NSERC / Ultra Electronics TCS Industrial Research Chair in High Performance Wireless Emergency and Tactical Communications

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Wireless communications are not only a fundamental part of modern society, they are key to modern public safety and humanitarian missions. Whether it is a video feed monitoring a collapsing infrastructure, a satellite image for up-coming local weather conditions or thousands of voice links to coordinate interventions, communications improves situational awareness and permits to save more lives. In many emergency situations, the communication infrastructure is overloaded, or completely out of order. Ultra Electronics TCS and ÉTS have developed, over more than 18 years, a best in class wireless technology enabling the efficient deployment of a reliable broadband infrastructure. The first worldwide software defined radio as a product, introduced by Ultra Electronics in 1999, became the market leader, a leadership maintained by continuous improvements and research. Such systems are required in disaster response, which, by nature, involves deployment in unpredicted situations. Since the ÉTS-Ultra Electronics collaboration's inception, Ultra's wireless systems evolved by hundred-fold factors in data rate and flexibility, but also in terms of functionality. They are highly adaptable, cognitive schemes enabled, MIMO, OFDMA and, in their latest incarnation, capable of Ad-Hoc HetNets for terrestrial, overwater or airborne broadband communications. In the chair program, students are involved in the creation of leading edge knowledge as a foundation to next generation wireless systems. The research program addresses 4 strategic objectives: 1) Stability and convergence analysis of heterogeneous networks in mostly unpredictable situations, 2) Wireless signal analysis for spectrum awareness, 3) Development of performance improvement strategies for unconventional scenarios, and 4) Development of security and link availability enhancement mechanisms under harsh conditions. This new proposed research program capitalizes on the previous Chair program to maximize full reach of the results' potential.