Bristol hosts one of the world’s leading developers of undersea systems, which is bringing its two separate companies together under Beam Global.
Underwater robotic system developer Rovco spun out its R&D division into a separate company called Vaarst in 2021 with 29 staff.
The two companies have been brought back together in a company called Beam to focus on the market for developing, building and maintaining off shore wind turbines with remotely operated robots.
Rovco has developed an AI system that dramatically accelerates the identification and clearance of unexploded ordnance (UXO) in the North Sea. Historically, this process could take up to two and a half years, with marine surveyors meticulously analysing seabed surveys. Today with the Vaarst AI-driven technology, this timeline has been reduced to just two-to-three months. But the impact of AI goes far beyond UXO clearance.
This also helps with a broader issue facing the offshore renewables and tech industry: a looming skills shortage. “We foresee a skills shortage in offshore renewables,” said Joe Tidball, co-founder of Rovco. “So how do we take the number of people we have right now and allow them to do more work? It comes back to AI, allowing computers to look through multiple data sets at one time.”
This AI technology allows for more efficient processing and analysis of large volumes of data, enabling teams to accomplish more with the same resources. By leveraging AI, Rovco is not just speeding up specific tasks; we are redefining how the entire offshore wind sector operates, ensuring that the industry can scale effectively to meet future demands.
“We need to see significant technology advancements that cut costs, shorten project time and improve processes across the entire lifecycle of offshore wind farms if we are to come close to meeting global goals. Whether its surveys for site preparation, critical undersea operational projects, or oil field decommissioning, our combination of AI, rich data and robotics is transforming what’s possible in offshore wind by automating and accelerating processes, bringing immediate time and cost savings,” said Beam.
“Autonomous robotics are the key to reducing the cost of offshore operations. At the same time, digitalisation of field assets is essential as the industry evolves, marrying these two concepts is needed to realise the real benefit of modern tech. It’s the data that has to drive the vehicles. Vaarst is committed to unlocking the potential of offshore robotics for all,” said Vaarst CEO and Founder, Brian Allen.
Cutting-edge technologies are also a key solution to one of the industry’s most pressing challenges: the workforce shortage. An engineer partnered with artificial intelligence completes exponentially more work than they can alone. Unsupervised autonomy transforms the role of the driver of one vehicle into the caretaker of an autonomous fleet. AI brings first power closer, shifts sea-based jobs to homes and offices, and improves the efficiency of offshore workers and marine assets says Beam.
A SouthWest startup has developed a digital twin virtual version of Temple Meads to manage sensors across the Bristol station.
The digital twin technology is supplied by start-up Optimise AI and installed at Bristol Temple Meads as part of the Station Innovation Zone testbed. The sensors across the station have helped to inform rail managers of efficiency savings that could be found both inside and around the historic building.
The digital twin has a 3D visualisation of the station and takes in data from sensors across the site. This has shown that electricity consumption at Temple Meads has the potential to be reduced by as much as a third from static measures (such as new windows, doors, better insulation, heat pumps or LED lighting) or with dynamic approaches such as changing heating levels or intensity of illumination.
“We created a digital twin to generate a virtual representation of Bristol Temple Meads in order to work out exactly what is keeping the station functioning, and keeping its occupants happy and healthy. With all of that information, we can generate a scenario for improvement,” said Optimise AI director Nick Tune. He is an engineering technologist who previously worked for the Building Research Establishment (BRE) in Wales and consultant Atkins. He established Optimise AI at the start of this year as a spin out from Cardiff University’s school of engineering.
Sensors around the station measure how many people were using rooms and public spaces in order to determine the most appropriate temperature and lighting levels, and to monitor humidity and carbon dioxide around the station.
It also used sensors at barrier gates and considered train timetable detail, to help the system learn which platforms were about to receive an influx of passengers when, in order to alter energy output accordingly and save money.
In stations, the largest consumers of energy tend to be lighting and the operation of machinery such as lifts and escalators. “Stations can be massively wasteful environments and there is often a lack of knowledge as to how many of them are performing,” says Tune.
“My whole focus is around using digital systems to deliver a more sustainable built environment by minimising electricity usage and carbon emissions. We have shown the system can deliver savings, having previously used the technology in care homes and leisure centres.
“What we have created here is a digital twin that provides real value using live data to predict how a station is going to perform, and how conditions can be improved.”
Moving forward, Tune hopes to roll out the digital twin to other large stations, as well as rail depots and line-side buildings housing operational equipment beside railway tracks. “There’s a massive opportunity to look energy and carbon for the railways on a whole estate level,” he said.
The REWIRE centre at the University of Bristol will focus on the development of next generation of high voltage semiconductor devices using wide/ultra-wide bandgap (WBG/UWBG) compound semiconductors as well as tools for design, yield and reliability to improve the efficiency of semiconductor device manufacture.
Industry partners
Industry partners including Ampaire, BMW, Bosch, Cambridge GaN Devices (CGD), Element-Six Technologies, General Electric, Hitachi Energy, IQE, Oxford Instruments, Siemens, ST Microelectronics and Toshiba as well as researchers from the Universities of Cambridge and Warwick.
The Bristol team has recently been awarded £5m from the EPSRC to develop the next generation of Aluminium Gallium (AlGaN) Solid-State Circuit Breakers which are seen as the ultra wide bandgap material.
Compound semiconductor devices have been recognised in the UK National Semiconductor Strategy as key elements to support the net zero economy through the development of high voltage and low energy-loss power electronic technology. The funding from the UKRI is part of a five year strategy.
“The REWIRE IKC will focus on power conversion of wind energy, electric vehicles, smart grids, high temperature applications, device and packaging, and improving the efficiency of semiconductor device manufacture,” said Bristol IKC lead Professor Martin Kuball
Professor Peter Gammon, Head of Research and Deputy Head of School, School of Engineering, University of Warwick, said: “The REWIRE IKC will leverage the talent of UK research and industry to develop the next generation of power semiconductor technologies. These chips which are the critical unseen technology enabling electric vehicles, renewable technologies, data centres and the grid.”
“The REWIRE IKC will play a prominent role within the UK’s semiconductor strategy, in cementing the UK’s place as a leader in compound semiconductor research and development, developing IP to be exploited here in the UK, rebuilding the UK semiconductor supply chain, and training the next generation of semiconductor materials scientists and engineers,” he added.
Bristol is one of two new IKCs announced being funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and Innovate UK, both part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). The second IKC at the University of Southampton will improve development and commercialisation of silicon photonics technologies in the UK. There is a also a range of semiconductor training schemes being launched.
Bristol is to host the UK’s AI Research Resource (AIRR), an exascale supercomputer called Isambard AI.
The Isambard AI supercomputer will be one of the most powerful in Europe with exascale performance and will be hosted by the University of Bristol at the National Composite Centre (NCC).
The £900m AIRR programme is to serve as a national facility to help researchers maximise the potential of AI and support critical work into the potential and safe use of the technology.
The cluster will be made up of thousands of graphics processing units (GPUS) to train the large language models that are at the forefront of AI research and development today.
Bristol is already planning the Isambard 3 supercomputer due to be installed later this year to support research in AI and machine learning at the NCC, while the University of Bristol is home to the UKRI Centre for Doctoral Training in Interactive Artificial intelligence.
“Isambard-AI will be one of the world’s first, large-scale, open AI supercomputers, and builds on our expertise designing and operating cutting-edge computational facilities, such as the incoming Isambard 3,” said Simon McIntosh-Smith, Professor of High Performance Computing at the University of Bristol and project lead.
Isambard 3 is using Nvidia’s ARM Neoverse Grace CPU Superchip in a production system of at least 55,000 cores. This will provide more than six times the computational performance and six times the energy efficiency of Isambard 2 and will be hosted in a self-cooled, self-contained HPE Performance Optimized Data Centre (POD) at the NCC. Backed by the GW4 group of four universities in the region, Isambard 3 will also feature a storage system comprised of the Cray ClusterStor E1000 storage system to deliver expanded storage with intelligent tiering to support data-intensive workloads, such as AI model training.
“AI is expected to be as important as the steam age, with ramifications across almost every area of academia and industry. To be selected to host a new national AI supercomputer speaks to the University’s cutting-edge research into AI and machine learning,” said Professor Phil Taylor, Pro Vice-Chancellor for Research and Enterprise at the University of Bristol.
“We have unique expertise in rapidly building and deploying large-scale research computing infrastructure and we’re excited to play an integral part in establishing the UK as an international hub for AI.”
“This investment in Isambard AI is hugely exciting and paves the way for pioneering research with transformational potential. We are delighted that the University of Bristol and the National Composites Centre will be home to this national asset,” said Katherine Bennett, CEO of the High Value Manufacturing Catapult. “As part of the High Value Manufacturing Catapult, the NCC is already a Centre of Excellence for digital engineering. Hosting Isambard AI will provide a springboard for continuing to accelerate the journey from digital innovation to impact.”
The Compound Semiconductor Applications (CSA) Catapult is to open a £2.5m Future Telecoms Hub at the Bristol and Bath Science Park later this year. This will host test equipment to optimise the performance of telecoms hardware and to develop new and advanced devices.
Driven by the growth of 5G networks and the adoption of next-generation technologies such as AI and the Internet of Things, the telecoms hardware market is forecast to grow in the coming years — the global telecom equipment market accounted for $538.9 billion in 2021 and is expected to reach $967.9 billion by 2030, with a compound growth of 6.9%.
The CSA Catapult, based over the bridge in Newport, Wales, has also entered into a partnership agreement to deliver a co-ordinated programme with the Satellite Applications Catapult to help support the cluster’s ambitions for growth and will have a presence at the Space Enterprise Lab.
“CSA Catapult’s purpose is to deliver long-term benefit to the UK economy and accelerate UK economic growth in industries where applying compound semiconductors creates a competitive advantage,” said Martin McHugh, Chief Executive Officer of CSA Catapult.
“Expanding across the UK means we can support more companies and bring more products to market through our technology expertise, supply chain creation and building compound semiconductor clusters. Setting up new centres in Bristol, Scotland and the North East will allow us to grow the ecosystem to support these new and emerging technologies in the UK.
“We will collaborate with universities, start-ups, and larger companies to build new UK-based supply chains in telecoms hardware. We want to support and attract companies leading R&D in the UK. These critical markets, using compound semiconductors, will create significant jobs and growth in the future.”
The initial focus at the Future Telecoms Hub will be on improving the performance of power amplifiers through load pull testing and design optimisation. Collaborative research projects with Cardiff University and the University of Bristol will also be undertaken at the Future Telecoms Hub.
CSA Catapult is working on several telecoms hardware supply chain projects in the UK such as ORanGaN and Secure5G.
The Secure 5G project is building a flexible platform that will enable companies to roll out and maintain their own quantum-safe private networks, with targeted applications for Industry 4.0, mobile edge computing (MEC), the Internet of Things (IoT) and highly secure environments, such as defence.
The ORanGaN project is looking to develop a sovereign UK supply chain, manufacturing processes and packaging solutions for radio frequency gallium nitride (RF-GaN) devices that are critical to 5G communications systems electronics hardware.
“The opening of our Future Telecoms Hub is a significant milestone in the Catapult’s journey as we expand our activities across the UK,” said McHugh. “Bristol has an established network of innovative companies and research institutions located within and around the city, as well as strong links with partners across the Western Gateway, so it was a natural fit for us to place our future telecoms capability here.
The third generation of supercomputer at Bristol will use over 55,000 ARM Neoverse V2 cores in Nvidia’s Grace processor.
The Isambard 3 supercomputer will be built by HP Enterprise and based at the Bristol & Bath Science Park in the UK. It will have 384 Grace CPU Superchips, giving 55,296 cores. This will provide 2.7 petaflops of FP64 peak performance while consuming less than 270 kilowatts of power.
This would rank the project as one of the world’s three greenest non-accelerated supercomputers once it goes into production in sprint 2024. The consortium is led by the University of Bristol as part of the research consortium the GW4 Alliance, together with the universities of Bath, Cardiff and Exeter,
Each Grace chip has 144 ARM Neoverse V2 cores with 900 gigabyte per second (GB/s) CVLink scalable coherent interface is 7X faster than PCIe Gen 5 with 3.2TB/s of aggregate bisectional bandwidth.
“As climate change becomes an increasingly existential problem, it’s vital for computing to embrace energy-efficient technologies,” said Ian Buck, vice president of hyperscale and HPC at Nvidia. “Nvidia is working alongside the ARM Neoverse ecosystem to provide a path forward for the creation of more energy-efficient supercomputing centres, driving important breakthroughs in scientific and industrial research.”
“From climate change to medicine, supercomputing is already enabling academic and industry leaders to take on some of the world’s biggest challenges,” said Mohamed Awad, senior vice president and general manager of infrastructure at ARM. “Expanding on important areas of research requires a level of performance and energy efficiency that Arm Neoverse uniquely delivers, and through our collaboration with NVIDIA, we’re proud to bring this to life in the Isambard 3 system.”
Isambard 3 will be able to create detailed models of complex structures such as wind farms and fusion reactors.
“Isambard 3’s application performance efficiency of up to 6x its predecessor, which rivals many of the 50 fastest TOP500 systems, will provide scientists with a revolutionary new supercomputing platform to advance groundbreaking research,” said Simon McIntosh-Smith, principal investigator for the Isambard project and professor of HPC at the University of Bristol. “The Arm-based NVIDIA Grace CPU enables the breakthrough energy efficiency required to push the boundaries of scientific discovery and solve some of humanity’s most difficult challenges.”
EnSilica is returning to Bristol with a new design centre in Bristol following a deal with Blu Wireless Technologies
The company previously had a mixed signal design centre in the city set up in 2015 before moving to the HQ at Oxford.
The company increased its headcount from an average of 96 in 2021 to 117 this year. This includes six members of the ASIC implementation team from Blu Wireless following a deal in July. That deal included non-core IP from Blu Wireless on the design flow and an on-going partnership.
The plan is to expand EnSilica’s offering through consolidation and vertical integration says Ian Lankshear, CEO of EnSIlica and staffing is key with competition for chip designers from companies such as Codasip, SiFive and Imagination Technologies.
“2022 has been a truly transformational year for our business as we seek to further capitalise on what we believe is a sizable market opportunity for EnSilica. The Company has started FY23 well, supported by existing contracts and ongoing new business momentum,” said Lankshear.
The company has also signed a deal to supply industrial ASICs worth over US$30 million over seven years. This follows production of its first automotive ASIC after the launch of a new flagship vehicle by a premium automotive company. It is also developing an ASIC for a satellite network from AST to deliver 5G from space.
“The move from consultancy to focusing on ASIC design and supply embeds EnSilica further within the electronics value chain,” said Lankshear. “ASIC customers pay an upfront fee towards the costs of design, tooling and test development of the ASIC, the NRE. Customers subsequently purchase the ASICs that EnSilica supplies or, in some cases, pay royalties to EnSilica for the ASICs that a third party will manufacture on the customer’s behalf.”
“EnSilica often co-invests in the development of ASICs with the customer and depending on the sector, it takes two to five years to reach full production. At the production stage, revenues can be high, last several years and generate gross margins circa 35% to 60% range. The gross margin will depend on the market and the level of co-founding funding of the NRE required,” he said.
“Therefore, part of EnSilica’s expertise is in assessing whether to proceed and invest in a particular IC project resulting in long-term component supply or royalty revenue for the Company.”
“The IPO was the culmination of a tremendous period of organisational and operational change for our business, which is ultimately centred on further capitalising on a sizeable growth opportunity within the semiconductor industry,” said Mark Hodgkins, executive chair of EnSilica.
“In this time of disruption of the labour markets and steep labour cost rises, attracting new employees and retaining existing ones is a key focus of our executive team,” said Hodgkins. “This is evidenced with the hiring of our ASIC implementation team, comprising of six skilled engineers from Blu Wireless earlier this year. The new team will be located in EnSilica’s new Bristol facility, which we believe will form a strong platform to further attract talent in the Bristol area.”
The company has also added semiconductor executive Noel Hurley to its board. Hurley, a former ARM executive, is a non -executive director at Blue Wireless and former CEO of Yellow Dog in Bristol.
The University of Bristol is part of a project to to put a quantum satellite into orbit.
The RefQ project is led by Craft Prospect in Glasgow with the University of Strathclyde to test out quantum key distribution (QKD).
The group is developing a space-based photonics source of quantum signals for launch on the Canadian QYESSat (Quantum Encryption and Science Satellite) mission.
Bristol researchers are working on the quantum source to be integrated into the satellite and the testing of new ways to distribute quantum encryption keys from space. Strathclyde will also collaborate with the project’s academic lead, the University of Waterloo in Ontario, on theory and modelling of the quantum payload, as well as developing secure communication protocols based on the new hardware.
The first prototypes of the UK systems have been delivered and are now undergoing integration testing in Canada.
“The quantum key distribution technology developed in this project represents a major step towards realising space-to-ground secure key distribution, a truly transformative technology,” said Prof John Rarity from the University of Bristol’s Quantum Information Institute.
“The source we develop with our project partners, Craft Prospect and the University of Strathclyde, will fly on board the QEYSSat Satellite extending the scope of the mission to demonstrate links to ground stations on both sides of the Atlantic.”
“This project aligns with the efforts to build collaborations between Strathclyde and the University of Waterloo in the area of quantum technologies. Craft Prospect is also a long-term commercial partner with Strathclyde in the development of CubeSat quantum key distribution,” said Daniel Oi, Senior Lecturer in Strathclyde’s Department of Physics, is the University’s lead on RefQ.
“In addition, RefQ is connected with the UK Quantum Technology Hub in Quantum Communications, in which Strathclyde is a partner, in its mission to launch a CubeSat in 2023-24.”
The quantum key distribution technology developed in this project is targeted to fly on board QEYSSat, demonstrating links to ground stations on
“We are only at the start of developing quantum technologies, but it is already clear that they offer us a world of opportunity across entire sectors like healthcare, communications and financial services,” said UK Science Minister Amanda Solloway.
“The UK and Canada have a strong collaborative relationship in science and technology. By our businesses and academics working together, these incredible new projects will help us accelerate the development, scale up and commercialisation of quantum technologies, ensuring the UK remains a world-leader in this area,” she added.
Members of the SETsquared university spinout accelerator network across the SouthWest raised a record £616m (E716m, $870m) in 2020. This as up 40 percent on the previous year despite the Covid-19 pandemic.
The investments for companies in the SETsquared network were largely venture funding for start-ups and scale-ups, ranged from pre-seed/seed rounds of £250-500k through to the latest £118m funding round for Graphcore in Bristol.
SETsquared is a partnership of the UK universities of Bath, Bristol, Exeter, Southampton and Surrey that supports tech-based businesses from start-up to scale-up. Private investment accounted for 90 percent of the sum raised, with the remaining co-investment from publicly funded R&D grants and innovation loans.
“The record-setting £616m raise reflects the hard work of hundreds of committed founders and innovators across the SETsquared ecosystem who are developing technologies which will transform the future, from the way we live, travel and learn to the way we care for each other and our environment” said Simon Bond, Innovation Director at SETsquared.
“It shows that even during a global pandemic, strong ventures with good university connections, ambitious teams and the right support, will continue to raise investment.”
Bristol member LettUs Grow secured £2.35m in funding for their patent-pending indoor aeroponic growing facilities designed to address global food security and sustainability concerns.
“This investment gave us the platform to really accelerate in 2020 and scale-up the delivery of our game-changing technology to farmers across the country. We’re seeing rising demand from around the world for new technologies to help farmers grow crops in ways that mitigate against the effects of climate change and ever-increasing extreme weather events,” said Charlie Guy, Co-founder and CEO of LettUs Grow in Bristol.
SpaceForge in Wales is developing production methods for materials in space raised £600k funding from the Development Bank of Wales, alongside Bristol Private Equity Club and Innovate UK. The company benefited from an Investment Programme delivered by SETsquared and funded by Innovate UK which aimed to secure private Angel investment alongside public funding.
“It was amazing to receive this funding at such a critical time for our company. It enabled us to create jobs and start development of a new product called Fielder – an innovative method for satellite recovery, which can rendezvous with returning satellites and catch them rather than them burning up in the atmosphere and leaving harmful debris or ending up in the sea. The environmental benefits are huge, as we also have a method of refurbishing and reusing them,” said Joshua Western, CEO and Founder of SpaceForge.
“At its core, SETsquared’s partner universities have developed major research portfolios and this globally competitive concentration of research talent is attractive to founders, innovators and investors,” said Bond. “Looking ahead, I expect to see more venture capital deployed in our ecosystem. However, it is a contested space and our government’s own innovation target to grow the value of domestic R&D to 2.4 percent of GDP is part of a competitive international race. This is set to build-on the great UK success story of the ‘Golden Triangle’ and add several new investment funds from the major university collaborations of the Northern Accelerator in the North East, Northern Gritstone in the North West, MICRA in the Midlands and SETsquared in the South,” he said.
Bristol-based chip designer Graphcore is leading a European project to create a supercomputing framework for emerging AI applications in the real world.
The €2.6m three-year SparCity project will focus specifically on sparse AI, where there is not much correlation in the data. The tools developed during the project will be used to demonstrate the effectiveness of the framework in four real-world areas: computational cardiology, social networks, bioinformatics and autonomous driving.
SparCity is part of the broader EuroHPC Joint Undertaking (JU) launched in 2018 to increase Europe’s competitiveness in high-performance computing through the development of multiple next generation supercomputers.
Graphcore was one of the original proposers of the project, alongside Sabanci Universitesi in Turkey, Simula Research Laboratory in Norway, INESC-ID in Portugal and Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet Muenchen in Germany, with the coordination of Koç University (Turkey).
The company has raised $710m for the development, valuing the company at over $2bn and making it the best funded AI chip startup in the world.
Graphcore’s IPU chip and software technology is specifically designed for AI compute and includes characteristics such as the ability to execute many, very different calculations independently and in parallel, which are essential for sparse computations. This can reduce the power consumption but needed new hardware and software.
Sparsity is also supported at a software level with sparse kernels and libraries. These will be used and further developed during this project, along with performance and energy modelling, with the resulting models used to drive optimisations.
Researchers at the University of Bristol have used 3D printing to accelerate development of lab-on-chip diagnostic systems.
Microfluidic underpin lab-on-a-chip (LOC) technologies for rapid diagnostics, and the shape of the channels are key.
The team at Bristol used low cost 3D printing to produce the soft-lithographic moulds used for fabricating these microfluidic channels down to 100 microns wide. A 5000-piece physical library of mix-and-match channel scaffolds can be printed for less than $0.50.
“Previously, techniques for producing the soft-lithographic scaffolds/moulds (microfluidic channel patterns) were time-consuming and extremely expensive, while other low-cost alternatives were prone to unfavourable properties,” said Dr Robert Hughes who led the study. “This development could put LOC prototyping into the hands of researchers and clinicians who know the challenges best, in particular those in resource-limited settings, where rapid diagnostics may often have the greatest impact,”
“This technique is so simple, quick and cheap that devices can be fabricated using only everyday domestic or educational appliances and at a negligible cost around 0.05 percent of the cost of materials for a single microfluidic device. This means researchers and clinicians could use our technique and resources to help fabricate rapid medical diagnostic tools, quickly and cheaply, with minimal additional expertise or resources required,” said researcher Harry Felton.
“It is our hope that this will democratise microfluidics and lab-on-a-chip technology, help to advance the development of point-of-care diagnostics, and inspire the next generation of researchers and clinicians in the field,” said Hughes.
The next step for the team is to identify potential collaborators in both research and education to help demonstrate the impact this technology could have in both settings by developing and supporting outreach activities and applications for on-chip diagnostic testing.
A UK project including researchers from the University of Bristol is aiming to develop and test a remotely operated drone system for industrial and urban environments.
“As a leading research institution in 5G and beyond, we will provide expertise on the design of end-to-end network architecture for the future operation of drones,” said Professor Reza Nejabati, an expert in high performance and autonomous networks from the University of Bristol’s Smart Internet Lab. “Our experts will evaluate a combination of multiple 3GPP (4G and 5G), non 3GPP (WiFi), MEC and network slicing technologies in multi-operator settings with private and public operators. We are very well placed to train the next generation of engineers with unique and cross disciplinary skills in integration of telecommunication with drone systems.”
The consortium, led by specialist drone command and control system developer, sees.ai, includes 16 organisations such as BAE Systems, the UK’s National Air Traffic Control Services (NATS) and nuclear operator Sellafield.
BVLOS monitoring
The Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) system will enable remote inspection and monitoring of industrial sites such as nuclear, construction and oil and gas, as well as urban sites in the public domain including road and rail and telecoms infrastructure, and live emergency services support.
The system uses AI on Nvidia GPU processors to enable drones to be flown under tight human supervision by pilots based in a central control room hundreds of miles away. Pilots can precisely execute complex missions remotely – even reactive missions (designed on-the-fly) and close-quarter missions encountering GPS problems, magnetic interference and degradation and loss of communications.
Operating safely in congested area is a major challenge, and it requires the consortium of aviation, aerospace, industrial and emergency service giants, to advance the system and integrate it into the wider aviation ecosystem.
“The Future Flight Challenge funding will accelerate us towards a future where drones fly autonomously at scale – high up alongside manned aviation and low down inside our industrial sites, suburbs and cities,” said John McKenna, CEO of sees.ai in West Sussex.
The Smart Internet Lab is among the technical contributors to the consortium, alongside Vodafone, The Met Office, Flock Cover and UAM Consult Ltd.
During these tests the system will be operated by two of the world’s leading drone service providers, Terra Drone and Sky-Futures or by the in-house drone teams at Sellafield, Network Rail, and the Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service.
Researchers in Bristol have built a multiplexed eight user quantum key distribution network with just eight receivers, a fraction of the number of devices currently required.
The international team of researchers has developed the first distributed network for sharing quantum keys in a breakthrough design.
So far, quantum key distribution has been point to point, even over satellites, but this limits the use in a network. The multiplexed photonic quantum key distribution (QKD) system, published in Science Advances, supports eight users and can be easily scaled up.
“This represents a massive breakthrough and makes the quantum internet a much more realistic proposition,” said Dr Siddarth Joshi, who headed the project at the Quantum Engineering Technology (QET) Labs at the University of Bristol, UK. “Until now, building a quantum network has entailed huge cost, time, and resource, as well as often compromising on its security which defeats the whole purpose.”
“Our solution is scalable, relatively cheap and, most important of all, impregnable. That means it’s an exciting game changer and paves the way for much more rapid development and widespread rollout of this technology,” he said.
Photonic QKD systems use entangled photons to ensure an encryption key is not intercepted.
“Until now efforts to expand the network have involved vast infrastructure and a system which requires the creation of another transmitter and receiver for every additional user. Sharing messages in this way, known as trusted nodes, is just not good enough because it uses so much extra hardware which could leak and would no longer be totally secure.”
The team includes researchers from the UK’s University of Leeds, Croatia’s Ruder Boskovic Institute (RBI) in Zagreb, Austria’s Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information (IQOQI), in Vienna, and China’s National University of Defence Technology (NUDT) in Changsha.
The team used multiplexing to develop an eight user system with eight transceivers, rather than the 56 that would previously be needed for each user to have a point to point link.
The receivers were connected to optical fibres via different locations across Bristol and the ability to transmit messages via quantum communication was tested using the city’s existing optical fibre network.
“Besides being completely secure, the beauty of this new technique is its streamline agility, which requires minimal hardware because it integrates with existing technology,” said Joshi.
The network was created within months for less than £300,000, enabling secure networks for a fraction of the cost today. The system also features traffic management, delivering better network control which allows, for instance, certain users to be prioritised with a faster connection.
“With these economies of scale, the prospect of a quantum internet for universal usage is much less far-fetched. We have proved the concept and by further refining our multiplexing methods to optimise and share resources in the network, we could be looking at serving not just hundreds or thousands, but potentially millions of users in the not too distant future,” said Joshi.
“The ramifications of the COVID-19 pandemic have not only shown importance and potential of the internet, and our growing dependence on it, but also how its absolute security is paramount. Multiplexing entanglement could hold the vital key to making this security a much-needed reality.”
The research received funding from the Quantum Communications Hubs of the Engineering and Physical Science Research Council (EPSRC), Ministry of Science and Education (MSE) of Croatia, and the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG).
Researchers at the University of Bath in the UK have developed the first fuel cell that can be stacked in a printed circuit board for wearable designs.
Glucose Fuel Cells (GFCs) generate power from any body fluid at room temperature, including sweat for wearables and blood for embedded medical devices
The team led by Carla Gonzalez-Solino at the Centre for Biosensors, Bioelectronics and Biodevices (C3Bio) at the University of Bath developed an integrated arrays of GFCs and successfully demonstrate their operation at physiological concentrations of glucose.
Each GFC consists of a porous gold anode and a Pt/Au cathode in a single layer, and generates a maximum power of 14.3 μW/cm2 (in 6 mM of glucose) a 297mV, with a linear response to glucose within a concentration range that includes both low and high glucose levels.
The challenge for individual GFCs is the low voltage output. So the team also connected four GFCs in parallel in a stack on a PCB. This generated between 1.4V and 0.9V.
Each board measures 42.5 mm x 34.5 mm consisted of four rows that include a circular electrode (geometric area: 1.54 mm2) used as the anode, and a crescent electrode, used as the cathode (geometric area: 7.22 mm2).
To demonstrate meaningful energy harvesting, the four GFC stack was connected to a commercial off-the-shelf power management system using a BQ25504 PMIC from Texas Instruments that can handle the low output voltage. The BQ25504 system is designed to operate with input voltages as low as 100 mV, a range that covers most fuel cells. It has a built-in Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) function that finds the open circuit potential (OCP) of the fuel cell and sets the operating point by varying the effective load impedance seen by the fuel cell to around 80 percent of this voltage.
The OCP is sampled for 256 ms, which, for the GFCs proposed in this work, is sufficient for the cells to reach full OCP. The BQ25504 system also includes a battery management system, which was connected to a storage capacitor. Both the 4-GFC voltage and the voltage over the energy storage element were continually logged using a Pico datalogger to record the voltage over time.
Israeli IP developer Ceva has opened a silicon R&D and design centre in Bristol.
The office in the Aztec West Business Park will work on digital signal processing technology. Ceva developers a wide range of IP, from Bluetooth and Wifi IP to edge AI and 5G telecoms processing blocks.
“Bristol has one of the strongest talent bases in the U.K. for digital signal processing, with many highly-skilled and experienced engineers. This new team will allow us to better address the growing demand for our portfolio of leading-edge signal processing IPs and reinforces our position as the world’s leading licensor of IP for intelligent, connected devices,” said Gideon Wertheizer, CEO of Ceva.
Three leading Bristol-based companies are attending the global mobile tech conference
Companies from the South West region are demonstrating their world-beating technologies at Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona later this month – an event that brings together leading technology companies and telecoms operators from around the world.
Bristol-based XMOS Semiconductor is showcasing its far-field voice capture systems. These are used in the voice-enabled stereos, smart TVs, soundbars, set-top boxes and digital media adapter markets which use the company’s innovative processor.
The XMOS technology includes the world’s first stereo acoustic echo cancellation (AEC) far-field linear microphone array solution. This is based on a voice processor which delivers dual channel full stereo. Its VocalSorcery technology can identify individual speakers or conversations in a crowded noisy audio environment. This could be used for example to diarize voice conferences, and give a full transcript, by speaker of multi-person conversations, and ensure that all speakers on a conference call are heard with equal volume.
“We’re demonstrating our next generation of source separation algorithms, VocalSorcery, which solves what is sometimes described as the ‘Cocktail Party Problem’ and enables commercial solutions for improved conference calls and in-car phone calls,” says Mark Lippett, President and CEO at XMOS.
“With our next generation of algorithms we are confident that we have the most comprehensive portfolio of voice products available today.”
At the same time, Zeetta Networks‘ NetOS software-defined networking technology has been nominated as the Best Network Software Breakthrough at the show.
NetOS makes a 5G wireless network fully programmable, opening new opportunities for smart cities and smart venues. It is already being used at Bristol’s Ashton Gate sports stadium as part of a live ‘data lab’.
The category of Best Network Software Breakthrough is new this year and aims to highlight outstanding software innovations leading to dramatic changes in network costs, functionality and business cases.
“We are delighted that our NetOS technology has been nominated for a world-class GLOMO award,” says Vassilis Seferidis, CEO of Zeetta Networks. “Our vision at Zeetta Networks has always been to create software that transforms the network into a dynamic, programmable platform that allows our customers to maximize the value from their networking assets. NetOS is a core component in delivering dynamic, multi-tenancy and multi-vendor networks and has already been deployed successfully in production networks, working across multiple technologies whether fibre, packet switched Wi-Fi or the Internet of Things.”
NetOS is also a central component to the ‘Bristol is Open‘ Smart City testbed and to the UK Government’s 5G Hub, which is testing out network virtualisation and slicing for 5G services.
5G future
Blu Wireless Technology (BWT) will also be demonstrating its millimetre 5G wireless technology at the show. The company recently joined the Telecom Infrastructure Project (TIP) as part of the recently established mmWave working group to develop the latest 60GHz networking technology.
TIP is the engineering-focused initiative co-chaired by Facebook and Deutsche Telekom, bringing together expertise from pioneering technology companies.
“Our mission goes beyond simply delivering advanced technology to our customers, but rather providing deep domain expertise, from a technology and market perspective,” says Henry Nurser, CEO of BWT.
“Being amongst this forward-thinking, highly esteemed collection of companies gives us access to shared ideas and the opportunity to play an integral part in the future of this rapidly emerging global technology ecosystem.”
Global tech companies back Bristol’s leading drone competition and the latest research proposals on the use of drones in the city
The MAAXX Europe 2018 drone racing competition returns to the region on 23 and 24 March with triple the flying area at the Exhibition and Conference Centre at UWE Bristol.
Working with leading chip maker NVIDIA, phone and system maker Huawei and the Aerospace Bristol museum as part of their celebration of the RAF’s 100th anniversary, the flying area now has two large arenas to test out the latest drone technologies.
Check out what MAAXX Europe was like at last year’s event in the video below:
With 12 industry and university teams, the event aims to push the boundaries of control systems for autonomous aircraft. There’s an overnight build-a-drone event with significant support from Huawei and other companies along with teams from the leading UK and EU universities.
The industry day on Friday 23 March will also feature a research poster exhibition from some of the brightest post-graduates around.
MAAXX Europe’s co-organiser, High Tech Bristol and Bath (HBB), is also applying to the NESTA Flying High Challenge. This four-month consultation would provide the framework for a future bid for funding to examine the use of drones in urban situations.
“NESTA is looking for five cities in the UK to be the centre for all things drone,” says John Bradford, CEO of HBB. “We are looking at infrastructure monitoring, contested airspace around the port at Avonmouth and the airport as well as emergency and health response. Then there’s a crowd safety and management around large events such as the Harbour Festival,” he adds.
You can find out more about MAXX Europe and register for free tickets via the MAAXX Europe 2018 website. For updates on Bristol’s involvement in the Flying High challenge, you can follow HBB on Twitter here: @hbb_cic.
Researchers at the University of Bristol have been able to trap objects larger than the wavelength of sound in a beam. This opens the door to the manipulation of drug capsules or even controlling tiny surgical implements within the body in sterile environments.
“Acoustic tractor beams have huge potential in many applications. I’m particularly excited by the idea of contactless production lines where delicate objects are assembled without touching them,” says Bruce Drinkwater, Professor of Ultrasonics at the University’s Department of Mechanical Engineering.
Current theory says these tractor beams were fundamentally limited to levitating small objects as all the previous attempts to trap particles larger than the wavelength had been unstable, with objects spinning uncontrollably.
Instead the team used rapidly fluctuating acoustic vortices, which are similar to tornadoes of sound, to create a stable core. They were then able to increase the size of the silent core allowing it to hold larger objects. Working with ultrasonic waves at a pitch of 40kHz, the researchers held a 2cm polystyrene sphere in the tractor beam (pictured left).
This sphere is over twice the acoustic wavelength and is the largest yet trapped in a tractor beam. The research suggests that, in the future, much larger objects could be levitated in this way by boosting the power of the ultrasound.
“Acoustic researchers have been frustrated by the size limit for years, so it’s satisfying to find a way to overcome it. I think it opens the door to many new applications,” says Dr. Asier Marzo at Bristol’s Department of Mechanical Engineering.
Ultrasound is a key area for Bristol. The University team has previously shown smaller objects being moved around by the beams, while Ultrahaptics in the city is using focused ultrasound beams to provide the feeling of touch in mid-air.
A trial is starting in Bristol this month to use connected vehicles to monitor air pollution in real time.
Bristol Waste, which operates the refuse and recycling service in Bristol, is working with US connected car company Tantalum and data researchers from Imperial College London on “Air.Car” which provides highly accurate, real-time feedback on the levels of nitrous oxide (NOx), a key pollutant.
According to research by US scientists, excess emissions of NOx exhaust gases can be linked to 38,000 premature deaths worldwide and it is a key measure for meeting UK and European pollution limits.
“We run a large fleet of vehicles across the city of Bristol and understanding the environmental impact of our operation is a key part of our sustainability plan and our commitment to contributing to a cleaner and greener Bristol,” says Tracey Morgan (pictured centre right), Bristol Waste Company’s Managing Director.
“The data from this trial, which will include at least 40 of our heavy vehicles, will enable us to make more informed decisions around which of them we use, at what times and on which routes to help us manage that impact.”
This is part of a 1,000-vehicle trial that also includes the University of Oxford, where units are being installed in diesel vehicles to estimate real-time NOx emissions in major cities across the UK.
The £2m project started last July and taps into the On Board Diagnostic (OBD) port on the vehicle to access the engine control unit to gather data, and the data will be used to develop a tool from Tantalum to provide a detailed understanding of the environmental impact of vehicles and the tools to minimise it.
Ozgur Tohumcu, CEO of Tantalum tells us: “There’s a real buzz around how we can use data cleverly to improve people’s lives. It will be transformative for managing and reducing the silent killer, NOx, in the world’s towns and cities.”
2018 is set to be a stellar year in the region and there are eight tech companies to keep an eye on.
Kudan
With engineering in Bristol and marketing in Tokyo, Kudan is making significant steps with its Simultaneous Localisation and Mapping (SLAM) technology which helps driverless cars and drones navigate more accurately.
It’s currently dealing with major car makers for both mainstream and driverless cars, major Asian mobile phone makers and large drone makers who are all driving the adoption of the designs.
KETS Quantum Security
Bristol is a global hub of expertise in quantum technology, so it’s no surprise that one of the companies on the list for 2018 comes from the Quantum Entrepreneur’s hub.
KETS Quantum Security is providing photonic security technology that is small and light enough to be used on drones for uncrackable communications. It has won several awards and accelerator deals for the commercialisation of the technology.
Dyson
Dyson is a big name in home appliances and it’s now set to expand its expertise and success to electric cars. Its car and battery research and development centre in Malmesbury is set to shake up the automotive world and its design centre in Bristol is leading the way for developments in the Internet of Things.
Amazon FreeRTOS
Amazon already has a presence in Bristol with its cloud team, but its importance is stepping up a gear with the release of the Amazon FreeRTOS.
The world’s most popular real-time operating technology was developed in Bristol and with the backing of Amazon it’s set to be even more significant, allowing the easy connection of sensors and controllers to cloud services in the Internet of Things.
UltraSoC
Cambridge-based UltraSoC has just opened its second office, tapping into the tech expertise in the Bristol and Bath region.
Its team started out developing analytics hardware that is designed into chips for development. This is now a way of gaining invaluable insights into all activities across the Internet of Things.
Cerberus Labs
Cerberus Labs taps into the skills of highly experienced engineers from ST Microelectronics. Their expertise in encryption and chip design has led to innovative security chips for a range of IoT applications, especially to secure the communications between vehicles.
Not only is the company providing the hardware designs but it’s also offering network support for messaging between the chips.
Reach Robotics
We are also saying welcome back to Reach Robotics after time in the US at a leading accelerator. Its MekaMon battling robots were launched in November last year after the company raised $7.5m for the bot’s development. You can check them out in action in the video below:
The team is now driving manufacturing and growth and is planning for further expansion this year. A deal to sell its robots in Apple stores will also see a boost during 2018.
Silas Adekunle, CEO of Reach Robotics previously told us: “It was important for us here at Reach Robotics to remain loyal to Bristol, given the support we’ve already had from Bristol Robotics Lab and UWE Bristol.”
Compound Semiconductor Catapult
While not a company, the £50m Compound Semiconductor Catapult in Newport starts operations this year, developing and enhancing the latest technology in chips for wireless chargers, more efficient power systems and next-generation radio-frequency systems for 5G and 6G equipment.
Aiming to have 2000 researchers and developers just across the Severn Bridge (which will eliminate tolls later this year), the national research centre will be just 20 minutes from Bristol and a huge boost to technology development in the region.
“Previously, techniques for producing the soft-lithographic scaffolds/moulds (microfluidic channel patterns) were time-consuming and extremely expensive, while other low-cost alternatives were prone to unfavourable properties,” said Dr Robert Hughes who led the study. “This development could put LOC prototyping into the hands of researchers and clinicians who know the challenges best, in particular those in resource-limited settings, where rapid diagnostics may often have the greatest impact,”
