The proposed work in this EPSRC Fellowship is aimed at providing radical new solutions to this fundamental and far reaching challenge. A key pillar of the proposed work is the extension of the RF spectrum to include the infrared as well as the visible light spectra. The recent advancements in light emitting diode (LED) device technology now seems to let the vision of using light for high speed wireless communications become a reality.

This research is carried out under the Unversity Defence Research Collaboration (UDRC) funded by the MOD and EPSRC.

The UDRC is a collaborative research project with the work being carried out by two Consortia. Edinburgh Consortium is made of the University of Edinburgh, Heriot-Watt University and The Queen's University of Belfast. LSSCN Consortium is made up of Loughborough University, University of Surrey, University of Strathclyde, Cardiff University and Newcastle University.

To bring distributed multi-antenna wireless access to reality by combining two powerful emerging technologies:

• radio remote heads (RRHs), which allow for widely geographically distributed access via radio-over-fibre connections to a central base station; and
• electronically steerable passive array radiators – ESPARs, which provide multi-antenna-like functionality with a single active RF chain only