Luke D'Arcy - Managing Director, Sensize

Luke is managing director of Sensize, a start up company bringing the IoT to the logistics industry.

Joe Milbourn - Consultant, TTP plc

Joe is a senior consultant at TTP focused primarily in the modelling, simulation, and prototyping of complex systems. Recent projects have included: connected computer vision systems for applications including the precise measurement of athlete position and analysis of road traffic movement; automated network planning tools, the development of very low power sensors connected via low-power, long-range, IoT RANs, and the design and development of full duplex voice over radio in challenging environments. During and after his doctoral studies Joe worked for Verigy, a leading manufacturer of semiconductor test equipment. Joe has a MEng in Computers, Electronics, and Communications from the University of Bath and received his PhD in modelling redundant repair structures for DRAM from the University of Durham.

Sabesan Sithamparanathan - CEO, PervasID

Dr Sabesan Sithamparanathan founded PervasID Ltd in 2011, based on his PhD research, begun in 2007, into ‘Passive RFID real time sensing system for intelligent infrastructure’ at Cambridge University. As founder and CEO, Dr Sabesan successfully grew PervasID from its inception to become a global enterprise, providing transformative solutions to healthcare, industrial, security, retail and supply chain and logistics sectors with a complete product suite of the world’s most accurate passive RFID readers.

Dr Sabesan’s customers include the largest aircraft manufacturers, Stanley Black & Decker, blue chip retailers and NHS hospitals including Guy's and St Thomas' in London. Stanley Black & Decker also use the tags to track supplies from their tool cabinets used by aircraft manufacturers. Each cabinet contains over 1,000 tools, and it can result in serious safety incidents if any are left inside an aircraft. It is estimated that Foreign Object Debris (FOD) costs the aviation industry $13 Billion per year in direct and indirect costs, including flight delays, plane changes and fuel inefficiencies. In healthcare, PervasID solutions are being deployed in NHS hospitals for tracking surgical instruments to enhance decontamination and sterilisation processes and for tracking hospital assets to ensure that mission critical medical devices are available at the right place and time, for robust and efficient care. The need for this level of traceability of medical devices has been particularly evident in the COVID-19 pandemic. The solution is predicted to save £billions for NHS hospitals and will save lives.

Dr Sabesan was awarded the 2011 Royal Academy of Engineering ERA Entrepreneurs Award and the 2011 UK ICT Pioneers of Connected World award for his RFID breakthroughs. Subsequently he was elected to a Research Fellowship at Girton College, Cambridge, and in 2014 was awarded a Royal Academy of Engineering Enterprise Fellowship. Since then he has been awarded the Royal Academy of Engineering’s Young Engineer of the Year award, as well as the Sir George Macfarlane Medal 2016 for excellence in the early stage of his career and most recently in 2021 has been awarded a Queen’s Award for Enterprise: Innovation and the Royal Academy of Engineering Silver Medal. Sabesan also holds a BEng (Hons) Electronic Engineering at Sheffield University in 2004, where he graduated with the highest performance in his year, and was among the UK’s top 18 science and technology students to be awarded the Sir William Siemens Medal. He is a Fellow of the ERA Foundation, and has completed management leadership training at the Harvard Business School.

Mark Beach - Professor of Radio Systems Engineering, University of Bristol (Communication Systems & Networks Research Group)

Mark Beach received his PhD for research addressing the application of Smart Antenna techniques to GPS from the University of Bristol in 1989, where he subsequently joined as a member of academic staff. He was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 1996, Reader in 1998 and Professor in 2003. He was Head of the Department of Electrical & Electronic Engineering from 2006 to 2010, then spearheaded Bristol’s hosting of the EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) in Communications. He is the Co-Director of this centre. He leads research in the field of enabling technologies for the delivery of 5G and beyond wireless connectivity; which includes the recent award of an EPSRC Prosperity Partnership in the field of Secure Wireless Agile Networks (SWAN). Mark’s current research activities are delivered through the Communication Systems and Networks Group, forming a key component within Bristol’s Smart Internet Lab. He has over 30 years of physical layer wireless research embracing the application of Spread Spectrum technology for cellular systems, adaptive or smart antenna for capacity and range extension in wireless networks, MIMO aided connectivity for through-put enhancement, experimental evaluation and optimization of Massive MIMO, Millimetre Wave technologies as well as flexible RF technologies for SDR modems. With a strong industrially focused research portfolio, he is also the School Research Impact Director.

Brian Collins - Managing Consultant, BSC Associates

Brian has designed antennas for applications including radio and TV broadcasting, base stations, handsets and consumer products, and has operated his own consultancy firm for the last 12 years. He has published more than 70 papers on antenna topics and contributed chapters to several recent textbooks. He operates a small consultancy company, chairs the Antenna Interface Standards Group and is an Honorary Visiting Professor in the School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science at Queen Mary, University of London.

Paul Harris - Principal Wireless Architect, VIAVI Solutions

Paul is a wireless technology expert with experience across a range of areas including research, design, implementation and standardisation. He received his PhD from the University of Bristol for evaluating the performance of massive MIMO technology in the lead-up to 5G and is currently a Principal Wireless Architect within the CTO Office at VIAVI Solutions providing thought leadership on new and emerging technologies for 5G, 6G and beyond. In line with this he represents VIAVI within a range of bodies and fora including 3GPP, the O-RAN Alliance, ETSI, the Next G Alliance, the 6G-IA and the UKTIN. His experience prior to joining VIAVI includes representing Vodafone within 3GPP for radio performance aspects, contributing to the development of massive MIMO channel estimation solutions at Cohere Technologies, and working with customers as a domain expert at National Instruments to establish effective research solutions using software-defined radio. He is also a Chartered Engineer, Senior Member of the IEEE, Fellow of the ITP, and an Honorary Industrial Fellow at the University of Bristol.

Peter Kibutu - 5G NTN Market lead, TTP plc

Peter has been working in the cellular industry for over 15 years, specialising in modem system architecture and physical layer development. Before joining TTP, Peter worked in the development of 2G/3G/4G wireless modem products and small-cell base station projects for a number of leading cellular equipment vendors. At TTP Peter has worked with a wide range of clients in the satellite and cellular communication domains, specialising in end-to-end system engineering, modem system development and advising on commercial aspects. Currently Peter is the TTP technical lead for 5G/6G activities and represents the company in range of industry bodies including 3GPP and UKTIN.

Peter Topham - Principal Engineer, Qualcomm Technologies International

Peter has more than 30 years experience of RF and high-speed circuit design, taking chips into production ranging from FM Band II through cellular, Bluetooth and on to UWB at 10GHz. He has been with Qualcomm for 7 years, specialising in low-power RF design for portable and wearable products.