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The application of advanced control algorithms has generated an impact on the economy and the environment through increased precision and reduced cost of operation of fast mechanical systems. A reduction in fuel consumption and CO2 emissions has been achieved in the transportation industry by the implementation of novel advanced control algorithms for advanced cruise control systems.
The commercialisation of Newcastle University's pioneering research in underwater acoustic communication has created market leading products, achieving economic impact, enhanced subsea operations, an award for improved diver safety and reduced impact of subsea acoustic emissions on marine mammals. Our research outputs have been incorporated in a range of products manufactured under licence by Tritech International Ltd. Since 2008 the MicronNav product has become the preferred solution for tracking underwater remotely operated vehicles from manufacturers including Seabotix Inc and Videoray Inc, with over £2M of licensed products sold to date. Bespoke high performance data telemetry systems have also enabled previously impossible subsea operations to be completed.
Research undertaken between 2002 and 2012 at Birkbeck has helped establish a participatory approach to cyber-physical computing as the predominant methodology for the construction of mobile and pervasive computing systems. Cyber-physical systems intimately interlink material entities and their information representations as existing on the Internet. Our specific research contributions in systems architecture, privacy protection and human dynamics have demonstrated how the user's activity can be exploited as the core ingredient in building such systems. Our research has resulted in the implementation of applications that are used to monitor biodiversity across the globe, to assess and support Parkinson's disease patients in the UK, to improve the well-being of office workers in London, to engage the public in a debate about the costs and benefits of pervasive computing, and to inform legislatures in the UK and the US.
Work undertaken at the Applied DSP and VLSI Research Group since the early/mid nineties, has led to a number of significant contributions underpinning the development and commercial exploitation by industry of power efficient and complexity reduced integrated Digital Signal Processing (DSP) systems and products. These developments have paved the way for a new paradigm in the design of complexity reduced electronic systems aiding the emergence of numerous new commercial application areas and products in a diversity of fields. Indeed, these developments continue their currency and applicability in today's electronic products sector and thus shall be at the core of this case study.
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.
Bio-inspired computer algorithms, developed by Dr Stephen Smith at the University of York, have been integrated with commercially available hardware that analyse patients' movements to diagnose and monitor a range of neurodegenerative conditions including Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's disease. Clinical studies undertaken in the UK and USA report a diagnostic accuracy exceeding 90% - a 15% improvement on current clinical practice. A new spinout company, ClearSky Medical Diagnostics Ltd, has licenced four products exploiting this technology to nine health centres in the UK, USA, Singapore, Australia and UAE, transforming clinical testing with improved diagnosis and monitoring of patients in hospitals and their own homes.
This case study provides an account of work on a mathematical framework for the design and optimization of communication networks, and some examples of the framework's influence upon the development of the network congestion control schemes that underlie modern communication networks, notably the Internet.
The impact on protocol development and on network architectures has been significant; in particular on the development of congestion control algorithms and multipath routing algorithms that are stable and fair. Several of the insights on large scale system behaviour have been transferred to help understand cascading failures in other large scale systems, including transport infrastructures.
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.
Mobile technologies and in particular mobile applications have become key drivers of the economy in many countries especially those that lack established communications infrastructures. Since 2003, the research team led by Professor Al-Begain has created both significant infrastructure and know-how that became the base for the creation of the £6.4million Centre of Excellence in Mobile Applications and Services (CEMAS) that is providing research and development to SMEs in Wales to increase their competitiveness. In the first three years since its inception 28 projects have been completed and 66 companies have received services.