Grant: Research Tools and Instruments

The demand for bandwidth and higher data transfer speeds for business and personal use is improving productivity in the workplace, speeding-up smartphone apps, and revolutionizing home entertainment. Keeping pace with these demands requires continuous improvements in the capacity of server farms and metropolitan data network infrastructure using optical communication links. Optical fibre networks with aggregate data rates beyond 1,000Gbit/s are in the research phase, and the applicants, Professors John Long and Manoj Sachdev, propose acquisition of a modulation analyzer for optical transmitters (OMA) to support their research efforts in this area. The OMA instrument has the capability to analyze multi-level optical data transmission schemes at faster data rates than today&rsquo;s fastest hardware. It will be dedicated to the research and development of high-data-rate circuits and systems. The OMA will be used to demonstrate pre-competitive research results, and strengthen working relationships with Canadian partners ranging from start-ups to established industrial firms. Attaining our research goals enables higher internet access speeds, faster transfers of information between data centres, greater capacity in metropolitan networks (i.e., 100+Gbit/s Ethernet over fibre), and supports the next generation of cellular wireless communication known as the fifth generation, or 5G.<br /> <br /> The research enabled by a state-of-the-art OMA is vital to local and international industries. Expanding our capabilities in data communications research with the acquisition of the OMA builds on the existing expertise of the applicants, and supports the enormous global market for technologies supplied by companies in Canada, such as Ciena and Cortina Networks (Ottawa), internet service providers (e.g., Rogers, Telus and Bell), and big data concerns such as Google, IBM and Facebook. The OMA will help train HQP in Canada, giving them skills and experience in the latest high-speed communication technologies. These highly skilled people and the products they develop, will improve the global competitiveness of Canadian industry in a sector of the knowledge-based economy where Canadians have traditionally excelled.<br />