This proposal seeks funding to create a Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) in Connected Electronic and Photonic Systems (CEPS). Photonics has moved from a niche industry to being embedded in the majority of deployed systems, ranging from sensing, biophotonics and advanced manufacturing, through communications from the chip-to-chip to transcontinental scale, to display technologies, bringing higher resolution, lower power operation and enabling new ways of human-machine interaction. These advances have set the scene for a major change in commercialisation activity where electronics photonics and wireless converge in a wide range of information, sensing, communications, manufacturing and personal healthcare systems. Currently manufactured systems are realised by combining separately developed photonics, electronic and wireless components. This approach is labour intensive and requires many electrical interconnects as well as optical alignment on the micron scale. Devices are optimised separately and then brought together to meet systems specifications. Such an approach, although it has delivered remarkable results, not least the communications systems upon which the internet depends, limits the benefits that could come from systems-led design and the development of technologies for seamless integration of electronic photonics and wireless systems. To realise such connected systems requires researchers who have not only deep understanding of their specialist area, but also an excellent understanding across the fields of electronic photonics and wireless hardware and software. This proposal seeks to meet this important need, building upon the uniqueness and extent of the UCL and Cambridge research, where research activities are already focussing on higher levels of electronic, photonic and wireless integration; the convergence of wireless and optical communication systems; combined quantum and classical communication systems; the application of THz and optical low-latency connections in data centres; techniques for the low-cost roll-out of optical fibre to replace the copper network; the substitution of many conventional lighting products with photonic light sources and extensive application of photonics in medical diagnostics and personalised medicine. Many of these activities will increasingly rely on more advanced systems integration, and so the proposed CDT includes experts in electronic circuits, wireless systems and software. By drawing these complementary activities together, and building upon initial work towards this goal carried out within our previously funded CDT in Integrated Photonic and Electronic Systems, it is proposed to develop an advanced training programme to equip the next generation of very high calibre doctoral students with the required technical expertise, responsible innovation (RI), commercial and business skills to enable the £90 billion annual turnover UK electronics and photonics industry to create the closely integrated systems of the future. The CEPS CDT will provide a wide range of methods for learning for research students, well beyond that conventionally available, so that they can gain the required skills. In addition to conventional lectures and seminars, for example, there will be bespoke experimental coursework activities, reading clubs, roadmapping activities, responsible innovation (RI) studies, secondments to companies and other research laboratories and business planning courses. Connecting electronic and photonic systems is likely to expand the range of applications into which these technologies are deployed in other key sectors of the economy, such as industrial manufacturing, consumer electronics, data processing, defence, energy, engineering, security and medicine. As a result, a key feature of the CDT will be a developed awareness in its student cohorts of the breadth of opportunity available and the confidence that they can make strong impact thereon.

Given the unprecedented demand for mobile capacity beyond that available from the RF spectrum, it is natural to consider the infrared and visible light spectrum for future terrestrial wireless systems. Wireless systems using these parts of the electromagnetic spectrum could be classified as nmWave wireless communications system in relation to mmWave radio systems and both are being standardised in current 5G systems. TOWS, therefore, will provide a technically logical pathway to ensure that wireless systems are future-proof and that they can deliver the capacities that future data intensive services such as high definition (HD) video streaming, augmented reality, virtual reality and mixed reality will demand. Light based wireless communication systems will not be in competition with RF communications, but instead these systems follow a trend that has been witnessed in cellular communications over the last 30 years. Light based wireless communications simply adds new capacity - the available spectrum is 2600 times the RF spectrum. 6G and beyond promise increased wireless capacity to accommodate this growth in traffic in an increasingly congested spectrum, however action is required now to ensure UK leadership of the fast moving 6G field. Optical wireless (OW) opens new spectral bands with a bandwidth exceeding 540 THz using simple sources and detectors and can be simpler than cellular and WiFi with a significantly larger spectrum. It is the best choice of spectrum beyond millimetre waves, where unlike the THz spectrum (the other possible choice), OW avoids complex sources and detectors and has good indoor channel conditions. Optical signals, when used indoors, are confined to the environment in which they originate, which offers added security at the physical layer and the ability to re-use wavelengths in adjacent rooms, thus radically increasing capacity. Our vision is to develop and experimentally demonstrate multiuser Terabit/s optical wireless systems that offer capacities at least two orders of magnitude higher than the current planned 5G optical and radio wireless systems, with a roadmap to wireless systems that can offer up to four orders of magnitude higher capacity. There are four features of the proposed system which make possible such unprecedented capacities to enable this disruptive advance. Firstly, unlike visible light communications (VLC), we will exploit the infrared spectrum, this providing a solution to the light dimming problem associated with VLC, eliminating uplink VLC glare and thus supporting bidirectional communications. Secondly, to make possible much greater transmission capacities and multi-user, multi-cell operation, we will introduce a new type of LED-like steerable laser diode array, which does not suffer from the speckle impairments of conventional laser diodes while ensuring ultrahigh speed performance. Thirdly, with the added capacity, we will develop native OW multi-user systems to share the resources, these being adaptively directional to allow full coverage with reduced user and inter-cell interference and finally incorporate RF systems to allow seamless transition and facilitate overall network control, in essence to introduce software defined radio to optical wireless. This means that OW multi-user systems can readily be designed to allow very high aggregate capacities as beams can be controlled in a compact manner. We will develop advanced inter-cell coding and handover for our optical multi-user systems, this also allowing seamless handover with radio systems when required such as for resilience. We believe that this work, though challenging, is feasible as it will leverage existing skills and research within the consortium, which includes excellence in OW link design, advanced coding and modulation, optimised algorithms for front-haul and back-haul networking, expertise in surface emitting laser design and single photon avalanche detectors for ultra-sensitive detection.

Dramatic progress has been made in the past few years in the field of photonic technologies, to complement those in electronic technologies which have enabled the vast advances in information processing capability. A plethora of new screen and projection display technologies have been developed, bringing higher resolution, lower power operation and enabling new ways of machine interaction. Advances in biophotonics have led to a large range of low cost products for personal healthcare. Advances in low cost communication technologies to rates now in excess of 10 Gb/s have caused transceiver unit price cost reductions from >$10,000 to less than $100 in a few years, and, in the last two years, large volume use of parallel photonics in computing has come about. Advances in polymers have made possible the formation of not just links but complete optical subsystems fully integrated within circuit boards, so that users can expect to commoditise bespoke photonics technology themselves without having to resort to specialist companies. These advances have set the scene for a major change in commercialisation activity where photonics and electronics will converge in a wide range of systems. Importantly, photonics will become a fundamental underpinning technology for a much greater range of users outside its conventional arena, who will in turn require those skilled in photonics to have a much greater degree of interdisciplinary training. In short, there is a need to educate and train researchers who have skills balanced across the fields of electronic and photonic hardware and software. The applicants are unaware of such capability currently.This Doctoral Training Centre (DTC) proposal therefore seeks to meet this important need, building upon the uniqueness of the Cambridge and UCL research activities that are already focussing on new types of displays based on polymer and holographic projection technology, the application of photonic communications to computing, personal information systems and indeed consumer products (via board-to-board, chip to chip and later on-chip interconnects), the increased use of photonics in industrial processing and manufacture, techniques for the low-cost roll-out of optical fibre to replace the copper network, the substitution of many conventional lighting products with photonic light sources and extensive application of photonics in medical diagnostics and personalised medicine. Many of these activities will increasingly rely on more advanced systems integration, and so the proposed DTC includes experts in computer systems and software. By drawing these complementary activities together, it is proposed to develop an advanced training programme to equip the next generation of very high calibre doctoral students with the required expertise, commercial and business skills and thus provide innovation opportunities for new systems in the future. It should be stressed that the DTC will provide a wide range of methods for learning for students, well beyond that conventionally available, so that they can gain the required skills. In addition to lectures and seminars, for example, there will be bespoke experimental coursework activities, reading clubs, roadmapping activities, secondments to collaborators and business planning courses.Photonics is likely to become much more embedded in other key sectors of the economy, so that the beneficiaries of the DTC are expected to include industries involved in printing, consumer electronics, computing, defence, energy, engineering, security, medicine and indeed systems companies providing information systems for example for financial, retail and medical industries. Such industries will be at the heart of the digital economy, energy, healthcare and nanotechnology fields. As a result, a key feature of the DTC will be a developed awareness in its cohorts of the breadth of opportunity available and a confidence that they can make impact therein.

This proposal seeks funding to create a Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) in Integrated Photonic and Electronic Systems. Photonics plays an increasing role in systems, ranging from sensing, biophotonics and manufacturing, through communications from the chip-to-chip to transcontinental scale, to the plethora of new screen and projection display technologies that have been developed, bringing higher resolution, lower power operation and enabling new ways of human-machine interaction. These advances have set the scene for a major change in commercialisation activity where photonics and electronics will converge in a wide range of information, sensing, communications, manufacturing and personal healthcare systems. Currently, systems are realised by combining separately developed photonic components, such as lasers and photodetectors with electronic circuits. This approach is labour intensive and requires many electrical interconnects as well as optical alignment on the micron scale. Devices are optimised separately and then brought together to meet systems specifications. Such an approach, although it has delivered remarkable results, not least the communications systems upon which the internet depends, limits the benefits that could come from the full integration of photonics with electronics and systems. To achieve such integration requires researchers who have not only deep understanding of their specialist area, but also an excellent understanding across the fields of electronic and photonic hardware and software. This proposal therefore seeks to meet this important need, building upon the uniqueness and extent of the UCL and Cambridge research, where research activities are already focussing on the direct monolithic integration of lasers with silicon electronics, new types of displays based on polymer and holographic projection technology, the application of photonic communications to computing, personal information systems and indeed consumer products (via board-to-board, chip to chip and later on-chip interconnects), the increased use of photonics in industrial processing and manufacture, techniques for the low-cost roll-out of optical fibre to replace the copper network, the substitution of many conventional lighting products with photonic light sources and extensive application of photonics in medical diagnostics and personalised medicine. Many of these activities will increasingly rely on more advanced electronic systems integration, and so the proposed CDT includes experts in electronic circuits, computer systems and software. By drawing these complementary activities together, and building upon initial work towards this goal carried out within our previously funded CDT in Photonic Systems Development, it is proposed to develop an advanced training programme to equip the next generation of very high calibre doctoral students with the required technical expertise, commercial and business skills, and thus provide innovation opportunities for the integration of photonic and electronics in new systems in the coming years. It should be stressed that the CDT will provide a wide range of methods for learning for research students, well beyond that conventionally available, so that they can gain the required skills. In addition to conventional lectures and seminars, for example, there will be bespoke experimental coursework activities, reading clubs, roadmapping activities, secondments to companies and other research laboratories and business planning courses. The integration of photonic and electronic systems is likely to widen the range of systems into which these technologies are deployed in other key sectors of the economy, such as printing, consumer electronics, computing, defence, energy, engineering, security and medicine. As a result, a key feature of the CDT will be a developed awareness in its student cohorts of the breadth of opportunity available and a confidence that they can make impact therein.

Within the TINA project, Cambridge University has demonstrated the feasibility of using low cost UHF RFID technology in a new way to provide (i) enhanced tag read range (to >10m), (ii) increased (100%) tag reading probability and (iii) the ability to locate the passive tag to approximately 1m resolution. This has been achieved by combining a customised RFID reader with a distributed antenna system. The ability to use the distributed antennas in a collaborative manner acts to remove the effect of radio propagation fades and also has allowed the development of algorithms, which have been implemented on RFID firmware, to take the RF information from the individual antennas and use this to generate the location information. The TINA project resulted in two ongoing patent applications to protect the concepts described above.These enhancements to passive UHF RFID have generated a great deal of interest, both in an academic sense - we have presented the results in invited papers and a keynote at 5 international conferences - but also commercially across a variety of sectors. The PULSE project therefore seeks to further the commercialisation of the technology. It will do this via (i) building a prototype system suitable for demonstration to customers and (ii) working with commercial partners to understand better the market opportunities and, concentrating on the retail sector, develop an application demonstration based on the prototype location system and field trial this approach. This twin pronged approach will allow the identification of the best route to commercialisation and, working in collaboration with MBA students from the Judge Business School, will result in business plans to map this route forward.