A research group based at the CONNECT Centre in Trinity has been awarded €560,000 to research 5G technology.
The award is part of a €5m Orchestration and Reconfiguration Control Architecture (ORCA) project, which is funded by the European Union’s (EU) Horizon 2020. The project involves collaboration with research groups in Belgium, Germany, Switzerland and the US. It began this week at Trinity and will run until the end of 2019.
The project is aimed at supporting the EU’s connectivity plan, which plans to make 5G commercially available in all member states by 2020. 5G, the next generation of telecommunications standards, will allow a range of applications including ultra-high definition video.
Ireland’s contribution to the project will be led by principal investigator at CONNECT and chair of telecommunications at Trinity’s School of Engineering, Professor Luiza Da Silva. Its main focus will be the control mechanisms in wireless technologies.
Speaking about the group’s research, Da Silva said: “This research is urgent. The internet is already under immense pressure as it struggles to cope with user demand. The growing popularity of internet television and on-demand video means wireless technology must find new ways of delivering much faster speeds.” He continued: “Until now, some of the leading ideas for the future of wireless Internet have been examined only with theoretical simulations. This project will allow us to test these ideas experimentally.”
The CONNECT Centre was launched in 2015 as a multi-institute research centre headquartered at Trinity, with researchers working at Cork Institute of Technology, Dublin City University, Dublin Institute of Technology, Maynooth University, University College Cork, University of Limerick, Waterford Institute of Technology and the Tyndall National Institute in Cork.
