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Research into distributed optical fibre sensing undertaken at the Optoelectronics Research Centre (ORC) at the University of Southampton has had profound economic and environmental impact within the oil and gas industries in both extraction efficiency from existing reservoirs and improved safety performance and operation of three companies: Optasense, Stingray Geophysical and Schlumberger. Each of these companies have established highly competitive positions in the worldwide optical sensor market and collectively employ more than 160 people in the south of England, in their distributed sensing programmes having benefitted from the adoption of this new technology that contributes to the management of environmental risks and hazards.
Cascade Technologies is a rapidly expanding technology company that contributes significantly to the UK economy. The company, a spin out from the Physics Department, manufactures gas sensors based on Strathclyde research that are used for environmental monitoring, security monitoring and process monitoring. From 2008 to 2013 the company has expanded to employ 50 people and sales have increased from £0.9 million to £6.4 million. From 2008 the company's products are used on a number of commercial shipping fleets to monitor emissions, and from 2010 until 2011 have been used to increase traveller safety at Glasgow airport
The performance of absolute distance measuring systems has been improved in terms of accuracy, traceability, reliability and cost through the introduction of new methodology arising from research at the University of Oxford. This has brought commercial benefit to a German company making measurement systems, through the creation of a new product line. New capabilities for measurement have been delivered to a first customer in Germany. The research has also resulted in the establishment of new activity at the National Physical Laboratory, and influenced UK and European technology roadmaps for future manufacturing.
Aston's fibre Bragg grating research on optical sensing has had a global commercial impact, in particular the development of low-cost fibre FBG sensor interrogation methods. The work has been carried out with a diverse range of companies (including BAE Systems, Airbus, Insensys, Schlumberger) working across different sectors including oil and gas aerospace and marine. Specific impacts include the acquisition of 70% of the stock of Insensys Wind for US$15.7 million by Moog in 2009 and continuing employment by Smart Fibres, Moog Insensys and Astasense.
The first commercial electronic nose (aka e-nose) instruments were designed, developed and built by researchers in Warwick's School of Engineering in the 1990s, and commercialized by [text removed for publication]
Warwick's patents in chemical sensing also led in 2008 to the creation of a spin-out company, Cambridge CMOS Sensors Ltd (CCS), which provides low-cost low-power gas-sensing technology and is already established in the gas-sensing market.
The smart sensors and instrumentation developed as a result of the pioneering research in artificial olfaction and chemical sensing have had economic impacts across a wide range of sectors, in particular in food quality, healthcare and consumer electronics. The two companies employ around 100 people and the thousands of e-nose instruments sold help quality assurance of foods, beverages and are now being deployed in hospitals for bacterial detection.
Today's global telecom systems are powered by technology developed at the University of Glasgow. This technology has been utilised, endorsed and developed by a series of internationally successful companies, facilitating multimillion pound investment from across Europe and the USA for the companies.
Gemfire Europe acquired the University of Glasgow IP and technology and between 2008 and 2012 launched a range of `green' products with reduced power consumption. The company's revenues reached $12m annually and in 2013, Gemfire was one of the world's top five planar lightwave circuit companies. Gemfire was bought by Kaiam, one of the world's market-leading optical networking companies in April 2013, stimulating further innovation and investment in the production of high-speed components for the global data networking market.
High-power lasers developed at the University of Glasgow now lie at the heart of state-of-the-art technologies in the commercial printing, medical and defence markets. University of Glasgow spin-out company Intense has introduced more than 10 new diode laser products with superior brightness, longer lifetimes and increased reliability to these markets since 2008. [text removed for publication.] In 2011 Intense was bought by ORIX USA Corporate Finance Group for an undisclosed sum.
The commercialisation of Quantum Cascade Lasers (QCL) and the associated novel fabrication processes developed at the University of Glasgow has provided Compound Semiconductor Technologies Global Ltd (CSTG) with a new foundry product supplying quantum cascade lasers for gas sensing, safety and security, and military applications. This resulted in 40% turnover growth from 2010-2012 and the company is now recognised as a global leader in QCLs and their fabrication. Based on University of Glasgow research, the company has created a manufacturing toolbox for the production of a wide variety of QCL chip designs. CSTG has also achieved a world first, manufacturing QCLs for systems that detect explosives at a safe distance and can counter heat-seeking missile attacks on aircraft.
High power fibre laser research undertaken at the University of Southampton has led to the creation of a new business sector in the generation of highly efficient and highly practical fibre laser technology. This has revolutionised areas of industrial material processing and enabled the development of specialist components for high-end industries (such as aviation and defence) as well as an array of new medical devices, procedures and manufacturing technologies. The research is also directly responsible for the commercial success and sustained growth of a spin-out company, SPI Lasers Ltd, which has an annual turnover of over £40 million and employs more than 250 people in the Southampton area.
The future of the world's energy supply is a global concern, as the demands of a growing population rise and the ability to locate precious oil and gas resources becomes increasingly difficult. Researchers at the University of Glasgow have made a fundamental contribution with the development of LightTouch™ — a Shell proprietary ultrasensitive, technologically advanced gas sensing survey method. In fourteen years of cooperation with Shell, the University of Glasgow has delivered multi-million dollar savings and improved the delivery of efficient survey data, substantially decreasing the economic impact associated with unsuccessful drilling.