51Âþ»­

Researchers will be developing new technologies to enhance communication between flight crews and air traffic controllers after securing a €1.9million Euro grant from the European Commission.

51Âþ»­ Leicester (51Âþ»­)’s Professor Raouf Hamzoui and Dr Feng Chen will be part of the team developing these new technologies during the 30-month ATMACA (Air Traffic Management and Communucation over ATN/IPS) project.

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It is one of two projects in the Faculty of Computing, Engineering and Media (CEM) to receive funding through the EU’s Horizon Europe programme.

51Âþ»­ will lead the development of an innovative IP-based protocol for air to ground communication using text. Although text communication is currently used between the teams, the new protocol aims to enhance the process by reducing latency and improving service availability.

51Âþ»­, which receives £307,625 from UKRI through the Horizon Europe guarantee scheme, is one of four universities to be part of the project alongside Eskişehir Technical University – the project lead – Technical University of Madrid and École nationale de l'aviation civile. Industrial partners comprise an air navigation service provider, an airline, and a research and consultancy firm specializing in human-machine interface design.

The second EU award has gone to Professor Alistair Duffy who has been given £267, 923 through the European Doctoral Network programme. This funds consortiums of universities, research institutions, and other organisations to develop a doctoral programme in a specific research and innovation area.

Professor Duffy will be part of PATTERN, led by the Technische Universitet Eindhoven, which involves nine academic institutions and nine industrial partners.

The project will research the best ways to use artificial intelligence to discover solutions to better manage electromagnetic interference, with a particular focus on how to ensure devices do not affect the safety of medical products.

Professor Duffy said: “The European Doctoral Network Enabling Artificial Intelligence for Electromagnetic Compatibility (PATTERN) will create a long-lasting, multidisciplinary, academic-industrial network for doctoral training with leading European industry and academia.  It aims to achieve a breakthrough in the design of innovative electromagnetic interference (EMI) solutions, throughout their lifecycle, with AI acting as the key enabler of a new design philosophy.”

Both Professor Duffy and Professor Hamzaoui are members of 51Âþ»­’s Institute for Sustainable Futures.