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A new product has been developed to aid marine navigation and berthing at ports, based on the use of a single-sideband (SSB) active target, offering the dual benefits of substantially enhanced performance, and reduced size and production costs. The research has achieved significant commercial impact via the incorporation of the technique, conceived by Brennan, into all such targets made by Guidance Microwave Ltd, a UK-based engineering company specialising in the development, manufacture and supply of short-range active target location systems. To date, the company has sold approximately 700 active targets (around 25 per month), generating more than £3 million in sales. The idea (subject to patent protection) was initially incorporated in the mini-Radascan product, which is now a valuable tool to the industry and has given Guidance Microwave Ltd. a competitive advantage, becoming their most successful product.
In Europe, there are over a million kilometres of oil pipelines, nearly a million kilometres of railway tracks, 600 offshore platforms and 300 suspension cable bridges. However, these assets are aging as they have been in use for many years and operate under harsh conditions. Brunel research team has advanced ultrasonic non-destructive testing (NDT) which has the ability to inspect buried pipes in their original place without removing the pipes or damaging their surrounding environment. In addition, the research was pursued to improve the NDT of rail tracks, storage tanks, flexible risers in offshore platforms and aircraft wires. The research has been commercially exploited and incorporated into Teletest Focus System Mark III by Plant Integrity Limited. The significant improvement has led Plant Integrity to terminate the sale of Teletest Mark III and introduce a new version, Teletest Focus System Mark IV, to the market in late 2010. Since then, Plant Integrity has doubled its turnover from sales of Teletest Focus System Mark IV from £1 million to £2 million in less than a year.
Radiation sources and amplifiers, in the spectral region from microwave to terahertz, are extensively used in UK industry and public sectors such as security, defence, health and the environment. Companies, including e2v Technologies plc. (e2v) and TMD Technologies Ltd. (TMD), have developed and sold new radiation products based on post-1996 research undertaken at the University of Strathclyde. Their devices accessed new frequency ranges with considerable increases in power and bandwidth. The designs were transferred to industry, where devices have been constructed, jobs created, policy changed and considerable investments made. These sources have had extensive beneficial impact through applications in defence, surveillance, materials processing, health sciences and environmental monitoring.
This Keele University research into advanced signal processing and classification methods has led to novel algorithms capable of isolating subtle patterns in complex data. This has been applied in two highly significant application areas: first to the problem of image source identification and second to the problem of unobtrusive but highly secure authentication methods. In the first case this has enabled images captured by mobile phone cameras to be reliably and evidentially linked to source devices. This has huge applicability to those fighting terrorism, paedophile rings and civil unrest by extending detection capabilities to mobile phones in an era in which they are rapidly replacing dedicated cameras. It helps to prove, for example, that a photograph entered as evidence was captured by a specific mobile phone. As most phones can be tied to their user or owner this is extremely important to the successful detection and prosecution of offenders.
In the second case it has enabled criminal record checks to be carried out securely online where previous paper-based systems were both too slow for purpose (taking weeks or months) and inherently insecure, leaving key posts unfilled in the health care industries and education sector; so benefitting the public by solving a problem that was having a negative impact on the running of these public services.
NIBEC connected health related research over the past 20 years has led to three high value spin- out companies. Their success is based on exploitation of over 35 NIBEC patents in medical sensors and electro-stimulation devices. Together these companies are currently valued at almost £100m, employ over 150 skilled people and have engineered medical innovations that have had global beneficial impact on health costs and patients' lives over these past four years. Our research is closely linked with international partners, commercial and clinical, has impacted local government policy through our leadership of the European Connected Health Alliance and has resulted in the £5m industry-focussed Connected Health Innovation Centre established at NIBEC.
Wavelets and multiscale methods were introduced and rapidly became popular in scientific academic communities, particularly mathematical sciences, from the mid-1980s. Wavelets are important because they permit more realistic modelling of many real-world phenomena compared to previous techniques, as well as being fast and efficient. Bristol's research into wavelets started in 1993, has flourished and continues today. Multiscale methods are increasingly employed outside academia. Examples are given here of post-2008 impact in central banking, marketing, finance, R&D in manufacturing industry and commercial software, all originating from research at Bristol. Much of the impact has been generated from the original research via software. This software includes freeware, distributed via international online repositories, and major commercial software, such as Matlab (a preeminent numerical computing environment and programming language with over one million users worldwide).
Research into electrochemical biosensors conducted at the University of Cambridge between 1998 and 2002 led to the development of the WaveSense™ line of diabetes products by start-up, AgaMatrix. By 2012 AgaMatrix had sold 3M glucose meters & 3B biosensor test strips worldwide across 20,000+ retail locations including Boots UK, and since 2010 also globally in partnership with Sanofi. [text removed for publication] AgaMatrix UK continues to grow its business with compound annual growth rates for revenue in excess of 100%. Agamatrix UK now supplies over one million glucose test strips per month to the NHS. Agamatrix has developed >10 FDA-cleared products since 2008, including the first FDA approved smartphone linked diagnostic device.
Cardiff University's research in acoustic emission monitoring and refined data analysis has been applied to large, complex structures and has subsequently transformed the inspection processes of concrete and steel bridges. This has been commercialised by Mistras Group Ltd. to provide a safer, more reliable and progressive means of bridge monitoring, enabling the company to acquire a global reputation and increase its turnover to £7.5M per year — £5M relating to Cardiff research. Cardiff's innovations have had major international impacts (in UK, Europe, India and USA) through:
The impact of this research has been of commercial benefit for TgK Scientific Ltd, a Wiltshire- based SME, who have successfully commercialised a FT-IR Stopped-Flow instrument. This has achieved market share as a result of incorporating an innovative cuvette designed and fabricated by the University of Birmingham's School of Biosciences. The company has sold nine of these instruments since they were first marketed in 2008, generating ~£200,000 in sales. This has made a substantial contribution to the company's total sales, most obviously in 2012 where sales of four instruments accounted for around 10% of their ~£800,000 turnover. The instrument allows the study of fast biological reactions by rapid scanning Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy. The Birmingham contribution is a cuvette of a unique design that enables biological materials to be mixed and observed after 2-3 ms, allowing enzyme-catalysed reactions which have non- chromophoric substrates to be studied in physiological conditions. TgK have combined the cuvette with their stopped-flow drive system and a spectrometer produced by Bruker to make a complete apparatus; it is believed that this gives the instrument a unique functionality valued by a significant niche market.
Invented at the University of Oxford, an instrument for measuring the temporal shape of ultrashort laser pulses has delivered new capabilities for users and manufacturers of short-pulse lasers. The device, the LX SPIDER, is smaller, cheaper and more sensitive than its predecessor. Its impact has been realised by licensing patented technology to APE GmbH, who brought the LX SPIDER to market in 2008. Customers are from industrial and research institutions globally and the device has brought benefits to users in a variety of sectors including materials processing and biomedical diagnostics. It is also used by manufacturers of pulsed lasers in the specification, verification and installation of their laser products.