BTIIC is a five-year project funded by £9M from Invest Northern Ireland and representing a major partnership between BT and Ulster University. BTIIC is at the intersection of Artificial Intelligence, the Internet of Things (IoT) and Telecommunications.
The BT Ireland Innovation Centre (BTIIC) is a five-year project funded by £9M from Invert Northern Ireland and representing a major partnership between BT and Ulster University. BTIIC is at the intersection of Artificial Intelligence, the Internet of Things (IoT) and Telecommunications, incorporating 12 sub-projects within the two themes of Intelligent Systems and IoT.
The project commenced in October 2017 and represents a joint research and engineering centre of excellence between BT and Ulster University, investing in a research programme supporting 19 postdoctoral researchers and 12 PhD students, with further expansion as we move into 2020.
During the lifetime of the project these researchers and PhD students are working jointly with the BT Research Centre at Adastral Park in Martlesham, Suffolk, UK, alongside the BT Belfast Global Development Centre. BTIIC also supports opportunities for researcher internships with BT and a programme of international visiting researchers to Ulster.
Additionally, in the BT Engineering Centre in Belfast, BTIIC is facilitating the creation of 50 new graduate roles.
This innovative BT R&D partnership is the first in the UK outside Cambridge and brings together academic researchers, industrial researchers and industrial engineers, with a focus on the application of research to create impact across a range of telecoms systems and services.
The research partnership plays to Ulster University’s strengths in cloud computing, optimisation, vision systems, resilient communications, smart environments and big data analytics. This exciting and ambitious industry collaboration focuses on performing advanced Research and Development in a number of core technology areas related to future telecommunication networks and services with a particular emphasis on Future Big Data Analytics, Internet of Things (IoT), Cyber Security, Fixed and Mobile Network services and creating products for both residential and business customers.
BTIIC provides a unique opportunity for down-streaming of research results from Ulster University into Industry, with patents and research innovations embedded into applications in future analytics, smarter customer analytics, ipTV products and services, adaptive and autonomic systems, intelligent process analytics, end-to-end IoT management frameworks, situation assessment, data into action, novel cryptographic solutions, future IoT security technologies, service level agreements, and ultra-resilient mobile networks (5G).
Industry Research
This Research and Engineering Centre of Excellence involves BT and Ulster University jointly investing in a research programme, which has created 27 new research opportunities – 15 postdoctoral researchers and 12 PhD students.
During the lifetime of the project these researchers are working with BT Adastral Park Research Laboratories in Martlesham, Suffolk, UK alongside BT Belfast Global Development Centre.
In addition to these research opportunities in Ulster University, BTIIC is also facilitating the creation of up to 50 new graduate roles in the BT Belfast Global Development Centre.
The innovative BT R&D partnership is the first in the UK outside Cambridge and brings together academic researchers, industrial researchers and industrial engineers co-located in one centre, with a focus on application of research and the power of communications to enhance our world.
As such, it provides a unique opportunity for down-streaming of research results from University to Industry, providing valuable REF case studies for the University and a strong research underpinning for the BT family.
Areas of Focus
The research partnership plays to Ulster University’s strengths in cloud computing, optimisation, vision systems, resilient communications, smart environments and big data analytics. This exciting and ambitious industry collaboration focuses on performing advanced Research and Development in a number of core technology areas of focus within Intelligent Systems and IoT.
Future Analytics
Creating novel self-service analytics tools to enable individuals across organisations to analyse data and extract insight.
Customer Analytics
Using data gathered from end user technology, predictions can be made to aid with the understanding of when service outages are likely to occur.
TV Analytics
Developing novel TV Analytics based on IPTV platforms and on-demand viewing behaviours to gain insight into TV service performance and customer experience.
Adaptive and Automatic
Emerging techniques for autonomic, optimisation and deep-learning systems are being developed to transform the level of automation and responsiveness to changes in complex network and operational management systems processes.
Process Analytics
Using Big Data Analytics non-standardised, highly variable business processes can be improved by taking into account the process semantics as well as the observable process events.
End-to-end IoT management
An end-to-end IoT management framework can help mitigate the complex set of vulnerabilities which exist across end-to-end IoT architectures.
Situation awareness
Situation awareness for IoT devices and communication channels to prevent failures and security breaches.
Data into Action
As IoT decision support systems make increasing use of information from sensors, the trust which can be placed in the information becomes a key consideration and automated decisions to be made in the face of uncertainties.
Novel Cryptographic Solutions
Novel cryptographic solutions for IoT security challenges that are relevant to data privacy and data and communication security.
Future IoT security
Future IoT security technologies to secure IoT infrastructure and applications using novel technologies such as Blockchain.
Information Service Level Agreements
Information Service Level Agreements to allow the non-functional requirements of data sharing relationships in the IoT to be understood in a common transparent manner and used as the basis for establishing explicit agreements between stakeholders in IoT ecosystems.
5G
Necessary standards and industry activities will be developed to underpin ultra-resilient 5G IoT mission critical communications and services.