Communications
Over 100 researchers in the College of Science & Engineering are addressing the challenges of Future Telecommunications. This research focuses on providing robust and secure high-speed communications and has a range of applications including mobile healthcare, security, energy, and agriculture both locally and in developing countries, addressing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
5G research is an area of significant strength; we are a founding partner in the Scottish 5G Centre and leading the deployment of a 5G urban testbed in Glasgow. The College hosts world leading facilities for communication systems and devices measurements and experimentation – including facilities for 6G device testing. Enabling technologies in wireless communications, optical networking and fibre optics/mm wave and THz wireless links require novel semiconductor devices and circuits – and these are manufactured in our world-leading James Watt Nanofabrication Centre and characterised at chip level.
Wireless communication research includes the design of new waveforms, their theoretical and practical performance evaluation, and their system-level performance. This research also covers physical layer security applications in machine-to-machine and Internet-of-things communications. Advanced security is an essential ingredient of communication networks to ensure fail-safe operation and Blockchain and distributed ledger technology underpins this work.
Researchers are designing pop-up emergency networks based on the principles of self-organisation. When communications systems are destroyed or overwhelmed, these pop-up networks will accelerate aid to remote communities, ensure rescue services have up to date information and can coordinate resources.