high-speed directly modulated lasers and high-power low noise lasers in support of their business in optical communications. We assist the project partner by providing testing results and design suggestions.
Collaborator Contribution Eblana Photonics provide customised laser samples for high-performance optical communication system and transceiver research.
Impact This collaboration has resulted in joint publications in international leading conference and journal papers.
Start Year 2016
 
Description Eblana Photonics collaboration 
Organisation Eblana Photonics Ltd
Country Ireland 
Sector Private 
PI Contribution Knowledge and research exchange
Collaborator Contribution Provided components for a research project
Impact Ongoing
Start Year 2019
 
Description Extended visit of Masaki Sato from NEC 
Organisation NEC Corporation
Country Japan 
Sector Private 
PI Contribution Hosted Masaki Sato for a year for a collaborative work on frequency diversity MIMO
Collaborator Contribution Developed new DSP algorithms for cross talk mitigation
Impact journal articles and conference papers List of publications: (1) L. Galdino, G. Liga, D. Lavery, R. Maher, T. Xu, M. Sato, R.I. Killey, S.J. Savory, B.C. Thomsen, P. Bayvel, "Unrepeated Transmission over 253.4 km Ultra Low Loss Fiber Achieving 6.95 b/s/Hz SE using EDFA-only Pre-amplification", P.5.2 in Proceedings of European Conference on Optical Communications 2014. 10.1109/ECOC.2014.6963884 (2) M. Sato, R. Maher, D. Lavery, K. Shi, B.C. Thomsen, P. Bayvel, "Frequency Diversity MIMO Detection for Dual-Carrier DP-16QAM Transmission", Th.2.5.1 in Proceedings of European Conference on Optical Communications 2014.10.1109/ECOC.2014.6964113 (3) M. Sato, R. Maher, D. Lavery, K. Shi, B.C. Thomsen, P. Bayvel, "Frequency Diversity MIMO Detection for DP- QAM Transmission", IEEE Journal of Lightwave Technology, 33 7 (2015). 10.1109/JLT.2015.2388860
Start Year 2013
 
Description Huawei 
Organisation Huawei Technologies
Country China 
Sector Private 
PI Contribution Development of next generation low complexity transceivers for future access networks.
Collaborator Contribution Funding agreement and provision of optical and electronic components. This follows a series of previous collaborations with Huawei in digital signal processing and coherent optical communication systems.
Impact Agreement signed.
Start Year 2016
 
Description Huawei collaboration 
Organisation Huawei Technologies
Country China 
Sector Private 
PI Contribution Knowledge and research exchange
Collaborator Contribution Knowledge and research exchange
Impact Ongoing
Start Year 2019
 
Description Huber+Suhner Polatis 
Organisation Polatis
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Private 
PI Contribution Designed multi-core fibre switch in 2019-2020. Designed and demonstrated Data Center network using optical switches during the same period. Polatis is a project partner.
Collaborator Contribution Provided optical switches and some parameters of the switch constraints.
Impact Numerous papers in top conferences and journals.
Start Year 2018
 
Description Hyperhighway 
Organisation University of Southampton
Department Optical Research Centre
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Academic/University 
PI Contribution We have used UNLOC equipment and expertise to characterise antiresonant hollow core fibre and have carried out a joint experiment on optical phase conjugators for nonlinearity compensation. The former was a postdeadline paper at OFC2017 - the latter formed a paper for OFC2018. Both Hyperhighway and UNLOCprogrammes have finished but collaboration will continue via Airguide Photonics and TRANSNET programme grants.
Collaborator Contribution Provision of antiresonant hollow core fibre for characterisation and exerimentation and optical phase conjugator for joint experiments.
Impact Papers at OFC 2017 and 2018.
Start Year 2016
 
Description KDDI 
Organisation KDDI
Country Japan 
Sector Private 
PI Contribution Performed joint experiments to apply ultra-wideband transmission demonstrations using a variety of amplification techniques.
Collaborator Contribution Major contribution of state-of-the art equipments for experiments
Impact Publications in top conferences and journals
Start Year 2018
 
Description KDDI Research collaboration 
Organisation KDDI Foundation
Department KDDI Research & Development Laboratories
Country Japan 
Sector Private 
PI Contribution Knowledge and research exchange.
Collaborator Contribution Provided components for research experiments. Also the exchange of visiting researcher Yuta Wakayama, who contributed to a number of papers and conferences. The one year exchange came to an end in summer 2019.
Impact Conference papers, already referenced in RF.
Start Year 2018
 
Description MERL 
Organisation Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories
Country United States 
Sector Private 
PI Contribution Ocassionally we provide our research facilities and lab equipment to partners from MERL to conduct a variety of testing.
Collaborator Contribution MERL is a valuable research partner with which we exchange and share ideas particularly in the area of DSP for high-capacity optical receivers. Recently our collaboration was features in an official press release from Mitstubishi, one of 15 highly competitve press news to come out of the company during a press conference in Japan in Feb 2016 ( see http://www.mitsubishielectric.com/news/2016/0215.html?cid=rss). MERL also provides a yearly charitable donation of $20 000 to the Optical Networks Group. In March 2016, MERL pledged to donate $25,000 to the UCL Optical Networks Group every year for a 4-year period. This has now started and work is in progress with new outcomes.
Impact publications, press release ( see http://www.mitsubishielectric.com/news/2016/0215.html?cid=rss), media coverage, joint experiments
Start Year 2013
 
Description Microsoft 
Organisation Microsoft Research
Department Microsoft Research Cambridge
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Private 
PI Contribution Secondment of staff (UNLOC Co-Is) Dr Benn Thomsen, Dr Phil Watts and PhD students to Microsoft Research Labs Cambridge for 6/12 months and subsequent consultancy on high speed optics in high capacity data centre design.
Collaborator Contribution Funding of one PhD student (fully funded studentship)
Impact Joint publications and internal Microsoft Research programme on the role of optics and high-capacity data centre design.
Start Year 2016
 
Description Microsoft Research PhD studentships - 5 fully funded studentships and part funding of 1 studentship plus additional consumables/equipment support 
Organisation Microsoft Research
Department Microsoft Research Cambridge
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Private 
PI Contribution Proposed several new research areas covering 5 PhD studentships to be supervised by PI and co-Is on the grant as well as contribution to the Microsoft Research Alliance on Optics for the Cloud - visits to research laboratories around the world, presentations and joint work, contributing to the next-generation of Microsoft products for data centres and inter-data centre communications.
Collaborator Contribution Funding of 5 PhD studentship with Microsoft Research, including industry supervision. Also participated in the recruitment of the students, contribution through dedicated electronics prototypes, specialist hardware and design resources and consumables cost of the projects. Coordination of the Research Alliance on Optics for the Cloud and provision of travel and consumables costs for the students/academic leads.
Impact Ongoing
Start Year 2018
 
Description Microsoft collaboration 
Organisation Microsoft Research
Department Microsoft Research Cambridge
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Private 
PI Contribution John Nuqui, PhD student, recruited at our Cambridge site. He has made significant contributions to our research agenda.
Collaborator Contribution Microsoft have provided the TRANSNET team with excellent expertise, in knowledge exchange particularly.
Impact Ongoing
Start Year 2019
 
Description Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories (MERL) collaboration 
Organisation Mitsubishi Electric
Country Japan 
Sector Private 
PI Contribution AccAccess to data, equipment and lab plus knowledge exchange
Collaborator Contribution Expertise, access to data and equipment
Impact Paper collaborations
Start Year 2016
 
Description NICT - National Institute of Information and Communications Technology 
Organisation NICT National Institute of Information and Communications Technology
Country Japan 
Sector Academic/University 
PI Contribution Performed joint experiments to apply ultra-wideband transmission demonstrations using a variety of amplification techniques.
Collaborator Contribution Provision of equipments and proposed contribution in experiments
Impact Publications in top journals
Start Year 2018
 
Description Oclaro - loan of devices and use of UNLOC facilities 
Organisation Oclaro
Country United States 
Sector Private 
PI Contribution Intellectual expertise to perform experiments using Oclaro modulators as part of UNLOC experimental work; use of UNLOCfacilities by Oclaro for testing of new devices/sub-systems.
Collaborator Contribution Provision of advanced optical modulators and sources for the UCL Optical Networks Lab and UNLOC experimental programme to guide the development of next generation components and subsystems. Most recent devices provided in December 2016. A new programme of joint experiments carried out in 2017-2018 including the use of semiconductor optical amplifiers. New modulators are now part of UNLOC/UCL test-bed.
Impact Publications from joint experiments, insights on next generation system design and management of nonlinearity in advanced optical communication systems. Direct contribution to the development of digital communications infrastructure.
Start Year 2012
 
Description Optical fibre design and testing 
Organisation Sterlite Technologies
Country India 
Sector Private 
PI Contribution Design and testing of optical fiber, reports identifying value propositions for new optical fibres, technology foresight.
Collaborator Contribution Roadmapping, donation of over 1600km of state of the art optical fibre, access to fabrication facilities, access to research engineers at production facility in India.
Impact Publications as identified by acknowledgements section of each paper.
Start Year 2014
 
Description Polatis PhD CASE award 
Organisation University of Cambridge
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Academic/University 
PI Contribution PhD student studying with the TRANSNET team, contributing towards advancing research in the field of optical comms.
Collaborator Contribution We have had great expert input into areas of our research.
Impact Ongoing
Start Year 2019
 
Description Research Exchange - Dr Yuta Wakayama, KDDI 
Organisation KDDI Foundation
Department KDDI Research & Development Laboratories
Country Japan 
Sector Private 
PI Contribution The TRANSNET team have provided their research expertise to Dr Yuta Wakayama and facilitated access to world-class laboratory facilities.
Collaborator Contribution KDDI provided their Engineer to the Programme for a period of one year, allowing active knowledge exchange between researchers across the partner academic institutions. Dr Yuya specialises in multi-core optical fibres, an important research area for our team.
Impact Ongoing
Start Year 2018
 
Description Research Exchange: Prof Tsuda, Keio University 
Organisation Keio University
Country Japan 
Sector Academic/University 
PI Contribution Conducted joint research with Professor Tsuda from Keio University, Japan using technologies across the newly defined T-Band. The TRANSNET team at UCL provided access to the necessary research facilities, including our world class laboratory, to conduct the research.
Collaborator Contribution The expertise of Prof Tsuda has been unparalleled. The experimental work has explored routing and networking systems able to support 1000 wavelengths and accommodate 10s of thousands of end points, of which Prof Tsuda has excellent knowledge. One particular application of this approach is in future all optical Data Centres.
Impact Ongoing
Start Year 2018
 
Description Sumitomo Electric collaboration 
Organisation Sumitomo Corporation
Country Japan 
Sector Private 
PI Contribution Research visit/placement of Xun Mu to SEI in Japanresearch visit/placement of PhD student Xun Mu to SEI in Japan
Collaborator Contribution MCF donation, fibre design and characterisation, research visit/placement of Xun Mu to SEI in Japan
Impact MCF donation, fibre design and characterisation, research visit/placement of Xun Mu to SEI in Japan
Start Year 2019
 
Description Xtera 
Organisation Xtera Communications
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Charity/Non Profit 
PI Contribution Collaborated on a number of papers
Collaborator Contribution £25,000 plus a wideband tunable laser with approximated value of £40,000, to further research into ultra-wideband transmission systems
Impact Ongoing
Start Year 2018
 
Description Xtera 
Organisation Xtera Communications
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Charity/Non Profit 
PI Contribution Expertise on next generation on optical communication with high capacity using wide-band amplifiers.
Collaborator Contribution Expertise on wide-band Raman amplifiers in long-haul optical fibre communication transmission systems. Contributor to PhD studentship funding through industrial PhD CASE studentship.
Impact Impetus to new activity on wide-band optical amplifiers, opening up new frontiers in high-capacity transmission, setting a new record on capacity.
Start Year 2012
 
Description iCase collaboration 
Organisation NICT National Institute of Information and Communications Technology
Country Japan 
Sector Academic/University 
PI Contribution UCL were provided s-band components and devices, TRANSNET Co-I Lidia Galdino used their labs to conduct experiments and their has been a joint paper tabled at OFC 2020. Funded PhD student at our Cambridge site, Robert Vincent.
Collaborator Contribution UCL were provided s-band components and devices, TRANSNET Co-I Lidia Galdino used their labs to conduct experiments and their has been a joint paper tabled at OFC 2020
Impact UCL were provided s-band components and devices, TRANSNET Co-I Lidia Galdino used their labs to conduct experiments and their has been a joint paper tabled at OFC 2020
Start Year 2019
 
Title METHOD OF NON-LINEARITY COMPENSATION IN OPTICAL FIBRE COMMUNICATIONS 
Description A nonlinearity compensation technique for a CO-OFDM transmission system in which a proportion (e.g. up to 50%) of OFDM subcarriers is transmitted along with a phase-conjugate copy (PCP) on another subcarrier (replacing a data carrying subcarrier) to enable nonlinear distortion compensation. Nonlinear distortion experienced by closely spaced subcarriers in an OFDM system is highly correlated. The PCPs are used at the receiver to estimate the nonlinear distortion (e.g. nonlinear phase shift) of their respective original subcarriers and other subcarriers close to the PCP. With this technique, the optical fibre nonlinearity due to the Kerr effect in OFDM systems can be effectively compensated without the complexity of DBP or 50% loss in capacity of the phase conjugate twin wave (PC-TW) technique. Moreover, the technique proposed herein can be effectively implemented in both single polarization and PMD systems, in both single channel and WDM systems. 
IP Reference WO2015155520 
Protection Patent application published
Year Protection Granted 2015
Licensed No
Impact None so far
 
Title High-Cardinality Geometrical Constellation Shaping for the Nonlinear Fibre Channel 
Description Code used to generate the results for the paper titled "High-Cardinality Geometrical Constellation Shaping for the Nonlinear Fibre Channel". Contains the GMI calculation including the gradient, the functions for the channel-specific chain rule and an implementation of the trust-region algorithm with SR1 Hessian update. 
Type Of Technology Software 
Year Produced 2022 
URL https://codeocean.com/capsule/4406887/tree/v1
 
Title Nyquist-spaced superchannel transceiver technology and Nyquist-pulse-shaped subcarrier modulation 
Description Nyquist-spaced superchannel transceiver technology has been developed, with multi-channel nonlinearity compensation and adaptive coding to achieve record transmission distances at high spectral efficiencies. Nyquist-pulse-shaped subcarrier modulation has been developed and used to achieve record spectral efficiency distance products with simple direct detection based receivers. 
Type Of Technology New/Improved Technique/Technology 
Year Produced 2014 
Impact Conference and journal papers: Effect of Clipping on the Performance of Nyquist-Shaped Dispersion-Precompensated Subcarrier Modulation Transmission with Direct Detection Erkilinc MS, Pachnicke S, Griesser H, Bayvel P, Thomsen BC, Killey RI ECOC 2014, Paper Tu.3.3.1 Nyquist-shaped Dispersion-precompensated Subcarrier Modulation with Direct Detection Erkilinc MS, Kilmurray S, Pachnicke S, Griesser H, Thomsen BC, Bayvel P, Killey RI Proc. Optical Fiber Communications Conference (OFC 2014), paper Th3K.4 DOI: 10.1364/OFC.2014.Th3K.4 Nyquist-shaped dispersion-precompensated subcarrier modulation with direct detection for spectrally-efficient WDM transmission Erkilinc MS, Kilmurray S, Maher R, Paskov P, Bouziane R, Pachnicke S, Griesser H, Thomsen BC, Bayvel P, Killey RI Optics Express 22 (8), pp. 9420-9431 (2014) DOI: 10.1364/OE.22.009420 
 
Description 150 years since transatlantic cable on BBC Science in Action (BBC World Service) 
Form Of Engagement Activity A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press)
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact UNLOC Director, Prof Polina Bayvel talked to Roland Pease about the anniversary of the first successful transatlantic telegraph cable on BBC World Service programme, Science in Action (listen to Prof Bayvel from 8 min 16 sec).
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2016
URL http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04238g1
 
Description Aston meeting with BIS 
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 All senior members of the UNLOC team based at Aston met with BIS to discuss the impact of STEM in general and Photonics in particular on current and future UK industry

Not known
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2013
 
Description Autumn statement opinion 
Form Of Engagement Activity A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact A number of general press articles covering the overall issue addressed by this grant were generated following a press release giving support from the Government's proposed investment in an new national PureFibre infrastructure. The announcement itself represents a positive outcome from other previous engagement activities by this team, and of course from other EPSRC funded teams in similar areas.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2016
 
Description Bayvel - Cambridge Computer lab event 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.)
Results and Impact Prof Polina Bayvel represented UNLOC at a Cambridge Computer Laboratory event, celebrating ten years of Women@CL

Not known
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2014
URL http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/events/women10/
 
Description Bayvel - Launch of Your Life campaign 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Prof Polina Bayvel participated in the launch of the Government's Your Life campaign, which aims to increase the numbers of young people - particularly girls - studying STEM subjects by 50% over the next three years.

Not known
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2014
 
Description Bayvel - RV Jones Distinguished Lecture in Engineering 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Prof Polina Bayvel gave the RV Jones Distinguished Lecture in Engineering at the University of Aberdeen, Nov 2012: Optical Fibre Networks - Unlimited Bandwidth or Optical Illusion?

n/a
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2012
URL http://www.abdn.ac.uk/events/4004/
 
Description Bayvel - talk at ORC Southampton event, International Women's Day - Communicating with Light 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Local
Primary Audience Schools
Results and Impact Prof Bayvel participated in an event at Southampton University, providing students with an opportunity to see how light technology is used in communications and to encourage female students into science.

not known
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2015
 
Description Bayvel - talk at Westminster Higher Education Forum Keynote Seminar 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? Yes
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Policymakers/politicians
Results and Impact Prof Polina Bayvel participated in the Wstminster Higher Education Forum Keynote Seminar on Implementing the Science and Innovation Strategy. She gave a talk on the agenda item - Maintaining a Global Lead: Investing in the 8 Great Technologies, Quantum Science and Beyond.

Prof Bayvel's talk led to an article in the THE: UCL scholar shocked that government overlooked one great technology: http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/news/ucl-scholar-shocked-that-government-overlooked-one-great-technology/2018338.article
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2015
URL http://www.westminsterforumprojects.co.uk/forums/agenda/innovation-strategy-agenda.pdf
 
Description Bayvel and Elson - Photonics: revolutionising our world 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.)
Results and Impact Prof Polina Bayvel and PhD student Daniel Elson represented UNLOC at a KTN-organised public outreach event at the Science Museum to mark the launch of a new magazine - Photonics: Revolutionising our World. UNLOC posters were presented.

Not known
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2014
URL http://londontechnologyweek.co.uk/2014/04/photonics-revolutionising-world/
 
Description Beyond state-of-the-art optical communications - Royal Society 
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 UNLOC held a conference in partnership with EPSRC funded Photonics Hyperhighway programme. The event was held at The Royal Society on 2 June 2017 and involved speakers from both programmes and external speakers from industry and academia. PhD students and researchers created and presented posters for the event and engaged with the audience to communicate the details of their research. There was also a talk from UNLOC artist-in-residence, Dara Rigal. Dara presented some examples of her work to translate optical communications to a wide audience through art and explained her creative process. All talks were recorded and have been made available to the general public via the UCL Engineering faculty YouTube channel.
Plans were made with colleagues at University of Southampton to work on further science communication projects through art created by Dara Rigal.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2017
URL http://unloc.net/index.php/news-and-events/311-unloc-celebrates-achievements-in-optical-communicatio...
 
Description Bloomberg G.Fast response 
Form Of Engagement Activity A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact After being contacted by a Bloomberg journalist, Prof Polina Bayvel provided comment in a Bloomberg article on BT's controversial preference for updating copper networks rather than laying fibre. The article was published on 10 October 2016.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2016
URL https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-10-10/is-bt-s-not-quite-fiber-broadband-good-enough-for...
 
Description Climate Debate 
Form Of Engagement Activity A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Industry/Business
Results and Impact We prepared a white paper for the World Economic Forum, resulting in a debate and a follow up Climate Change working group. Following an initial exchange of ideas via teleconference, where the long term problems were highlighted, and the excellent work of suppliers and operators to minimise the impact of growth in the short with individual "one off" savings programs, were discussed. Given the long term implications of global energy consumption associated with communications, a follow up face to face meeting is now scheduled in London.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2015,2016
 
Description Communication networks beyond the capacity crunch 
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 Royal Society scientific discussion meeting, co-organised by Prof Andrew Ellis, followed by a related satellite meeting. The meeting was to discuss research relating to overcoming the capacity crunch faced by communication networks.

The meeting and the issue of a capacity crunch was picked up by the national and international press. Prof Ellis and Prof Bayvel were interviewed on Sky News, BBC Radio and in the UK press.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2015
URL https://royalsociety.org/events/2015/05/communication-networks/
 
Description Ellis - Aston Univeristy Meet the Professor event 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Professor Andrew Ellis participated in the Aston University Meet the Professor series.

Not known
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2013
URL http://www.aston.ac.uk/about/news/events/past-events/2013-past-events/meet-the-professor-2013/
 
Description Ellis - British Science Festival broadband talk 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? Yes
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Prof Andrew Ellis gave a talk at the British Science Festival, to around 25 memebrs of the public, on "the Broadband Capacity Crunch", exploring the impact of optical communication on society.

Not known.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2014
URL http://www.britishscienceassociation.org/british-science-festival/birmingham-2014
 
Description Ellis - EXAT Consortium International Workshop 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.)
Results and Impact Professor Andrew Ellis presented results of the study of nonlinear interactions in few mode fibre to the EXAT consortium in their annual international workshop.

Not known
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2013
 
Description Ellis - Industry and Parliament Trust breakfast 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? Yes
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Policymakers/politicians
Results and Impact Prof Andrew Ellis gave a presentation at the Industry and Parliament Trust Breakfast on Wednesday 18th June - Tech, Media and Telecoms: Lessons from Across the Pond. He focussed on the impact of major investments in telecoms on economic growth and identified a gradual shift in the way in which the chasm between good research and commercial products has shifted, possibly contributing to the reduction in innovative commercial activity.

Not known.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2014
 
Description Ellis - Spoke at the opening of 2014 British Science Festival 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Prof Andrew Ellis gave a talk at the launch of the 2014 British Science Festival, which took place in Birmingham as part of the Birmingham Year of Science 2014. He discussed the impact of Birmingham on the internet of today, as well as the problem of the impending capacity crunch and how UNLOC aims to combat this.

Not known
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2014
 
Description Ellis - Took part in Smallpiece Trust event 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an open day or visit at my research institution
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Local
Primary Audience Schools
Results and Impact Professor Andrew Ellis discussed the impact of photonics on society with 2nd level pupils in a residential event hosted at Aston University by the Smallpiece Trust.

Not known
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2013
 
Description Ellis - involvement in OFC 2013 workshop: Does Analog Photonics Have a Role in a Digital World? 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.)
Results and Impact Prof Andrew Ellis took part in a workshop at the Optical Fiber Communication Conference 2013. Workshop title: Does Analog Photonics Have a Role in a Digital World?

Not known
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2013
 
Description Ellis - talk at Malvern branch of IET 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Prof Andrew Ellis gave a talk to the Malvern branch of the IET: "Making Light Work of the Internet".

Not known.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2014
URL http://www.theiet.org/events/2014/206875.cfm
 
Description Ellis and Bayvel - TeraSanta International Workshop 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.)
Results and Impact Prof Andrew Ellis and Prof Polina Bayvel participated in the third annual TeraSanta International Workshop 2014.
Prof Bayvel gave an invited talk at the TeraSanta International Workshop 2012, on Nonlinear transmission performance and channel capacity in optical communications systems and networks.

Not known
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2012,2014
URL http://www.terasanta.org.il/Third-Annual-TeraSanta-International-Workshop
 
Description Ellis in Fibre Systems 
Form Of Engagement Activity A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact UNLOC research in digital back-propagation and other nonlinearity compensation techniques has been featured in the Fibre Systems Autumn issue. UNLOC co-investigator Prof Andrew Ellis describes how work by the UNLOC programme is helping to postpone the 'capacity crunch'. The issue is also distributed at ECOC 2016, Next Generation Optical Networking North America 2016 and Broadband World Forum 2016.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2016
URL http://www.fibre-systems.com/feature/breaking-glass-ceiling
 
Description Ellis meeting with Stoke on Trent Association of Engineers 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Professor Andrew Ellis discussed the history and future of optical communications with the Stoke on Trent association of engineers, highlighting the importance of innovative solutions to meet society's growing demands without excessive energy consumption.

Not known
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2014
 
Description Ellis: Connecting Communities: Meeting Britain's Broadband Needs (dinner discussion) 
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 Professor Ellis attended a Dinner Discussion: Connecting Communities: Meeting Britain's Broadband Needs at the UK Houses of Parliament. This compact event allowed detailed discussion between industry (BT, EE, etc.), academia (represented by Prof Ellis) and Parliamentarians of both major parties.

Not known
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2013
 
Description Exhibition: Made at UCL 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact TRANSNET UCL PhD student, Kari Clark, hosted an exhibition at the UCL led It's All Academic Festival, showcasing the work to almost 500 attendees about the work of TRANSNET, showcasing equipment and carrying out experiments as well as discussing the predecessor grant UNLOC.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2019
 
Description Huawei's Vision Forum Europe meeting 
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 Presentation on Modeling 'Nonlinearity in Ultra-wideband Optical Fibre Transmission Systems', attended by Huawei Technologies engineers and managers, and other workshop participants
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021
 
Description IET/ONS/Imperial conference 5 April 2017 
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 Prof Polina Bayvel gave a talk at the Institution of Engineering and Technology/Office for National Statistics/Imperial College Business School conference on Telecommunications capital and its contribution to growth. Prof Bayvel gave an engineering perspective on the topic.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2017
 
Description ISUPT conference 2017 
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 Prof Polina Bayvel gave a talk titled "Ultimate information rate limits in optical transmission systems" at the International Symposium on Ultrafast Photonic Technologies 2017. The talk highlighted some of the results achieved through the research by the team of researchers in UNLOC.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2017
URL http://www.isupt2017.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/172/2017/07/ISUPT-brochure_final.pdf
 
Description Industry and Parliament Trust Breakfast Meeting 
Form Of Engagement Activity A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Policymakers/politicians
Results and Impact A breakfast meeting between key industry players (eg BT, EE), lobby group and members of both Parliamentary Chambers including the chair of the BIS select committee investigating the digital economy. The meeting discussed the provision of high capacity broadband, particularly in rural areas, industry stuctures and penetration of fibre broadband. Shortly after the meeting public announcements were made on "pure fiber" penetration (as being too low) and the future of BT OpenReach (remaining with BT Group). A blog relating to the event may be found here (http://www.ipt.org.uk/BlogDetail/tabid/248/Articl eID/446/Need-for-Speed-Connectivity-and-Infrastruc ture.aspx).
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2016
URL http://www.ipt.org.uk/BlogDetail/tabid/248/ArticleID/446/Need-for-Speed-Connectivity-and-Infrastruct...
 
Description Invited talk - RV Jones Distinguished Lecture in Engineering 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Prof Polina Bayvel gave an invited talk at the University of Aberdeen (RV Jones Distinguished Lecture in Engineering): "Optical Fibre Networks - Unlimited Bandwidth or Optical Illusion?"

No notable impacts
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2012
URL http://www.abdn.ac.uk/events/4004/
 
Description MERL 1Tb/s receiver 
Form Of Engagement Activity A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Industry/Business
Results and Impact Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories released a press release based on a collaboration with UCL Optical Networks Group. The press release was published on their website and presented at a press conference in Japan on 15 Feb 2016.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2016
URL http://www.mitsubishielectric.com/news/2016/0215.html?cid=rss
 
Description Media interest (Maher - Scientific Reports) 
Form Of Engagement Activity A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact A press release was put out on the publication of a paper in Scientific Reports - Spectrally Shaped DP-16QAM Super-Channel Transmission with Multi-Channel Digital Back-Propagation.

The story was picked up by over 20 publications (including The Register, Phys.org and The Engineer) several of whom contacted the first author, Dr Maher.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2015
URL http://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/news-articles/0215/030215-double-distance-fibre-optic-cables
 
Description Multichannel optical regeneration workshop - Aston 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.)
Results and Impact About 20 people attended a workshop organised by the Aston UNLOC team, on multichannel optical regeneration. The workshop brought together the leading experts on optical regeneration from the US and Europe to discuss the emerging opportunities and challenges in optical multi-wavelength regeneration.

Not known
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2014
 
Description New Electronics feature 
Form Of Engagement Activity A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact UNLOC has been featured in a two-page article in the Next Generation Communications section of New Electronics Magazine. The article was based on an interview with Prof Polina Bayvel and lays out the history of the UCL Electronic and Electrical Engineering Department and the achievements and next steps for the UNLOC programme. The article starts on page 23.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2016
URL http://www.newelectronics.co.uk/newelectronics-digital-magazine/3251
 
Description OFCity 360 live stream 
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 As part of the OFcity workshop at OFC 2017 (the world's largest optical fibre communications conference) in Los Angeles, UNLOC organised and sponsored a live 360 video stream from the UCL Optical Networks lab in London to LA, USA. UNLOC provided participants in the workshop with Google Cardboard headsets to have an immersive live view inside the London lab where much of UNLOC's experimental work takes place. UNLOC PhD student, Daniel Elson, presented a short talk about the lab and the work UNLOC is able to undertake in the lab. The live stream was available via YouTube and can still be viewed there as archived footage.
There were over 50 participants in the workshop and the YouTube video had 78 views as of 24 March 2017. The archived footage was promoted via the UNLOC website and twitter account.
The OFCity workshop was focused on the viability of virtual reality technology for live events and so this activity was an excellent demonstration of what can currently be achieved. The audience was able to see that current technology produces a time lag in the live link, so seamless interactive live events will require improvements to technology. The audience was, however able to see that basic interactivity is possible as Daniel Elson was able to answer questions from the audience in the live stream.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2017
URL https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtXEkJobaLg
 
Description On light 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Outreach activities were presented at this festival organised by UCL and the Wellcome Collection, to tie in with the International Year of Light. PhD students Daniel Elson and Adam Funnell won funding to create a series of interactive demonstrations to introduce the public to the principles behind communicating with light

not known
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2015
URL http://wellcomecollection.org/onlight
 
Description Open Day 
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 Undergraduate students
Results and Impact We provided a case study detailing UNLOC and TRANSNET research aims and outputs, for use at UCL's departmental open day that attracts students from across the country.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2019
 
Description Open discussion: Meeting about the future of coherent access, OFC 2019 
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 TRANSNET Co-investigator engaged in an open discussion at the leading communications conference OFC. Here, he engaged in a dialogue with PICadvanced about the future of coherent access. The meeting notes of this will feed into a White Paper on the topic of access networks.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2019
 
Description Outreach event: Lightfest 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? Yes
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Lightfest was a celebration of the impact of light on everyday lives, including hands on demonstrations delivered by members of my team (and others), workshops and public lectures (one given by myself, one by the BBC's resident astronomy expert, Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock. Demos and talks were well attended with engaging discussions with the audience

requests for more such activities and demos about the physics of light
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2015
URL http://www.lightfest.org.uk/about/
 
Description Paul Harper gives a series of outreach lectures to high school students 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Schools
Results and Impact Dr Paul Harper, an UNLOC investigator and a lecturer at Aston University, delivered a series of three outreach lectures to year 10 and 12 high school students at the Aston University Engineering Academy. The lectures were designed to teach students about optical communications and inspire them to pursue higher education in STEM related fields.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2015
URL http://www.unloc.net/index.php/news-and-events/240-unloc-investigator-gives-a-series-of-outreach-lec...
 
Description Polina Bayvel on ITV news 
Form Of Engagement Activity A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press)
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact UNLOC director, Prof Polina Bayvel and other UK researchers were interviewed by science correspondent Alok Jha for ITV News who asked them what remaining or leaving the EU will mean for scientific research in the UK. Read his piece and watch the ITV News.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2016
URL http://www.itv.com/news/2016-04-08/remain-or-leave-what-could-it-mean-for-science/
 
Description Presentation: 'How fast can the internet get?' at New Scientist Live 2018 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact New Scientist Live is an award-winning, mind-blowing festival of ideas and discoveries for everyone curious about science and why it matters. Lidia Galdino presented to a 100+ audience on her groundbreaking research detailing Lidia what limits internet speeds and, how her team have demonstrated the world record internet speed of 120,000,000 Megabits per second
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2018
URL https://live.newscientist.com/speakers/lidia-galdino
 
Description Presentation: 74.38 Tb/s Transmission Over 6300 km Single Mode Fiber with Hybrid EDFA/Raman Amplifiers, OFC 2019 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Our researcher Maria Ionescu, presented the joint paper entitled 74.38 Tb/s Transmission Over 6300 km Single Mode Fiber with Hybrid EDFA/Raman Amplifiers to a 100+ audience. This paper was a collab with industrial partners Xtera.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2019
 
Description Presentation: 91 nm C+L Hybrid Distributed Raman/Erbium-Doped Fibre Amplifier for High Capacity Subsea Transmission, ECOC 2018 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Researcher Maria Ionescu presented to a 100+ audience her research entitled 91 nm C+L Hybrid Distributed Raman/Erbium-Doped Fibre Amplifier for High Capacity Subsea Transmission, at the leading optical communication conference, ECOC 2018.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2018
 
Description Presentation: A Comparison of Impairment Abstractions by Multiple Users of an Installed Fiber Infrastructure, OFC 2019 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact TRANSNET co-investigator David Ives presented his research paper entitled A Comparison of Impairment Abstractions by Multiple Users of an Installed Fiber Infrastructure to a 100+ audience at OFC 2019, a leading optical communications conference.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2019
 
Description Presentation: A Low-Loss Split-Carrier Transceiver Architecture for Intra-Datacentre Communications, ECOC 2018 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact PhD student Thomas Gerard presented his research entitled A Low-Loss Split-Carrier Transceiver Architecture for Intra-Datacentre Communications to a 100+ audience at the leading optical communication conference, ECOC 2018.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2018
 
Description Presentation: Bidirectional Symmetric 25G Coherent ONU Using a Single Laser, Single-ended PIN and a 2-bit ADC, ECOC 2018 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact PhD student Sezer Erkilinç presented his research entitled Bidirectional Symmetric 25G Coherent ONU Using a Single Laser, Single-ended PIN and a 2-bit ADC to a 100+ audience at the leading optical communication conference, ECOC 2018.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2018
 
Description Presentation: Breaking the Transmission Barriers in Ultra-broadband High-capacity Optical Fiber Transmission Systems at LAOP 2018 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact The Latin America Optics & Photonics Conference is the major international conference sponsored by The Optical Society in Latin America with the explicit objective to promote Latin American excellence in optics and photonics research and support the regional community. Dr Lidia Galdino delievered a presentation to a 500+ audience on 'Breaking the Transmission Barriers in Ultra-broadband High-capacity Optical Fiber Transmission Systems'.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2018
 
Description Presentation: Experimental Demonstration of Geometrically-Shaped Constellations Tailored to the Nonlinear Fibre Channel, ECOC 2018 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Researcher Eric Sillekens presented his research to a 100+ audience at the leading communications conference, ECOC 2018. His research was entitled Experimental Demonstration of Geometrically-Shaped Constellations Tailored to the Nonlinear Fibre Channel and received extremely well.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2018
 
Description Presentation: Experimental Investigation of Static and Dynamic Crosstalk in Trench-Assisted Multi-Core Fiber, OFC 2019 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact The research paper entitled Experimental Investigation of Static and Dynamic Crosstalk in Trench-Assisted Multi-Core Fiber, by Hui Yuan, was presented to a 100+ audience at the leading optical communication conference, OFC 19. Hui et al were also awarded best paper for this research.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2019
 
Description Presentation: Experimental Realisation of Single-carrier Alamouti-coded QPSK Using Frequency-Diverse Dual-Polarisation RF Pilot Tones, ECOC 2018 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact PhD student Sezer Erkilinç presented his research entitled Nonlinearity Mitigation in the Presence of Intercore-Crosstalk to a 100+ audience at the leading optical communication conference, ECOC 2018.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2018
 
Description Presentation: Experimental demonstration of a dispersion tolerant end-to-end deep learning-based IM-DD transmission system, ECOC 2018 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Researcher Boris Karanov presented to a 100+ audience her research entitled Experimental demonstration of a dispersion tolerant end-to-end deep learning-based IM-DD transmission system, at the leading optical communication conference, ECOC 2018.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2018
 
Description Presentation: Genetic Algorithm Optimization of Multi Core Fibre Transmission Links based on Silicon Photonic Transceivers, OFC 2019 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact This research paper is a unique one, the lead author being a 2nd year undergraduate student, Alessandro Ottino. His research was presented by TRANSNET co-investigator Domanic Lavery to a 100+ audience at the leading optical communication conference, OFC 2019.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2019
 
Description Presentation: Nonlinearity Mitigation in the Presence of Intercore-Crosstalk, ECOC 2018 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact PhD student Daniel Elson presented his research entitled Nonlinearity Mitigation in the Presence of Intercore-Crosstalk to a 100+ audience at the leading optical communication conference, ECOC 2018.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2018
 
Description Presentation: Parallel Distributed Schedulers for Scalable Photonic Integrated Packet Switching at PSC 2018 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact PhD student Paris Andredas presented to an audience of up to 500 people at the leading conference IEEE Photonics in Switching and Computing 2018 in Cyprus, discussing the research findings of his research Parallel Distributed Schedulers for Scalable Photonic Integrated Packet Switching.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2018
 
Description Presentation: Parallel Star-coupler OCS Architectures using Distributed Hardware Schedulers at PCS 2018 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact PhD student Joshua Benjamin presented to an audience of up to 500 people at the leading conference IEEE Photonics in Switching and Computing 2018 in Cyprus, discussing the research findings Parallel Star-coupler OCS Architectures using Distributed Hardware Schedulers .
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2018
 
Description Presentation: Rate-Adaptive Coded Modulation with Geometrically-shaped Constellations at ACP 2018 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Asia Communications and Photonics Conference (ACP) is the largest conference in the Asia-Pacific region on optical communication, photonics and relevant technologies.
Domanic Lavery delivered a presentation to a 500+ audience on Rate-Adaptive Coded Modulation with Geometrically-shaped Constellations
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2018
 
Description Presentation: Spectral Broadening of Gaussian Process in Optical Fibre and Implication on the Spectral Efficiency, ECOC 2018 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact PhD student Xianhe Yangzhang presented his research entitled Spectral Broadening of Gaussian Process in Optical Fibre and Implication on the Spectral Efficiency to a 100+ audience at the leading optical communication conference, ECOC 2018.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2018
 
Description Presentation: Sub-Nanosecond Clock and Data Recovery in an Optically Switched Data Centre Network, ECOC 2018 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact PhD student Kari Clark presented this post deadline paper, in collab with our industry partner Microsoft, entitled Sub-Nanosecond Clock and Data Recovery in an Optically Switched Data Centre Network. This was at the leading optical communications conference ECOC to an audience of over 100 delegates.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2018
 
Description Presentation: The role of women in STEM at BICOP 2018 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact IEEE BICOP 2018 reported on the latest advances in optics and photonics across diverse fields, including: Communications; Laser; Photonic Integrated Circuits; Sensors; Medicine; Manufacturing; and Quantum Photonics. Dr Lidia Galdino presented to a 100+ audience in her capacity as IEEE Associate Vice President of the IEE 'Women in Photonics' initiative.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2018
 
Description Presentation: Unsupervised and supervised machine learning for performance improvement of NFT optical transmission 
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 The TRANSNET team at Aston University, led by Sergei Turitsyn presented their research entitled Unsupervised and supervised machine learning for performance improvement of NFT optical transmission to a 100+ audience.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2018
 
Description Press Release: New hardware to expand fibre-to-the-home 
Form Of Engagement Activity A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Media (as a channel to the public)
Results and Impact In the second press release for 2016, we described the development of a new design for optical receivers for access networks. The design is simpler and much more affordable that current optical receivers thus addressing a major challenge in the deployment of fibre-to-the-home on a large scale. The release was picked up by multiple technology media outlets and bloggers in the UK. The news caught on in India where it was featured in more than 20 news sites ultimately reaching the Times of India - the third largest newspaper in India. Primary outcome of this campaign in the increased awareness among the general public about optical communications, fibre-to-the-home technology and how this affects their lives. In addition, our research group at UCL becomes more visible to the larger technology sector and will hopefully attract new industry partners and lead to new public-private partnerships. The lead author of the study, Dr. Sezer Erkilinc has already been contacted by Intebridge Capital (www.intebridge.com) - a leading venture capital in the investment and industrialization of cutting-edge technologies founded by Cambridge Alumni. Technology reporters have requested further information about the project to be featured in more in-depth publications in the media in the future.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2016
URL http://www.unloc.net/index.php/news-and-events/press-releases/262-new-hardware-to-expand-fast-fibre-...
 
Description PressRelease: Fastest Data Rate Set 
Form Of Engagement Activity A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Media (as a channel to the public)
Results and Impact Our first press release for 2016 described an important milestone in increasing capacity in optical communications by achieving the fastest data rate for a super-channel with a single wide-band receiver. The press release caught the attention of major national and international media including The Telegraph, Daily Mail, Newsweek, NBC News, Discovery Channel Canada and many more. Overall the news was covered by more than 60 online, broadcast and print media outlets. The news significantly raise awareness among the general public about the pivotal role optical communications play in the functioning of our modern societies. As a follow up, we have been contacted by the Click program at the BBC as well as the Science Museum on London who are interested in working with us to bring optical communications closer to the public via an exhibition.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2016
URL http://www.unloc.net/index.php/news-and-events/press-releases/261-record-for-fastest-data-rate-set
 
Description Prof Bayvel featured in Telegraph Museum film 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Prof Polina Byavel has been featured in a film on display at the Telegraph Museum, Cornwall, talking about the UK achievements in communications. The film tells visitors the story of how Porthcurno was the location where the first undersea telegraph cables came ashore in 1870. It goes on to explain how Porthcurno become the hub of communication for the Empire and by the 1920 was the most important communication station in the world. It also tells some of the story of fibre optics. Prof Bayvel talks about the role played by some our most important scientists and engineers (Faraday, Thompson, Morse etc) and about the importance of optical fibres today and the challenges that face us as demand grows year by year.

The film is viewed by hundreds of visitors to the museum each week in peak season.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2014
URL http://www.telegraphmuseum.org
 
Description Regional Big Bang Fair 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Schools
Results and Impact UNLOC staff and PhD students gave demonstrations to over 4000 school children at the regional London Big Bang Fairs.

not known.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2015
 
Description Research Images as Art, Art as Research Images 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Local
Primary Audience Undergraduate students
Results and Impact A yearly photo competition at UCL invited graduate students to submit images/photos under the theme "Research Images as Art, Art as Research Images". Every year hundreds of submissions are made. 100 of these are selected by a committee and displayed at the South Cloisters at UCL. The photo exhibition is open to everyone. Ultimately a winner is selected who receives a monetary prize of £500. The photo exhibition is intended to bring science and science projects conducted at UCL closer to the entire UCL community and the general public. The exhibition intends to show the beauty of science through visuals that attract, provoke and tickle our curiosity to explore.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2015
URL http://www.unloc.net/index.php/news-and-events/255-unloc-research-inspired-art-displayed-at-ucl-sout...
 
Description Research highlights leaflet for OFCity 2017 
Form Of Engagement Activity A magazine, newsletter or online publication
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact A printed review of research activities from UNLOC was produced to be handed to participants in the OFCity workshop at OFC 2017 in Los Angeles. The review has also been published online and posted on the UNLOC website and Twitter account.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2017
URL http://unloc.net/index.php/news-and-events/305-unloc-2016-17-research-review
 
Description Royal Society Meeting 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.)
Results and Impact The meeting sparked discussion on issues surrounding an impending capacity crunch. A satellite meeting was also held, with talks from early-career researchers.

As a result of the meeting Prof Ellis was interviewed by the Sunday Times, the Daily Mail, Sky News, BBC World Service, BBC Radio 5, and the issues discussed at the meeting were featured in other national and international media.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2015
URL https://royalsociety.org/events/2015/05/communication-networks/
 
Description School visit (North London Collegiate School for Girls) 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Local
Primary Audience Schools
Results and Impact Prof Polina Bayvel gave a talk on Optical Communications/UNLOC to around 40 pupils at an after-school science club at North London Collegiate School for Girls. The talk was a valuable link to a girls' school to promote science & engineering to girls and encourage them to follow SET careers.

The talk may result in further visits and talks.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2015
 
Description Speaker at ECOC 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Pedro J. Freire presented the paper 'Experimental Verification of Complex-Valued Artificial Neural Network for Nonlinear Equalization in Coherent Optical Communication Systems' at the European Conference of Optical Communication.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2020
URL https://ecoco2020.org/
 
Description Sponsorship of Photonics Research Showcase, ECOC 2013 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.)
Results and Impact UNLOC co-sponsored the Photonics Research Showcase at ECOC 2013. The event aimed to aims to celebrate recently funded programmes, highlight the impact and discuss future directions of UK photonics research. UNLOC PI Prof Polina Bayvel spoke at the event, and UNLOC posters were presented.

Not known
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2013
URL http://www.ecoc2013.org/uk-photonics.html
 
Description The Conversation - Full-Fibre network (Turitsyn, Ellis, Bayvel) 
Form Of Engagement Activity Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Andrew Ellis, Polina Bayvel and Sergei Turitsyn co-wrote an article for The Conversation. The article argues that a full-fibre network is the only way to future-proof briatin's digital economy
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2015
URL https://theconversation.com/a-full-fibre-network-is-the-only-way-to-future-proof-britains-digital-ec...
 
Description The Future of Digital Communications Workshop 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Prof Polina Bayvel participated in a workshop at Cambridge University at which she gave a keynote talk. This workshop allowed Prof Bayvel to debate current issues with industry and academic leaders and to promote the work of UNLOC. There are plans to publish a report based on outcomes from the event.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2017
URL http://www.itrc.org.uk/snapshots/digital-communications/the-future-of-digital-communications/#2
 
Description Thomsen - UCL Pecha Kucha event 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Dr Benn Thomsen spoke about work on UNLOC at a UCL Faculty of Engineering public "Pecha Kucha" event.

Not known
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2013
URL http://www.engineering.ucl.ac.uk/blog/events/how-much-could-you-say-in-400-seconds/
 
Description Transceiver noise press release 
Form Of Engagement Activity A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact As a result of a press release based on an UNLOC journal paper, Fibre Systems (key trade press magazine and e-zine) published an article on UNLOC research. The research showed that noise from transmitters and receivers interacts nonlinearly with the signal. This discovery has significant impact on the design of next generation systems. Fibre Systems published the article online and in their Spring 2017 printed magazine.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2017
URL http://www.fibre-systems.com/news/story/transceiver-noise-limits-optical-system-capacity-research-fi...
 
Description Turitsyn - Ministerial UK Russia Joint Committee on Scientific and Technical Cooperation 
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 Professor Sergei Turitsyn spoke at the 11th session of the Ministerial UK Russia Joint Committee on Scientific and Technical Co-operation.

Not known
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2013
URL http://www.unloc.net/news-and-events/100-uk-russia-joint-committee
 
Description Turitsyn - meeting with Dr McNaulty, British Council 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Policymakers/politicians
Results and Impact Prof Sergei Turitsyn presented UNLOC developments to British Council Director of Science Dr Claire McNaulty, and talked about the improtance of international links in physics and engineering.

Not known.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2013
 
Description Turitsyn - meeting with MEP Phil Bennion 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Policymakers/politicians
Results and Impact Prof Sergei Turitsyn met with UK MEP Phil Bennion and discussed the importance of engineering and physics for the UK and European economy, using UNLOC and photonics as an example of the impact of top level research on society and the economy, and the role that can be played by policy makers.

Not known.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2014
 
Description Turitsyn - visit of Rudolf Strohmeier 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Policymakers/politicians
Results and Impact Prof Sergei Turtistyn presented the UNLOC project to Mr Rudolf Strohmeier, Deputy Director General of DG Research and Innovation, European Commission. The following discussion was focused on the importance of further support of photonics and engineering by the European community and the impact that engineering and physics research is making on the European community and the UK

Not known
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2013
 
Description Turitsyn and Ellis - Photonics Leadership Group 
Form Of Engagement Activity A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue
Part Of Official Scheme? Yes
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Industry/Business
Results and Impact Prof Sergei Turitsyn and Prof Andrew Ellis particpate in the Photonics Leadership Group, which acts as a focus for photonics advocacy in the UK, coordinating voluntary efforts across academic and industrial photonics companies. The photonics industry group is responsible for collating economic impact data to inform policy decisions, disseminating key industry information, coordinating photonics events and acting as a conduit for downstreaming good ideas. Aston University are one of only three academic members of the Group. The group meets quarterly.

Not known.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2014,2015,2016
URL http://photonicsuk.org/
 
Description UCL Lunch Hour Lectures: The illusion of infinity: is there a limit to optical fibre bandwidth? 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Local
Primary Audience Postgraduate students
Results and Impact The UCL Lunch Hour lecture series is part of the UCL events programme every year aiming to showcase research at UCL to the broad academic community and the general public. The lectures are free and open to everyone.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2016
URL http://events.ucl.ac.uk/event/event:d13-iiagnpph-v8ywn/lunch-hour-lectures-the-illusion-of-infinity-...
 
Description UK Research Delegation 
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 UK Research Dlegation to Israel on behalf of the British Embassy in Tel Aviv. The delegation focussed on developing collaborations in the area of Nanophotonics and Advanced Photonic Materials. Publications are already planned as a result of the visit, and several bilateral discussions of future project proposals are under way.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2016
 
Description UNLOC Newsletter 
Form Of Engagement Activity A magazine, newsletter or online publication
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact UNLOC produces regular newsletters which are distributed to a contact list of academics, industrial partners and contacts, policymakers, science journalists and others. The first newsletter appeared in Sept 2014 and was also distributed at the ECOC 2014 conference. The second issue appeared in March 2015. The third issue came out in December 2015. The UNLOC newsletter is also made freely available on the project's website.

n/a
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2016,2015,2014
URL http://us7.campaign-archive1.com/?u=221ff3860eea30f18bc30e7ec&id=aea082fb52&e=825dee2a3e
 
Description UNLOC posters displayed at UCL Barlow/Mildner Public Lectures 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact UNLOC posters displayed at a poster session as part of a UCL annual public lecture. Posters viewed by approx 250 visitors, including 100 industry representatives.

None known
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2013,2014
 
Description UNLOC team - Big Bang Fair 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Schools
Results and Impact UNLOC PhD students, post-doctoral researchers, and Investigator Dr Benn Thomsen attended the Big Bang Fair London, a Science and Engineering Fair to encourage more pupils to study STEM subjects. UNLOC had demonstrations to show pupils how data can be transmitted over optical fibre, and how the internet reaches the home. Over 5000 pupils from across London attended.

Teachers took UNLOC literature to use in their schools, and some expressed interest in a school visit from UNLOC researchers.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2014
URL https://nearme.thebigbangfair.co.uk/London/
 
Description Visit at institution: EPSRC ICT team 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an open day or visit at my research institution
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Local
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact UNLOC and TRANSNET teams based at UCL had a visit from the EPSRC ICT teams to explore the lab facilities.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2019
 
Description Visit at institution: Infinera 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an open day or visit at my research institution
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Local
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Dr Robert Maher, an industry employee, visited the UCL UNLOC and TRANSNET teams to deliver a presentation to approximately 30 members of the team on 'the challenges of building next generation coherent transceivers'. The talk was received extremely well and led to an excellent question and answer session on the topic.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2019
 
Description WAVE 2022 
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 WAVE 2022 was a one-day conference held at the BT Tower, sponsored by the Sub-Optic Foundation to attract young people to the field of subsea communications - and with prominent members of the sub-sea community - it was an important Advocacy event: https://wave.subopticfoundation.org/

TRANSNET team played a major role in the organisation of the event, and Professor Polina Bayvel was one of the prominent figures at the event. In addition to being one of the key speakers at the Round Table discussion on the range of opportunities available in Subsea, she also presented her thoughts on defining moments in the breakthrough of optical networks; followed by an engaging debate on the topic with Gary Waterworth, Network Investment EMEA at META and Maja Summers, Senior Submarine Commercial Manager at Vodafone.

TRANSNET was also officially recognised as a partner of the event for supporting the organisers with planning of the event. The event was livestreamed to schools around the world, and was attended by both established and up-and-coming figures in the field of subsea communications.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
URL https://transnet.org.uk/news-and-events/546-transnet-goes-to-the-bt-tower
 
Description Workshop: CableLabs 
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 Dr Domanic Lavery attended a small workshop with the prestigious organisation CableLabs, Colorado. They are responsible for setting the cable Internet standards used by more than 500 million subscribers. His networking led to potential opportunities for further collaborations.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2019
 
Description Workshop: Optical Experiments and Testing: With or without FEC?, OFC 2019 
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 Our Deputy Director Seb Savory and Co-investigator Dom Lavery led on this workshop hosted at the leading optical communications conference, OFC 2019. They presented to an audience of 50+ and social media interactions hinted at the workshop's popularity. Their talk was entitled 'Abusing Forward Error Correction in Optical Communications Experiments'.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2019
 
Description Workshop: Optical Injection Locking: From Principles to Applications, OFC 2019 
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 TRANSNET co-investigator delivered a presentation entitled Optical Injection Locking: From Principles to Applications at OFC 2019; his workshop was part of a series of workshops dedicated to optical communications, and he presented to an audience of 50+.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2019
 
Description Workshop: Will Advanced Direct-detection Systems Ever Be the Solution of Choice for Metro and Access Applications?, OFC 2019 
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 Our Co-investigator Domanic Lavery participated in a workshop at the leading optical communications conference OFC. Here, he delivered a talk entitled ' Reduced complexity coherent transceivers for optical access' to over 100 delegates.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2019
 
Description Xu and Semrau paper 
Form Of Engagement Activity A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact As a result of a press release based on an UNLOC paper, Fibre Systems published an article on UNLOC research. Fibre Systems published the article online and in their Winter 2017 printed issue. The research showed that the use of probabilistic shaping in combination with existing digital signal processing techniques could double data rates.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2017
URL http://www.fibre-systems.com/news/story/uk-researchers-probe-limits-coherent-optical-transmission
 
Description karem School science week 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Local
Primary Audience Schools
Results and Impact UNLOC PhD students Daniel Elson and Adam Funnell visited Kerem School as part of the school's science and arts week, and presented activites on communicating with light to children aged 8-11 years.

not known
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2015