It was announced today that future tech experts at Waterford Institute of Technology’s world-renowned Telecommunications, Software and Systems Group (TSSG) are leading the way in a ground-breaking, industry-focused EU-funded project to plot and plan the future of wireless technology way beyond 5G.
TERAPOD sees academics and industry leaders from Ireland, the UK, Spain and Germany not just investigate but also test and demonstrate the feasibility of an ultra-high bandwidth wireless access networks operating in the Terahertz (THz) band that is 1,000 faster than today’s optimum speeds. The band is seen as the new frontier for wireless communication and the key to satisfying the increasing demand for higher speed wireless communication.
Dr Alan Davy and his TSSG team developed the concept for the project and hand-picked experts from across Europe to join the multi-disciplinary, multinational team. Today they meet for the first time at TSSG with industry partner, Dell EMC, and start delivering the mammoth 3 year, €3 million plus TERAPOD programme.
TSSG are project co-ordinators and leading the EU-backed initiative and partnering with Dell EMC means they can test their findings in both the TSSG’s own and Dell EMC’s extensive data centre networks, Dr. Davy said.
They’re the only Irish college involved in the project and their hand-selected partners from industry and academia include the University of Glasgow and University College London, the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) and Bay Phonics in the UK. German partners include TU Braunschweig, Vivid Components and ACST. The sole Spanish partner is VLC Photonics and the team also includes Inesc Tec from Portugal.
Commenting on the project, Dr. Davy said, "This is a massively prestigious project for TSSG to lead and it opens up a whole new horizon for us as a leading research hub and for Ireland as a whole. Our role in TSSG extends beyond coordination and into THz communication protocols at the physical and data link layer along with novel Software Defined Network (SDN) management strategies The European Commission funded 6 projects to look beyond 5G and this flagship initiative is unrivalled."
He added, "The project will focus on concept deployment demonstration within a data centre. It will bring THz communication a leap closer to industry uptake through leveraging recent advances in THz components, coupled with higher layer communication protocol specification. It will have global impact and we’re honoured and privileged to be playing our part."
Source: www.businessworld.ie
