The centre has been funded by a broad range of public and private sector bodies. Collaborators include Universities across the UK and Europe, and organisations such as RAL, Aegis, NPL, LA Techniques Ltd, and Canada’s Communications Research Centre.
For a number of years the radio systems research group has been involved in radio channel measurements in the HF to mm frequency bands. To support this research, a number of wideband channel sounders have been designed, implemented and used to help capture active measurements both indoors and out, and to develop models for use in our applied research.
Mobile radio channel measurements have been performed with bandwidths up to 300 MHz in the UHF band, with architectures including multiple antenna measurements and simultaneous multiple frequency band measurements for 3G mobile radio systems, and in the higher frequency bands at 2.45 GHz, 3.5 GHz, 5.2 GHz and 5.8 GHz bands.
The Centre has also developed a simulator for Metropolitan area networks which uses our channel measurements. Passive measurements to monitor usage of the spectrum have been modelled to enable more efficient use of the spectrum’s white space. The goal of this research has been better understanding of mobile radio propagation, and producing channel information to help with the design and evaluation of reliable and spectrally efficient radio communication systems.
Recent research projects also investigated topics around on-body networks in car to car communications, and in-building monitoring of the usage of energy. The application of digital techniques for ultrawide bandwidths (UWB) for through the wall detection and for ground penetrating radar were successfully demonstrated under a project funded by HMGCC.
Current research on 5G networks (funded by Ofcom UK and EU under the Wavecombe Project) includes studying the impact of precipitation on mm wave frequencies for short links such as building-to-building links and for outdoor and indoor environments.
