The High Performance Networks group (HPN), led by Professor Simeonidou, specialises in the application of advanced hardware and software network technologies to future optical and layer 2 communication networks, and includes 3 academics, two research fellows, 26 post-doctoral researchers and numerous PhD students. HPN is an international leader in the fields of Optical Networks, Future Internet Research and Experimentation (FIRE), Grid and Cloud computing.

Over the years the group has made significant breakthroughs in technology areas such as optical routing, optical packet and burst switching. In the mid-2000’s HPN introduced fundamental concepts regarding the use of optical networking for computational applications building the foundations of High Performance Clouds. More recently the group pioneered the application of Software Defined Networking in optical networks and has actively contributed towards the establishment of the new standards, technology demonstrations with industrial collaborators, and a number of invited journal publications, conferences and plenaries. Since 2008, the group has produced over 250 publications in peer-reviewed journals and international conferences. HPN has a strong experimental focus and has built an extremely well equipped research lab. The HPN lab is part of UK National Dark Fibre Infrastructure Service (NDFIS) and has dedicated connectivity to the national and international research network infrastructure through which has built close collaborations with lead research institutions in Europe, USA, Brazil and Japan. The group has established bilateral research collaboration agreements with international research institutes including iMinds (Belgium), CPqD (Brazil) & NICT (Japan).

The Communication Systems and Networks (CSN) research group comprising 14 academics, 9 research staff and over 60 postgraduate students. The CSN group conducts state-of-the-art research in high performance RF engineering (antennas, propagation and RF transceivers), advanced radio systems (architecture and waveform design, generation and demodulation), networks & protocols (wireless sensors, smart grids and homes) and computational electromagnetics (including medical/healthcare). A major focus is on advancements in wireless connectivity to enhance both personal and business activities on a global scale. The Group has enabled many key advancements including: OFDM waveforms for Wireless LAN technology, air interface enhancement through multiple antenna techniques, highly efficient RF power amplifiers for broadcast and beyond 4G cellular technologies, spectrum efficient wireless and green radio, smart grid technologies and more recently vehicular based communications. The Group supports its research with a comprehensive laboratory including a fully instrumented anechoic chamber, a multielement (16x16) wideband channel sounder, MIMO enabled channel emulators (Elektrobit C8), Software Defined Radio (NI USRP and PXi) and RF wafer probing facilities. Its high performance vector signal generators, network and spectrum analysers facilitate the development of wideband CDMA and OFDM based systems and high performance wireless modems.