Excellence award for research on smart wireless machines

Clara Scerri Delia, a senior technical specialist with the Malta Communications Authority (MCA), has won the Ericsson's Excellence in Telecommunications Award, in recognition of her new and innovative ideas in telecommunications expressed in her Master of Science in Engineering dissertation at the University of Malta.

The award is open to Greek and Maltese under-graduate and post-graduate students. Winners are given the opportunity to visit the Ericsson headquarters in Sweden and are eligible to apply for a six-month employment position at Ericsson.

Ms Scerri Delia's research focused on cognitive radio. The concept of machine automation has always kindled great interest within the research arena. This is especially true in the case of automated actions that are not hard-coded in a machine but are a result of a series of smart decisions that are dynamically taken by a machine in precedence of an action.

As humans become more dependent on wireless technology (implying a more heavily-utilised frequency spectrum and the presence of more disruptive interference) the need for intelligent machines becomes even more prominent. A cognitive radio is one such smart machine.

"At the time I was working on my thesis, the research carried out, and thus the information available, on cognitive radios was extremely meagre. As a result, foreseeing the vitality of cognitive technologies in the very short future, I decided to focus my dissertation on this particular theme," she explained.

"The aim was to write an application that was neutral, was not confined to a specific technology (and thus to a particular frequency band) and always provided realistic results. Working at the national communications regulatory, it is vital to be constantly at the forefront of technology. As a result I will definitely continue following the advancements and researching the area," she promised.

Cognitive radio technology is unique in that it is capable of adapting to a wireless spectrum or network environment automatically in order to accomplish a task. The latter may vary from something simple (like making a call) to more complex chores. The promise of cognitive radio, however, goes beyond making good use of well-established and well-behaved spectrum environments. The radio could potentially sense spectrum usage patterns and establish and maintain new network connections with other cognitive devices in spectrum slots where no authorised network exists.

Consequently, cognitive radio technology offers the opportunity to recover radio frequency spectrum, a limited resource, and put it to good use.

"Most of the research carried out to date has been based on computer simulations. Thus, the immediate future challenge is the replication of the positive results obtained via simulation to real applications. For the 'true' cognitive radio to become a reality, it must be ensured that it does not interfere with existing radio technologies. The developments in this field are considerable and exponential. I am therefore convinced that the deployment of cognitive radio technology will soon become an everyday reality," concluded the senior technical specialist.