Most of his current research projects involve high-speed networks and networked multimedia. He is leads the NATO/EC-sponsored SILK /OCCASION project to provide Internet access to the NRENs of the Southern Caucasus and Central Asia, participates in the EC-funded 6DISS (IPv6 training), U2010 (emergency communications) and RUNES (embedded systems) projects, and leads UCL activity in the EPSRC-funded 46PAQ activity (protocols for high-speed networks). Many of these projects are IPv6 related research activities.
In the recent past he has
directed a series of projects piloting multi-way, real-time multimedia services
in
Another stream of his research activity was in an unbroken series of projects funded by the US DARPA. Over 30 years between 1973 and 2003 these covered many areas in network protocols. The most recent of these were RADIOACTIVE and SCAMPI, which covered active networks and secured multimedia conferencing.
His key contribution has been to foster close international collaboration in networking research and distributed applications. This has been achieved not only by international research projects, but also by organising activities that require international deployment of the results. After the first Arpanet links in 1973 and its follow-on SATNET project in the late 70s, the group that he led became a key player in the emergence of international network connection, mail services, directories, security and now conferencing. In the early 80s he initiated the set of contacts which led to the International INET conferences for academic researchers, and the International Collaboration Board (ICB) in the unclassified defence field.
Beyond transatlantic IP connectivity activities, he concentrated also on European activities since the mid 80s. The work of the group has always involved other academic and government groups, the recent European projects have also required close industrial links. Research in the Directory and Message Service Areas, included work in X.500 directories, X.400 message systems, Security Packages and ODA. Results of this work QUIPU Directory Package, the X.400 PP Mail system and message store, and the OSISEC security package. The principal architect of much of that work founded a company to exploit it.
He was the director of the
EC-sponsored
He had a long-lived connection
with the new technology activities of the British Library. These covered a
20-year period and included on-line access to data bases, videotext, work with
Office Document Architecture and the early digitisation of journals. He has
been both Chair of its New Technology Group in the 80s and a member of the
Library Council of England.
The group established in 1967
to promote remote graphics, was a pioneering one in network research. This led
to organising the first international link to the Arpanet in 1973. Providing
novel advanced features in conjunction with this work was an important area of
research for the group between 1973 and 1986; the group ran the link during
that period, and still provides technical support for the operators of the link
until the middle '90s.). Their work moved to the applications area (file, mail,
directories, management and later conferencing) when this was appropriate, but
was always been at the leading edge of service development and piloting. At the
lower levels, the early connection work moved to early X.25 and IP activities
in the mid-70s, and then on to LANs, ISDN, ATM, DBS satellite and mobile
activity as each became important. The nature of the work varied, but it made
key technical contributions at each stage. The move to multimedia started with
the establishment of LIVENET in the
Prior to his computer network activities, he was active in electron beam design - first for microwave tubes and then for injection systems for accelerators. Much of this work is reflected in his early publications.