BEAMTRIS aims at proposing generalised beamforming frameworks and machine learning (ML)-driven optimisation for Reconfigurable Intelligent Surface (RIS)-based networks operating in the terahertz (THz) bands. ML-driven THz-RIS will bring disruptive changes to the wireless ecosystem that will enable new application use cases for 6G networks. The generalised beamforming strategies will be array configuration-agnostic, making them effective for small and large RIS arrays, passive and active RISs, as well as employable across RIS array topologies, geometries and structural configurations, and for static, single and dual mobility (e.g., V2X and flying RIS) scenarios. Further, BEAMTRIS aims to exploit ML to optimise the system performance of the structure-agnostic THz-RIS to facilitate enhanced spectral, energy and computational efficiencies for 6G networks. On one hand, active RISs (that overcome the multiplicative fading effects of passive RISs) and arbitrary RIS (with arbitrary element configuration) will form the central focus of the generalised framework based on their comparative flexibility advantages. On the other hand, for realtime adaptation, deep reinforcement learning (DRL)-based algorithms will be developed to adapt the channel parameters and nodes' beamforming vectors to the RIS configurations. This will enable the discovery of rich knowledge, patterns and mapping functions that will facilitate optimal system performance. Therefore, BEAMTRIS will develop novel beamforming and optimisation frameworks built on three core enablers (i.e., RIS, THz and ML) and will involve extensive system-level simulations, testing and validation of developed algorithms, benchmarked against state-of-the-art baselines. Overall, BEAMTRIS will answer the question on how to develop generalised beamforming algorithms for structure-agnostic, ML-driven THz-RIS networks that can harness the optimal network gains for spectral, computational and energy-efficient Tbps connectivity for 6G.

This project will make the Internet's infrastructure and applications more reliable and secure, more trustworthy and less vulnerable to cyber attack, by improving the engineering processes by which the network is designed. The Internet comprises a large number of laptops, smartphones, and other edge devices, connecting to servers located in data centres around the world via numerous interconnecting links and switching devices. To make this work, all the devices must agree on how they should communicate. That is, they must speak a common language, known as a "protocol" that describes the format of the information that is sent and the operations to be performed. There are many such protocols, describing the different types of communication. For example, the HTTP protocol describes how browsers fetch pages from websites. To ensure interoperability between devices from different manufacturers, these protocols are described in a series of standards documents, published by organisations such as the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). These standards are developed incrementally by teams of engineers working over several months, or perhaps years, to produce a written specification that describes how the protocol should work. Despite the best efforts of those developing the standards, however, the results are often found to contain inconsistencies and ambiguities. These can lead to devices from different manufacturers failing to work together, due to differing interpretations of the standard, and in the worst cases can lead to vulnerabilities that open devices up to cyber attack. Much of the reason for these inconsistencies and ambiguities is that the protocol standards are written in English, and hence there's no automated way of checking them for correctness. Researchers have proposed ways of describing protocols using methods (known as "formal languages") that are more like computer programming languages, and that would allow automated consistency checks to be made, but these have not been widely adopted by the standards community. This project will study the social, cultural, and educational barriers to adoption of these new techniques, to understand why standards continue to be written in English. We will explore the perceived limitations of the alternatives, to understand why they've been adopted in certain niches, and for certain purposes, but are not used more broadly in standards development. We'll then formulate a model for the adoption of formal languages and their supporting tools in the protocol standards community, and use it identify areas that are ready to increase use of such techniques in their standards. Finally, we'll use the knowledge gained to propose formal languages, that are designed to fit the way the standards developers work, and begin the process of introducing these into the standards process, to improve protocol specifications and make them less vulnerable to attack. The work will be conduced in the IETF, since it's the key international technical standards body developing Internet protocol standards. The aim is to improve the quality and trustworthiness of the standards that the IETF develops, and increase security, robustness, and interoperability of the Internet. The novel engineering research idea we will explore is that formal languages need to be adapted to the community of interest. It is not enough that they help solve the technical problem of how to specify a protocol: they must do so in a way that fits the expertise and culture of those who need to use them. Research into structured approaches and formal languages for protocol design has not yet considered the nature of the standards process, and hence has not seen wide uptake. We start with a deep awareness of the standards process, consider social and technical barriers to uptake, and propose new techniques to improve the way standards are developed.

As the world becomes ever more connected, the vast number of Internet of things (IoT) devices necessitates the use of smart, autonomous machine-to-machine communications; however, this poses serious security and privacy issues as we will no longer have direct control over with what or whom our devices communicate. Counterfeit, hacked, or cloned devices acting on a network can have significant consequences: for individuals through the leakage of confidential and personal information, in terms of monetary costs (for e.g. the loss of access to web services - Mirai attack on Dyn took down Twitter, Spotify, Reddit); or for critical national infrastructure, through the loss of control of safety-critical industrial and cyber-physical IoT systems. In addition, IoT devices are often low-cost, low power devices that are restricted in both memory and computing power. A major challenge is how to address the need for security in such resource-constrained devices. As companies race to get IoT devices to market, many do not consider security or, all too often, security is an afterthought. As such, a common theme in all realms of IoT is the need for dependability and security. The SIPP project aims to rethink how security is built into IoT processor platforms. Firstly, the architectural fundamentals of a processor design need to be re-engineered to assure the security of individual on-chip components. This has become increasingly evident with the recent Spectre and Meltdown attacks. On the upper layer of systems-on-chip (SoCs), hardware authentication of chip sub-systems and the entire chip is crucial to detect malicious hardware modification. Then, at the systems layer (i.e., multiple chips on a common printed circuit board), innovative approaches for remote attestation will be investigated to determine the integrity at board level. Finally, the security achieved at all hierarchical layers will be assessed by investigating physical-level vulnerabilities to ensure there is no physical leakage of the secrets on which each layer relies. The proposed project brings together the core partners of the NCSC/EPSRC-funded Research Institute in Secure Hardware and Embedded Systems (RISE), that is, Queen's University Belfast and the Universities of Cambridge, Bristol and Birmingham, with the leading academics in the field of hardware security and security architecture design from the National University of Singapore and Nanyang Technological University, to develop a novel secure IoT processor platform with remote attestation implemented on the RISC-V architecture.

The original objectives of the Platform grant were:1. development of new materials2. characterisation3. theory and modelling development4. device developmentOur achivements against these objectives were:1 Microwave dielectric ceramics / Niobates / Pb Free pezoelectrics based on silver niobate / multiferroic/magnetoelectric materials including BiFeO32 First characterisation of BiFeO3 at microwave frequencies, rigorous models to determine properties in thin ferroelectric films, scanning evanescent wave microscopy3 Density Functional Perturbation Theory, mode matching for accurate values of loss and permittivity4 Devices / piezoelectrically tuned dielectric resonator filters Extra Outputs not anticipated: Development and patenting of core-less transformers (no ferromagnetic core at all) using layered pcb geometry.The Forward LookIn the new Platform the objectives are:1 To use the Platform flexibility to carry out speculative and adventurous research2 To develop thin film multilayers with particular emphasis on interfaces3 To develop novel devices, prototypes and applications4 To ensure that the expertise is maintained and that key postdoctoral staff can develop their careers and move to more senior positionsThe areas of research that we intend to explore are:* Fundamental chemistry of functional ceramicsThere is a need to focus on and understand the chemistry, crystal structure and physical properties of ceramics. This knowledge is vital as a reference point for the production of thin films, which are after all made from bulk ceramics targets. We will concentrate on three main groups of ceramics:I. Microwave dielectrics: II. Piezoelectrics: III. Multiferroics / magnetoelectrics: This builds on the group's expertise in the solid state chemistry and reactions of electronic and magnetic ceramics.* Thin functional oxide films / advanced characterisation methodsThe future trend will be towards nanoscale structures. Our core areas of research are: Materials development; thin film deposition; structural and electrical characterisation; device development. The future strategy requires extra expertise in the area of TEM (Professor McComb), electron holography (Harrison). * New device structures to test material propertiesWhilst a material's structural and electrical properties can and will be tested during development, a very useful method of testing a material is to assess its performance in a prototype device. This enables us to evaluate the different influences on performance. We will examine ultra High Q structures and frequency agile devices* Modelling of structures using density functional theoryLinear scaling DFT codes will faciltiate the study of the electrical properties of large superlattices and multilayered thin-films. The influence of substitutions and defects in bulk ceramic systems will also be accessible as will be the properties of large unit-cell crystals such as spinels and ferrites. Modelling will also complement the advanced characterisation techniques and fundamental solid-state chemistry areas of research.

The 5G-and-Beyond cellular networks promise UAVs with ultra-reliable low-latency control, ubiquitous coverage, and seamless swarm connectivity under complex and highly flexible multi-UAV behaviours in three-dimension (3D), which will unlock the full potential of UAVs. This so-called cellular-connected UAVs (C-UAVs) system creates a radically different and rapidly evolving networking and control environment compared to conventional terrestrial networks: 1) The UAV-ground BS/user channels enjoy fewer channel variations due to their dominant line-of-sight (LOS) characteristics, which imposes severe air-ground interference to the coexisting BSs/users in the uplink/downlink. 2) Operating in existing cellular networks designed mainly for dominate downlink traffic (e.g., video), the UAVs with high data rate requirement in uplink payload uploading, and ultra-reliable low-latency communication (URLLC) requirement in downlink command and control communication can hardly be satisfied. 3) Maintaining seamless connectivity for mission-centric UAV swarms with 3D high mobility is essential for UAV cooperation but extremely challenging. 4) Controlling a swarm of UAVs to accomplish complex tasks with limited human supervision under the connectivity constraints is of capital importance but challenging. The above challenges can hardly be solved via conventional model-driven approaches, which are limited to performance evaluation or optimisation at one time instant in an offline or semi-offline manner, relying on given ideal probabilistic channel models without time correlation. Meanwhile, the future cellular networks in 5G-and-Beyond moves towards an open, programmable, and virtualised architecture with unprecedented data availability. Both facts mandate a fundamental change in the way we model, design, control, and optimise the C-UAVs system, from reactive/incident driven decoupled networking and control operation to proactive/ data-driven joint network and control design. This project has the ambitious vision to develop artificial intelligence (AI)-powered C-UAVs system with full network automation and conditional control automation, that allow for joint design and optimization of the network operation and the UAVs control in real-time with minimum human supervision and the target of mission completion under the long-term quality of service (QoS) guarantees. The project will engage with the end-users to exploit the C-UAVs applications in surveillance and emergency services in urban areas. Our results on network automation and control automation will directly benefit the telecom manufacturers (e.g., Ericsson AB, Toshiba Europe, AccelerComm), and broader UAV industries (e.g., Airborne Robotics, Thales, Northrop Grumman) internationally with foreseeable industrial impact. The NGMN and CommNet will facilitate the dissemination of the research outcomes nationally and internationally. The development, implementation, and testing of our proposed solutions serve as a platform towards the commercialisation of our research outcomes, putting the UK at the forefront of the "connected aerial vehicles" revolution.