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In this case study, two specific examples of impact are reported. One is cost-effective and high-performance smart antennas for the offender tagging system and marine navigation system for Guidance Navigation Ltd (Guidance). This collaboration has resulted in new and leading products and also helped the company to win a range of contracts. The other example is the development of a novel intelligent drilling system_for Zetica Ltd. This system can detect deeply buried unexploded ordinance and other objects. It has given Zetica a unique new product to significantly improve operational safety and win business worldwide.
Increasing use of mobile phones and the consequent congestion of the original bands have meant that over the last decade, additional bands have been released, and all current mobile phones need to operate at up to five different frequency bands. Professor Hall's group supported by £160k from British Telecom Labs, showed how to design a multi-band planar inverted F antenna, using slots in the antenna top plate. The published papers have since been quoted in many industrial patents and widely acknowledged to be the first publications of the antenna. Nokia, who had the largest market share in the REF period, based their antenna designs on the slot concept, and hence a large proportion of the several billion phones in the world today use this antenna, with a financial value of many millions of pounds.
We have developed enabling technologies for the defence, automotive and identification industries, the health service and the wider community where our contributions enable end users to maximise performance for a given cost. Work on Frequency Selective Surfaces (FSS) produced sub-reflectors for aerospace (BAE Systems — mm/sub-mm satellite radiometers for earth observations). Small antenna and RFID work led to new products in the automotive industry (Harada Industries), on-line fuel management systems (Timeplan Ltd), wireless smoke detectors (EMS Group), connectors (Martec), antennas (Panorama Antennas Ltd) and for Digital TV (Mitsubishi). Millimetre-wave over fibre systems linked antennas have supported the acquisition of new astronomical data, through the international ALMA (Atacama Large Millimetre Array) project, facilitating deeper public understanding of the universe.
Antenova Ltd, a spin out company created to exploit University of Sheffield research, is a leading developer and supplier of high performance antennas and radio frequency (RF) antenna modules for wireless communication and consumer electronic devices such as smartphones, laptop computers and tablets. Significant commercial impact has been generated: Antenova has 6% of the global mobile antenna market (2 Billion units) and is a leader in the global antenna design market with a 15% share, employing 40 staff worldwide and with an annual turnover of about $8 million. To gain commercial advantage Microsoft Corporation bought out Antenova in 2013.
Small high dielectric constant chip antennas resulting from the underpinning research allow multiple wireless services to be provided on small devices such as smart phones and as these antennas are very efficient, save energy, extend battery life and so bring environmental benefit.
State-of-the-art radio systems require antennas that are a) able to cover an ultra-wide range of operating frequency bands, and b) compact and yet robust enough to be mounted in settings that range from satellites to the human body. Our pioneering work in this area has led to the significant contributions to the UK Ofcom Spectrum Framework Review and the developments of new products and business opportunities, new technologies for assessing the EM emission on the mobile handset and for smart meter deployment, and wearable antennas deployed in the battlefield to reduce the load and smart communications for dismounted soldiers.
The Advanced Signal Processing Group at Loughborough University has, since 2007, changed significantly the awareness and understanding of technical staff at QinetiQ, Malvern, a world leading defence and security company, in relation to signal processing for Polynomial Matrix Decompositions, Game Theoretic Methods and Cooperative Communications and Beamforming. This has helped QinetiQ, Malvern, to develop state-of-the-art products and solutions for the networked battlespace with unique performance advantages. This impact is being extended through a five-year £4.5M project awarded, in 2013, by the EPSRC and Dstl to Loughborough University, to aid in implementing the UK's Defence Technology Strategy for the 21st Century.
Practical Waveform Engineering, developed at Cardiff, is having a major impact on how modern- day microwave power amplifiers are designed, delivering real competitive advantages for global communications companies such as Nokia-Siemens-Networks and M/A-COM.
Economic impact is through reduced time-to-market and lower design costs, leading to high- performance power amplifier products. Examples include $40M revenue and employment of additional staff for M/A-Com, and the successful spin-off company Mesuro Ltd., generating revenue in excess of £2.5M.
Impact on practice is through successful demonstration of new device technologies and amplifier architectures, the introduction of PWE-based CAD models, and most significantly, the introduction of the "Cardiff Model" into mainstream simulation tools.
Environmental Impact is by improving the efficiency of power amplifiers and significantly reducing the carbon contribution of mobile communications systems, translating into savings of approximately £2.5M/year and a 17 kiloton reduction in CO2 emission for a typical EU network.
Femtocells provide short-range (e.g. 10m) wireless coverage which enables a conventional cellular communication system to be accessed indoors. Their widespread and growing use has been aided by the work in UoA11 by the University of Bedfordshire (UoB).
In 2008, while the femtocell concept was still in its infancy, researchers at UoB with expertise in wireless networks recognised that coverage prediction and interference reduction techniques would be essential if the benefits of that concept were to be realised.
Collaboration with two industrial partners (an international organisation and a regional SME) resulted in tools that enable operators to simulate typical femtocell deployment scenarios, such as urban, dense apartments, terraced house and small offices, before femtocells can be reliably deployed by users without affecting the rest of the network (a benefit of the technology). These tools have been deployed by those partners to support their businesses. A widely-cited textbook, written for network engineers, researchers and final year students, has brought knowledge of femtocell operation to a wider audience.
The manipulation of electromagnetic radiation using novel materials by physicists at the University of Exeter has given rise to new technologies for military stealth applications, anti-counterfeiting measures and Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) of pharmaceuticals, machinery and perishable goods. The research findings increased the global competitiveness of FTSE 250 defence and security company QinetiQ, driving innovation in its work with the MoD and leading to the creation of a successful spin-out, Omni-ID, that is meeting demand in the high-growth RFID market. Exeter's research underpinned the EPSRC decision to award the University and QinetiQ £3.2m to exploit applications of their patented technology.
WiFi technologies are integral to our internet-connected lives. Most of the world's wireless data passes over one of the global WiFi standards. For more than 20 years the University's Communication Systems & Networks (CS&N) Group has contributed towards the development of these technologies, and to products that conform to them.
The WiFi standards are vital since they ensure that computers, mobile phones, set-top boxes and tablets all use the same waveforms and protocols to wirelessly connect to the Internet. They ensure inter-operability between different products and manufacturers.
CS&N pioneered the use of multicarrier modulation and multiple antenna (MIMO) technologies. These underpin the current WiFi standards (802.11g/n), ratified in 2003/2009. Research on wireless and video communications led, via spin-out ProVision Communications, to a range of robust wireless-video products for high definition video transmission in the home. These products are now manufactured and sold by Global Invacom.
In partnership with Farncombe, the Group has developed a defacto WiFi test standard. This combines the Group's rigorous WiFi antenna validation & verification measurements with its system level in-home modelling and measurement tools. [text removed for publication]. To date, more than five million WiFi routers have benefited from the University's WiFi test process.