Research Overview
My primary research interests lie in challenged networking, security, practical systems deployments and Computer Science/Engineering education. The technical research activities are aligned with the strategic priorities of my home institution, and target vehicular networking and communications, offshore renewable infrastructures and system and device security and integrity. In tandem with this I am active in the area of Engineering Education, with a strong focus on translating innovation and research into practical classroom and laboratory based initiatives and activities.
Current Interests
In the future people will increasingly live in large cities and urban conurbations. Research into the Human, Infrastructural, Management and Technological advances that are necessary to underpin this progression falls under the descriptor of Smart or Future Cities. My home institution (TCD) has identified Future Cities as one of its pillar research themes for the next decade. My Networking and Communication interests in this theme have a particular emphasis on Vehicular Networking for managing the movement and mass transit of people. Research on smart and autonomous vehicles forms a cornerstone of activities in this regard. However the broader question of how to effectively and securely manage and control these vehicles on a local, urban or national scale remains unresolved. Enabling safe, effective and efficient autonomous vehicles offers benefits to the global community through increased efficiency and safety in transportation, through more rapid and better informed medical interventions, through reduced transportation emissions of greenhouse gases, even through enabling the elderly or infirm to remain independently motive later in life.
Such an infrastructure can just as readily find uses as diverse as Building Energy Management, and offshore wind and wave infrastructures. Accurate and efficient control of an offshore wave device, or a farm of such machines, is a key challenge for operators, and my interests in this area inform our involvement in ICONN, a H2020 MSCA offshore wind and wave energy project that I coordinate.
Security concerns are obviously paramount in such futuristic scenarios and our advances in Homomorphic, Attribute Based and Functional Encryption settings enable us to secure both communications and infrastructure from the outset.
