Network Infrastructures and Cyber-Security

The Network Infrastructures and Cyber-Security research group (formerly the Intelligent Simulation, Modelling and Networking group) is part of the Department of Computer Science at Nottingham Trent University.  The aim of the group is to investigate communication technologies which can impact and have tangible benefits to society. Specifically, the research group focuses on the network technologies and infrastructures that underpin today's connected world which ranges from architectures and infrastructures, middleware technologies, cloud-based systems, security and mobile systems. Another core interest of the group is the application of this technology and how it can be used to further improve existing practices.

The research group has the following areas of strength:

• Pervasive and Cloud technologies: Members of the group are actively researching next generation architectures and systems for large-scale systems.  Current work focuses on middleware technologies, new programming paradigms for efficient large-scale distributed systems, embedded systems, linked data, cloud security and software systems
• Mobile and Wireless Systems: Members of the group design, implement simulation models and test new message delivery paradigms based on broadcasting methods for message delivery in ad-hoc networks
• Security and Trust-based systems: Members of the group are investigating novel methods of cloud security, communication and privacy issues, trust-based and trust-provenance systems, as well as information, network and database security
• Energy-aware and Energy-efficient systems: Current research is looking in to new programming language paradigms for energy aware systems, low-energy embedded systems and energy-efficient traffic networks
• Mobile Networks and Systems Modelling:  Current research is looking into the application of model-based engineering by using conceptual modelling techniques that are supported by simulations and through underlying mathematical and logical models of complex problems to address a number of areas.  Areas include manufacturing, healthcare, urban systems, economies, and regulatory bodies which is essential in building the next generation of intelligent decision support systems.  An emphasis of this research is to investigate route finding and simplification of complexity of target domains; developing algorithms; and algorithms enabling the seamless fusion of real-time data into simulation models
• Network infrastructures: Group members are investigating protocols and communication methods between systems in large-scale networks and traffic based ad-hoc network
• Internet of Things: The real-time aspect of a number of the relevant application areas required the use of sensors to capture real-time data. Members of the group are investigating protocols for capture, curation and analysis of real-time data streams captured through and internet of things

Further details on group activities and research projects can be viewed on the research group site.

Members of the group have collaborated with the following organisations or companies:

• East Midlands Development Agency (EMDA)
• Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)
• EU FP7 funding
• Horizon 2020
• Nottingham City Council
• NHS
• The Technology Strategy Board / Innovate UK

Members of the group work closely with the Computational Intelligence and Applications and Interactive Systems research groups located within the Department of Computer Science, and on a number of projects.

External Funding

Recent major grants:

• MODUM FP 7 Project – The MODUM project addresses the environmental footprint in the transport sector by developing a new approach for pro-active demand-responsive management of traffic. This approach enables energy-efficient multi-modal transport choices accommodating dynamic variations, minimising the environmental impact and improving the quality of life in urban environments. The project is funded by the EU for 3.1 Million Euro, 400,000 Euro for NTU
• REMOURBAN - H2020 lighthouse project – A sustainable urban regeneration model leveraging the convergence of energy, mobility and ICT to transform European cities into Smart Cities. This is a H2020 25 Million Euro project – NTU is funded at the rate of 1 Million Euro
• IMPART - Transport Catapult UK partnership. The Intelligent Mobility Partnership is part of the Transport Systems Catapult University Partnership Programme. It specialises in intelligent transport and transport infrastructure solutions. The IMPART project connects business with knowledge to solve our most pressing transport challenges. This is a UK national project - £480 000, funding for NTU £120,000 incl. contribution from the University

The group has a large number of papers in the fields of networking, modelling, security, middleware, trust, traffic systems, cloud systems and pervasive computing.  For a full list of the group's current outputs visit our publications page.

Members of the group are currently, and have previously, worked on a number of projects.  To view our projects and to learn more about them, visit our projects page on our website.