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Equipment using wireless technology is becoming increasingly commonplace but despite this up to 90 per cent of the radio spectrum can be idle in any one location.

The failure to unlock the potential of this unused radio spectrum is now becoming one of the main obstacles to the further development of user-friendly wireless technology.

Applying distributed artificial intelligence to wireless devices, giving them the cognitive capabilities to route information through a network and access the radio spectrum, by taking into account behaviour of other devices and the local environment in which they operate, holds the key to the next communications revolution

Dr David Grace, from the Department of Electronics, is chairing a research group established by the Worldwide Universities Network (WUN) to look at the challenges facing the developers of devices, software and firmware and examine future global changes that will be necessary to radio regulation, business models and economics.

WUN is providing logistical and financial support to the Cognitive Communications Consortium (CogCom) which includes 25 academic and industrial partners from Europe, North America, Asia and Australasia. WUN CogCom will look at novel ways to significantly enhance the capability of wireless devices to access the radio spectrum and form networks.

The multi-disciplinary project will bring together wireless communications, distributed artificial intelligence, applied electromagnetics, and implementation.

Two fields of study are already emerging: cognitive radio, which deals with the intelligent assignment and use of the radio spectrum; and cognitive networking, which deals with the intelligent routing of information through a network, taking into account local constraints. WUN CogCom will also examine how to develop smarter and greener systems.