University of Surrey (ICS)

Welcome to the Institute for Communication Systems (formerly the Centre for Communication Systems Research, CCSR) - the UK's largest and most well-known academic research centre in Mobile and Satellite Communication Systems

Established for over ten years as one of a number of autonomous research centres at the University of Surrey, it now houses some 160 researchers including over 90 undertaking a PhD, post doctoral researchers and academic staff. ICS research is focussed on future communication systems including mobile and wireless communications, satellite communications, networking (management, protocols and security).

The Centre for Vision, Speech and Signal Processing (CVSSP) works to advance the state of the art in multimedia signal processing and computer vision, with a focus on image, video and audio. Expertise and activities span multimedia applications (video coding and retrieval), digital broadcast production (including 3D video), speech and audio processing, picture quality assessment, biometric identity authentication, document analysis, medical imaging, automatic visual inspection, mobile robotics, cognitive vision, human-computer interfaces, and dynamic 3D object and environment modelling.

The user-centric research in telecommunication applications (I-Lab) and in biometrics is carried out in close collaborations with the Digital World Research Centre that looks at ergonomic, usability and sociological aspects of information technology.

The Department of Computing has four main areas of work:

• Applying models of biological systems to computing solutions;
• Security- and safety-critical domains – incl. digital watermarking, information hiding, trustworthy voting systems;
• Formal methods integration for software systems development;
• Digital ecosystems – understanding and modelling the behaviour of complex, pervasive technology systems, and their application in real-world environments.

The Surrey Space Centre researches into many varied aspects of satellite design, control and applications. As well as space, these can find applications in diverse fields including; robotics, semiconductor design, computer gaming and resilient software systems.

Other departments in the university with areas of expertise solving real-world problems in related fields include; signal processing within medical physics and nuclear research, and communications for health care and environmental management.