CTVR is focused on carrying out industry‐informed research of the highest quality in the telecommunications field. Their strengths lie in optical and wireless communications to address the requirements of future networks, specifically in integrated photonics and photonic systems, in RF and antenna design, in cognitive radio and in optimisation processes and thermal management. It is a multi‐institutional centre led by Trinity College Dublin, and currently has six industry partners.

The work of the Centre is carried out in five key locations across Ireland:

Trinity College, Dublin
At TCD Prof. Linda Doyle and her team focus on future networks in terms of protocols, control management, mobility handling and other architectural issues. Reconfigurability and software radio play an important role and Linda's researchers work closely with CTVR colleagues in each of the other institutions.

NUI Maynooth and Dublin Institute of Technology
Dr. Ronan Farrell and his team focus on a range of RF topics as well as contributing hardware elements to the reconfigurability and software radio work undertaken in Trinity. Ronan is supported by Dr. Max Ammann and a team of researchers at the Dublin Institute of Technology. At DIT the focus is on antenna design and performance.

Tyndall National Institute and Dublin City University
Dr. Frank Peters and Dr. Andrew Ellis at Tyndall are supported by Dr. Liam Barry at DCU in undertaking research across a range of areas in future photonics networks.

University of Limerick
Dr. Jeff Punch and his team focus on the reliability, thermal and energy issues facing the telecommunications industry. Specifically, the work concentrates on how these issues relate to the research in TCD, NUIM and Tyndall.

4C at Univerity College Cork
Dr. Ken Brown and his team provide expertise on constraint and optimisation approaches to each of the other CTVR research teams.

EXPERTISE

· Theme 1 - Enabling Technologies: Optical - tuneable lasers and devices that support adaptive modulation techniques. Wireless - frequency agile RF frontends, flexible and wideband antennae, reconfigurable hardware platforms;

· Theme 2 - Dynamic Waveform Design: Adaptive WDM communication systems and adaptive multicarrier waveform synthesis;

· Theme 3 - Cognitive Decision‐Making: Designing a cognitive decision engine, and decision strategies for collective decision‐making;

· Theme 4 - Network Architecture: Mapping commonalities between the optical and wireless space and maximising the performance of an optical network that supports multiple bit rate signals.

Industry Partners: Xilinx; Alcatel-Lucent Bell Labs; Dell; NXP; Socowave and M/ACOM Technology Solutions.

Keywords:

Sustainable ICT; Smart Metering; Future Photonics Networks; Antenna Design; Optimisation; Protocol, CSET