School of Engineering (ENG)
Scientists Studying our Future
Thu, 12 Apr 2012 15:00:00 BST
Thu, Apr 12, 2012
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Sixty experts will attend the event organised by Dr Boris Gremont from the University of Portsmouth's School of Engineering. The conference is sponsored by the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET).
Dr Gremont is the UK representative on a joint international research project under the auspices of the European Union.
He said: “The near future will see a generalisation in our communication needs. Up to now, mostly people have been the main direct users of the electromagnetic spectrum, but in the near future, more and more objects themselves will be allowed to transmit and receive radio signals independently of humans and will be hooked to the Internet via wireless networks.
“This trend has already started but we are really on the verge of a new era where our lives can be technologically enhanced in new ways thanks to wirelessly connected devices. To be achievable this requires ever more refined understanding of the radio propagation environment.”
The event – Propagation tools and data for integrated telecommunication, navigation and earth observation systems – is being held in Portsmouth on April 16-18.
Dr Gremont said: “We all have been working very hard for four years and the outcomes of the project will be a significant breakthrough in our understanding of radio propagation in multiple environments and scenarios.”
The subjects under discussion include the deployment of future earth observation, navigation and communication systems, including looking into the detailed experimental study and the associated theoretical modelling of how radiowaves interact with the Earth's atmosphere, urban, suburban and other local environments and also space.
Dr Gremont said: “Such work is needed because the near future will see a further explosion in the exploitation of the electromagnetic spectrum both on earth and in space.
“Our work will be useful for planning future mobile, satcomm and satnav systems, high bit rate optical links, high altitude platforms, drones and air traffic management systems.
“We're all very excited and reasonably confident that some of our developments will be adopted by the International Telecommunications Union in Geneva, the main international standardisation agency for information and communication technologies.
“Modelling the interaction between radiowaves and diverse media consists in carrying out real-world measurements and then find mathematical equations or models that describe the experimental results.
“In some sense, the main idea is that an equation (once found) is worth a thousand experiments. These equations and models can then be used by others when they design or plan their electromagnetic systems.”