High-speed communication worldwide

Citation

(2004), "High-speed communication worldwide", Kybernetes, Vol. 33 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/k.2004.06733aab.005

High-speed communication worldwide

High-speed communication worldwide

At last work to design and develop the next era of high-speed optical networks for communications between researchers around the world is moving ahead at an increased pace. The United Kingdom, for example, can expect to have its own presence on the evolving network of super-networks. In England, the Higher Education Funding Council (Hefee) has already announced a £6.5 million grant to fund UKLight, a point of presence facility in London that links with NetherLight in Amsterdam and StarLight in Chicago.

A progress report on the UKs involvement says that:

The UK will join several other leading networks creating an international experimental testbed for optical networking. In addition to the Dutch and US networks, these include the Canadian academic network Canarie, Cern in Geneva, and NorthernLight in the Nordic countries.UKLight will connect Janet, the UK's research and education network, to the testbed and also provide access for UK researchers to the Internet2 facilities in the USA via Starlight. The management of the programme will be provided by Ukerna (UK Education and Research Networking Association), which manages Janet on behalf of the Joint Information Systems Committee, JISC.

More funding is obviously needed and since this collaboration has received so much support, it will undoubtedly be forthcoming. A wide range of interests from e-science to engineering, including automation and robotics, will benefit from such networks that link both national and international endeavours.

New Research Centres in the UK

Further funding has been made available in the UK so that innovative manufacturing research can be supported. The second tranche of Centres has now been strengthened by two new ones at Imperial College, London and at Heriot Watt in Scotland.

Imperial College Centre

The Built Environment Innovation Centre (BEIC) at Imperial College began operations in April 2003 and plans to carry out an ambitious interdisciplinary programme. The Centre will draw on engineering, management and social sciences to tackle real-world empirical problems, focusing on the development of new technology in the production and use of their built environment. BEIC's work will be located in the field of engineering, design, and innovation management associated with long-lived complex capital assets and infrastructures. The grant to BEIC is some £3.27 million. Professors David Gann (principal investigator) and James Barlow are the Centre's directors (www.imperial.ac.uk/business/innovation).

Heriot-Watt Centre

Heriot-Watt's Centre supports UK manufacturing industry with applied and fundamental research in plutonics technology and digital tools for manufacture. The Centre has a diverse portfolio of projects that range from laser processing of materials through photonics-based sensing of manufacturing processes to MEMs, 3D modelling, texture characterisation, and virtual reality for design assembly processes. Its work is supported by industrial collaborators that range from multinational corporations to small high-tech start-up businesses (j.simmonds@hw.ac.uk or d.j.nisbet@hw.ac.uk).