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.
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.
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.
Organisations
- University College London (Lead Research Organisation)
- Alcatel-Lucent (Collaboration)
- Keio University (Collaboration)
- Microsoft Research (Collaboration)
- Huawei Technologies (Collaboration)
- SUMITOMO CORPORATION (Collaboration)
- Novosibirsk National Research State University (NSU) (Collaboration)
- NEC Corporation (Collaboration)
- Corning Inc. (Collaboration)
- Eblana Photonics Ltd (Collaboration)
- Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories (Collaboration)
- KDDI Foundation (Collaboration)
- ADVA Optical Networking (Collaboration)
- UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHAMPTON (Collaboration)
- NICT National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (Collaboration)
- Oclaro (Collaboration)
- Xtera Communications (Collaboration)
- Sterlite Technologies (Collaboration)
- UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE (Collaboration)
- KDDI (Collaboration)
- Mitsubishi Electric (Collaboration)
- British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) (Collaboration)
- Polatis (Collaboration)
- Google (United States) (Project Partner)
- Deutsche Telekom (Germany) (Project Partner)
- BT Group (United Kingdom) (Project Partner)
- Semtech (United Kingdom) (Project Partner)
- Ciena (United Kingdom) (Project Partner)
- Orange (France) (Project Partner)
- Oclaro (United Kingdom) (Project Partner)
- EnSilica (United Kingdom) (Project Partner)
- Los Alamos National Laboratory (Project Partner)
- Xtera Communications Limited (Project Partner)
- Huawei Technologies (China) (Project Partner)
- Arden Photonics (Project Partner)
- Cable & Wireless Global (Project Partner)
Publications
Jacobsen G
(2012)
Phase Noise Influence in Long-range Coherent Optical OFDM Systems with Delay Detection, IFFT Multiplexing and FFT Demodulation
in J. Opt. Commun.
Kamalian M
(2017)
On the Design of NFT-Based Communication Systems With Lumped Amplification
in Journal of Lightwave Technology
Kamalian M
(2017)
Energy based transmission optimisation in nonlinear Fourier domain
Kamalian M
(2016)
Periodic nonlinear Fourier transform for fiber-optic communications, Part I: theory and numerical methods.
in Optics express
Kamalian M
(2016)
Periodic nonlinear Fourier transform for fiber-optic communications, Part II: eigenvalue communication.
in Optics express
Kamalian-Kopae M
(2020)
Design Principles for Fibre-Wireless Integration in the Mobile Communication Networks
Kamalian-Kopae M
(2022)
Neural Network-Enhanced Optical Phase Conjugation for Nonlinearity Mitigation
Kanesan T
(2014)
Non-rectangular perfect reconstruction pulse shaping based ICI reduction in CO-OFDM.
in Optics express
Karanov B
(2017)
Span length and information rate optimisation in optical transmission systems using single-channel digital backpropagation.
in Optics express
Karanov B
(2019)
End-to-end optimized transmission over dispersive intensity-modulated channels using bidirectional recurrent neural networks
in Optics Express
Karanov B
(2018)
End-to-End Deep Learning of Optical Fiber Communications
in Journal of Lightwave Technology
Kharenko DS
(2017)
All-fiber highly chirped dissipative soliton generation in the telecom range.
in Optics letters
Koike-Akino T
(2016)
Experimental Demonstration of Nonbinary LDPC Convolutional Codes for DP-64QAM/256QAM
Koike-Akino T
(2018)
Irregular Polar Coding for Complexity-Constrained Lightwave Systems
in Journal of Lightwave Technology
| 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. 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. Another contribution has been by way of input into UK Government policy - following significant advocacy through the programme, the UK Government has 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 | 2014 |
| 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 | 06/2018 |
| 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 | 08/2020 |
| End | 08/2023 |
| 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 | 09/2014 |
| 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 | 10/2020 |
| 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 | 04/2013 |
| 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 | 10/2014 |
| 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 | 06/2018 |
| 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 | 10/2014 |
| 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 | 07/2014 |
| 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 | 10/2015 |
| 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 | 08/2018 |
| 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 | 06/2012 |
| 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 | 10/2014 |
| 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 | 04/2015 |
| 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 | 02/2022 |
| 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 | 07/2013 |
| 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 | 10/2016 |
| End | 10/2021 |
| Description | H2020-MSCA-IF-2015 |
| Amount | € 183,454 (EUR) |
| Funding ID | 701770 |
| Organisation | European Commission H2020 |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | Belgium |
| Start | 09/2016 |
| 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 | 06/2018 |
| 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 | 05/2016 |
| 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 | 04/2021 |
| 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 | 04/2016 |
| End | 03/2018 |
| Description | Microsoft Reseach - EP/R035342/1 |
| Amount | £10,983 (GBP) |
| Organisation | Microsoft Research |
| Sector | Private |
| Country | Global |
| Start | 05/2019 |
| End | 06/2019 |
| Description | Microsoft Research Cambridge Gift Scheme |
| Amount | £90,000 (GBP) |
| Organisation | Microsoft Research |
| Sector | Private |
| Country | Global |
| Start | 04/2018 |
| 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 | 10/2016 |
| 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 | 07/2019 |
| 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 | 10/2018 |
| 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 | 04/2016 |
| 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 | 09/2020 |
| 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 | 08/2018 |
| 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 | 09/2021 |
| 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 | 09/2014 |
| 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 | 10/2016 |
| 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 | 09/2014 |
| 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 | 09/2014 |
| 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 | 08/2022 |
| 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 | 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 | 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 | 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 | 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 | 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 | 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 |