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UNLOC represented at Huawei workshop

21 September, 2016

UNLOC Investigators, Prof Andrew Ellis and Dr Robert Killey, and UCL Optical Networks Group PhD Student, Zhe Li, represented UNLOC at the recent Huawei Innovation Research Program (HIRP) workshop on Novel Photonics Technologies for Optical Communication.

UNLOC was represented alongside nearly two dozen industry and academic leaders sharing their views on new devices, processing and packaging technologies and system architectures and implementations.

Dr Killey and Zhe Li presented on 'Nonlinearity compensation, low complexity receivers and spectrally-efficient direct-detection transceivers for metro networks'. The team from UCL presented their latest work demonstrating the use of digital signal processing and simplified coherent receivers for enhanced capacity in optical access networks. This pioneering research could help achieve faster fibre broadband speeds in our homes, through a cost-effective technique. Earlier in the same session, Prof Andrew Ellis presented on 'Optical Transmission - pushing the capacity limit'.

The HIRP program provides funding opportunities to leading universities and research institutes conducting innovative research in communication technology, computer science, engineering, and related fields. HIRP seeks to identify and support world-class, full-time faculty members pursuing innovation of mutual interest. It comprises three schemes; HIRP Open, HIRP Flagship and HIRP Exploratory. HIRP Open relates to bottom-up open calls for small scale projects allowing partners to establish a relationship with Huawei. HIRP Flagship is an invitation only top-down program providing large multi-year contracts of interest to both parties.

Prof Andrew Ellis described the workshop as "an opportunity for leading researchers to discuss their latest results, both with each other and with leaders of Huawei’s development programs. It was a chance to learn about the market drivers behind Huawei’s future product developments and of course to discuss potential Open and Flagship projects arising out of research at Aston University and UCL which will hasten the economic impact of UNLOC research".

Huawei are an original industry partner of the UNLOC programme and this workshop, held on Friday 16 September in Munich, continues the longstanding relationship. This workshop forms part of the Exploratory avenue of the HIRP program, which aims to facilitate world-class R&D teams to share predictions and ideas.

The workshop was aimed at an audience of engineers, designers, managers and experts in the field of photonic component and optical communication system technologies.