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University of Cambridge research on the principles of `sentient computing' led to the foundation of spin-out company Ubisense, which has grown into a leading location solutions company. By the end of 2011, Ubisense had 170 employees and was floated on AIM with a valuation of £38.6million. It serves customers such as BMW, Airbus, Aston Martin and the US Army. Deployment of the Ubisense Real Time Location System has improved production line accuracy and efficiency by up to 10%.
RealVNC is a spin out company launched by the University of Cambridge researchers who developed Virtual Network Computing (VNC) remote access technology. VNC allows connection and control of devices from anywhere in the world, irrespective of operating system. VNC is now the default mechanism for remote sharing of graphical desktops across the internet. RealVNC has sold over 300 million licences across 175 countries. The company has won three Queen's Awards for Enterprise and the Royal Academy of Engineering's MacRobert Award, the UK's premier engineering prize.
Research in the Centre for Software Reliability (CSR) at City University London has made significant advances in ways to assess the safety and reliability of safety-critical, fault-tolerant software-based systems. This work supports quantitative safety cases and has influenced practice and regulation in UK and international industries. [text removed for publication] The work has had significant benefit for regulators and licensees of UK nuclear plant, has been recognised in the US nuclear industry and is additionally of benefit to the general public, in ensuring not only that reasoning about the safety of nuclear plant is rigorous and valid, but also that it is seen to be so in order that safety claims are widely and justifiably believed.
Our work has facilitated the creation of a variety of innovative control strategies for First Hydro Company (FHC), owner of Europe's largest pump storage plant. FHC's two plants are both supported by the simulation platform developed as part of our research and responsible for balancing load variation on the National Grid. Critically, FHC's business model relies on their ability to provide ancillary services within a short time. Our research produced a comprehensive plant model, and was used to enhance the dynamic response of the Dinorwig station; this resulted in improvement in National Grid stability and has provided competitive advantages to FHC since 2008.
Research by the University of Huddersfield has produced an in-depth understanding of the factors that contribute to machine tool inaccuracy. This has led to predictive methods for assessing the capability of machines to produce specific components and the development of a low-cost electronic compensation system that can increase machine tool accuracy by a factor of 10, with significant cost savings for factory temperature control. A contract has been signed to market this system globally. Rapid calibration techniques have been developed, in collaboration with a UK world-leading aerospace manufacturer, reducing timescales from days to less than one hour.
This case study concerns the design and methodology adopted in the construction of high reliability (safety-critical and real-time) embedded systems, particularly as applied in the automotive and avionics industry. The key impact has been for the automotive and avionics industry to adopt a change in the way these systems are designed, leading to more reliable systems, faster time to market, lower production and verification costs, and lower maintenance costs.
The subject matter concerns the fundamental architecture of high reliability embedded systems. Specifically it is a paradigm shift in the theoretical design of the software and hardware from established event-driven architectures to novel time-triggered architectures developed at the University of Leicester (UoL). The novel paradigm is supported by a range of development tools, processor designs, and diagnostic/maintenance tools developed by a spin-out company, TTE Systems Ltd. Research was exploited commercially by TTE Systems Ltd to provide economic impact via software tools sales, consultancy services, bespoke product development, and training courses.
Building on excellent computer science research, carried out in a number of applied research centres, the University has taken a leading role in the establishment and development of the software sector in the North East. This has resulted in a regional strategic approach, which has delivered significant social and economic benefits, with impacts including the creation of jobs, SME growth, cluster establishment and inward investment. Sunderland's applied computing research has also resulted in an increase in innovation and research in software SMEs and has impacted on the perception of Sunderland as the heart of a regional software cluster.
Since 1995, Loughborough's research into vibro-impact systems (VIS) has made handheld breaker tools safer for operators and has also increased machining efficiency. Users have been prone to detrimental `hand arm vibration' effects of multiple impacts, including the debilitating condition `white finger'. JCB applied the research findings in its HM25LV breaker design, introduced in 2008, which despite being more powerful exhibits half the hand arm vibration of competitors. JCB has sold more than 1,800 units in the UK and abroad.
The reduction of spatial variation in the quality of reproduced sound within a defined space using varied loudspeaker placements is a significant challenge for sound engineers. Dr Bruce Wiggins has conducted research into encoding, decoding and processing algorithms using Ambisonics, a system based around full-sphere sound reproduction. The outcomes of the research have been made accessible to the wider community by the creation of a suite of software plug-ins (WigWare), a production workflow, and associated teaching materials which can enable commercial audio workstations to benefit from Ambisonics. There are numerous recorded instances of successful use.
The volume and diversity of data that companies need to handle are increasing exponentially. In order to compete effectively and ensure companies' commercial sustainability, it is becoming crucial to achieve robust traceability in both their data and the evolving designs of their systems. The CRISTAL software addresses this. It was originally developed at CERN, with substantial contributions from UWE Bristol, for one of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) experiments, and has been transferred into the commercial world. Companies have been able to demonstrate increased agility, generate additional revenue, and improve the efficiency and cost-effectiveness with which they develop and implement systems in various areas, including business process management (BPM), healthcare and accounting applications. CRISTAL's ability to manage data and their provenance at the terabyte scale, with full traceability over extended timescales, based on its description-driven approach, has provided the adaptability required to future proof dynamically evolving software for these businesses.
This case study embodies a non-linear relationship between underpinning research, software development and deployment. It involves computer science research at UWE in conjunction with its applied development for the world's largest particle physics laboratory and onward deployment commercially into private sector industry.