Telecommunications and computer networks

Our research covers all areas of telecommunications and computer networks, including quality of service, trust management, routing protocols and packet scheduling, physical layer, and security aspects. The research ranges from purely theoretical/mathematical analyses to experimental prototyping efforts.

Our research

Our existing research spans over the following few topics:

Design and optimisation of communications and networking

Analysis, design, optimisation, modelling and experimental prototyping mobile and wireless communication systems, including but not limited to: mobile and wireless communication technologies (e.g., efficient resource allocation, heterogeneous radio access networks, quality of service provisioning), smart cognitive technologies for dynamic and shared spectrum access (e.g., cognitive spectrum and radio resource management, spectrum monitoring and statistical modelling, spectrum sensing and signal detection techniques), and wireless Internet of Things (e.g., resource allocation, system modelling and prototyping)
Using advanced AI/ML techniques, including deep reinforcement learning, generative AI, and quantum machine learning, to address emerging problems in communications and networking, such as network slicing, spectrum management, code computing, and edge intelligence.
Context aware networks, localised AI and assessing subverted machine learning
Molecular communications, including but not limited to experimental prototyping, simulation and analysis of open-air transmissions.

Security and trust for wireless communications and networks

Establishing trust in machine-to-machine (M2M) and human-to-thing (H2T) interactions, with a particular emphasis on security and reliability in resource-constrained embedded environments
Investigating the design and implementation of advanced security mechanisms for wireless communications and computer networks, including intrusion detection and prevention systems for Wi-Fi networks (WIDS/WIPS) and network infrastructures (NIDS), as well as secure molecular (nano-)communications and mesh networks
Defeating jammers and eavesdroppers in physical layer security with innovative solutions that do not require prior information of attackers, e.g., channel state information and location. This includes using the ambient backscatter communication technology to leverage ambient signals and/or jamming signals to securely transmit information and exploiting co-channel interference to disrupt eavesdroppers’ reception
Radio frequency fingerprint identification that exploits the unique hardware impairments for device authentication
Key generation from wireless channels that leverages the reciprocal and random features of the wireless channel for extracting keys.

Multi-Sensory Environments

Internet of Senses and the future Metaverse, incorporating additional sensory channels (haptics, olfaction and gustation)
Wi-Fi sensing that uses the Wi-Fi transmissions as sensors to sense human activities, which can be used for fall detection, gesture recognition, etc
mmWave radar sensing that employs mmWave radar as sensors for high-resolution sensing, which can be used for vital signal monitoring, gesture recognition, etc.

Our Team

Alan Marshall
Networks & Cybersecurity, Wireless communications, Edge Processing & Analytics, Multi-Sensory Environments
Miguel López-Benítez
Mobile and wireless communication technologies (4G/5G/6G), Smart cognitive technologies for dynamic and shared spectrum access, Wireless Internet of Things, Applications of artificial intelligence to communication systems
Junqing Zhang
Wireless security, physical layer security, key generation from wireless channels, radio frequency fingerprint identification, physical layer authentication, Wi-Fi sensing, mmWave radar sensing
Valerio Selis
Internet of Things, trust management, machine-to-machine communications, human-to-thing interactions, wireless and molecular communications, network security
Huynh Nguyen
Physical layer security, Mobile computing, Edge intelligence, and Applied AI

Partnerships and collaborations

Sony Entertainment Europe; Sony Research Japan; Sony Corp USA
Plextek/ Dstl
The Alan Turing Institute
Heriot-Watt University, UK
University of Manchester, UK
Queen’s University Belfast, UK
Management Centre Innsbruck, Austria
Aalborg University, Denmark
University of Oulu, Finland
Trinity College Dublin, Ireland
University of Cagliari, Italy
University of Padova, Italy
University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg
Ohio State University, USA
Rice University, USA
Beijing Jiaotong University, China
Nantong University, China
IIT Bombay, India
Ahmedabad University, India
Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, Japan
Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
Hanoi University of Science and Technology (HUST), Vietnam
University of Technology Sydney, Australia

Research Outcomes

Grants

NSF ECCS-EPSRC: SecureID: Towards Secure Device Identification Using Radio Frequency Fingerprints, 2025-2028, £656k. Team: Junqing Zhang (PI), Alan Marshall. Funded by EPSRC Lead Agency Agreement with the NSF.
WiFiOpenEye: protecting open Wi-Fi networks,2025. Team: Alan Marshall (PI), Valerio Selis. Funded by EPSRC.
Securing Spectrum Connectivity: Over-the-Air Authentication Using Radio Frequency Fingerprinting, 2024-2026, £153k. Team: Junqing Zhang (PI). Funded by EPSRC Federated Telecoms Hub 6G Research Partnership Funds (THRPF).
Context Aware network architectures for Sending Multiple Senses (CASMS). EP/P004040/1, £770,377, 2017-2021. Team: Alan Marshall (PI). Funded by EPSRC.
A New Frontier For Internet of Things Security: Far-Flung Key Generation, 2022 to 2023, £310k. Team: Junqing Zhang (PI). Funded by EPSRC New Investigator Award
Measuring and ameliorating latency impact in gaming (MALIG), £201472, 2025-2028. Team: Alan Marshall (PI). Funded by Sony Entertainment Europe Ltd.
A New Framework for Developing Cognitive Process Models, £120,000, 2024-2026. Team: Alan Marshall (PI). Funded by Sony focused research award.
A New Framework for Developing Cognitive Process Models, £70,658; 2023-2024. Team: Alan Marshall (PI). Funded by Sony focused research award.
UK-Jiangsu 20-20 world-class Universities Initiative, £500,000; 2019-2025. Funded by British Council
Non-parametric smart sensing analytics based on large spectrum data and estimation of channel activity statistics, 2017-2020. Team: Miguel López-Benítez (PI). Funded by British Council.
Network capacity limits of short-range wireless connectivity standards for the Internet of Things, 2018-2019. Team: Miguel López-Benítez (PI). Funded by Royal Society.
Optimisation of future mobile communication networks for the Internet of Things, 2018-2020. Team: Miguel López-Benítez (PI). Funded by Royal Society and SERB India (Newton International Fellowship, Newton-Bhabha Fund).
NW CyberCom – Evaluation of a WIDS solution to protect against cyberattacks, 2025. Team: Valerio Selis (PI). Funded by Research England.
CROY - Certified Robust Autonomous Operation in Cyber Space, 2024-2025. Team: Xiaowei Huang (PI), Valerio Selis and Alan Marshall. Funded by The Alan Turing Institute.
NVIDIA Academic Grant, AI-Native Transceiver Design for Next-Generation Wireless Networks, 2025-2026. Team: Huynh Nguyen (PI)

Company formation

Spin-out company Traffic Observation & Management (TOM) Ltd, now WiFiAlli, specializing in intrusion detection & prevention for public access and open wireless networks. UK/ International Patent No. GB201220957D0 GB2013/052856.

Opportunities

We welcome opportunities to engage with students, researchers, and industry partner:

PhD opportunities: please contact us if you are interested in pursuing a PhD in telecommunications and computer networks
Consultancy and research collaborations: we welcome partnerships, consultancy, and knowledge exchange projects with academic, industry, and government partners.

Contact us

Please discuss with relevant academic staff if you are interested in their research.