Celebrating 30 years of innovation: the UCL Optical Networks Group 

Thirty years ago, the Optical Networks Group (ONG) was started by Polina Bayvel with an audacious goal: to be the first academic systems engineering group in optical communications & networks.  Arriving as a Royal Society University Research Fellow at UCL, after a period of working at the STC Submarine Systems and STL Research Laboratories, she joined the then Head of Department, Prof John Midwinter, to establish ONG in 1994 in the UCL’s Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering. This was a fitting continuation of the long-standing traditions of communications research at UCL, building on the work of Fleming, Cullen, Ash, DEN Davies and Midwinter himself, who had pioneered optical communications systems research whilst at BT.  

Prof Bayvel envisioned a research group that would bridge the gap between rigorous academic research and real-world applications. She noted that while industry labs often focused on immediate challenges, academia provided the ideal environment to tackle longer-term, fundamental research questions. However, university departments did not have the infrastructure to be competitive with industry in state-of-the-art large-scale experimental work. Recognising this gap, Polina Bayvel used her Royal Society University Research Fellowship, to lay the foundation for what would become a world-leading research group. Her starting point was to pioneer the wavelength domain for routing in networks as well as for increasing their transmission capacity. 

In 2000, she was joined in this venture by Prof Robert Killey with whom she has worked side-by-side for more than two decades. Over the last 20 years, they were joined by Dr Seb Savory (now Professor of Optical Fibre Communication at the University of Cambridge), Dr Benn Thomsen (now a leading researcher at Microsoft Cambridge Labs), Dr Domanic Lavery (now at Infinera), Dr Lidia Galdino (now at Corning), and many other talented researchers and students, who have become leaders in industry and academia. 

Optical networks underpin the digital communications infrastructure and enable the Internet and the numerous cloud applications and are seen as the solution to reducing the enormous energy needs in AI modelling. They are the basis of the critical national infrastructure and their development is essential to support future economic development and ensure prosperity.  

Although the UK in the 1990s boasted many industrial research laboratories in the area of optical communications, one by one they closed down, with the ONG becoming a unique resource combining world-leading testbed and experimental capabilities to provide innovations and leadership for the future of the UK’s communications infrastructure, a critical national resource. Prof Bayvel reflected on her outlook at the time. 

“The vision was to create an experimental testbed supported by powerful theoretical modelling - a space to push the boundaries of optical communications systems & networks research: a marriage of applied physics, communications & networks theory, and signal processing." 

With significant grant funding, including substantial support from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and key industry players, Prof Bayvel was successful in building a state-of-the-art laboratory to support wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) experiments, initially at 2.5Gbit/s in 1997, up to several hundreds of terabits-per-second during 2024, some five orders of magnitude or 100,000 times increase. The leadership of Professor Bayvel and the group throughout two EPSRC programme grants UNLOC & TRANSNET have helped to build a critical mass of excellent and world-leading research, consolidating and enhancing capabilities in this important research area.  

Today, the 35-strong Optical Networks Group remains at the forefront of innovation in optical communications and networks. Over the past decade, the group has intensified its efforts to understand the limits of nonlinear optical fibre channels, pioneering digital signal processing techniques to mitigate signal distortions and translating these point-to-point system performance gains to increases in capacity network-wide.  A pivotal research focus is exploring how to maximise data transmission by harnessing more of the available bandwidth in optical fibres and apply the understanding of optical networks architectures to making these networks more adaptive and intelligent. The goal is to be able to deliver capacity when and where it’s needed, with high resilience and low latency and power consumption. 

Amongst the current members, Prof George Zervas is a founder of Oriole Networks, applying optical network architecture ideas to AI computation systems, and Prof Zhixin Liu 

recently led the work towards a new world record for wireless data transmission speeds, demonstrating the group's commitment to advancing the field. The group includes 2 Royal Academy of Engineering Research Fellows - Dr Kari Clark and Dr Eric Sillekens and a Future Leadership Fellow, Dr Filipe Ferreira. Dr Alfonso Ruocco has brought photonic integrated circuit expertise to the group and Dr Alejandra Beghelli is pursuing new directions in the emerging field of the quantum internet. 

Looking to the future, the group continues to tackle critical questions in the field, from intelligent network design to exploring alternative approaches for enhancing data capacity.  

UCL Vice-Provost Professor Geraint Rees commended ONG's achievements.  

“This milestone highlights UCL's commitment to cutting-edge research and global engagement. The Optical Networks Group serves as a beacon of interdisciplinary collaboration and impact.”

In celebrating this milestone, the department acknowledges the role of collaborative leadership. Prof John Mitchell, Head of the Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, emphasised its significant impact. 

“The Optical Networks Group has played a key role in advancing optical communications research within the department and beyond. Its achievements over the past 30 years have been remarkable, and it continues to make a significant impact both academically and in industry. We are proud to celebrate this milestone with Prof Bayvel and the team, and we look forward to seeing how their work continues to shape the future of the field." 

As ONG enters its fourth decade, it stands as a testament to the transformative power of vision, collaboration, and perseverance. Beyond its groundbreaking research, ONG has shaped the next generation of leaders and innovators in optical communications. Its remarkable 30-year journey exemplifies the fusion of curiosity and practical application - a hallmark of UCL's commitment to pioneering research and innovation. Prof Robert Killey shared his thoughts on his long-standing involvement with the group, highlighting its collaborative achievements and forward-looking vision. 

“It has been a privilege to work alongside Prof Bayvel and the Optical Networks Group for over two decades. The group's success stems from a shared passion for pushing the boundaries of optical communications research and a commitment to innovation. What makes ONG truly special is its collaborative spirit and its ability to nurture the next generation of leaders in academia and industry. I am proud to have been part of this journey and excited to see what the future holds." 

Prof Bayvel, who was recently awarded a prestigious Royal Society Research Professorship for her work on Intelligent Optical Networks: Seeing Through the Cloud, leads the group into an exciting new era. Together with her "ONG family," she is looking forward to exploring innovative architectures for next-generation optical networks aimed to meet the demands of AI-driven applications by pushing bandwidth boundaries, increasing network resilience whilst reducing complexity and energy consumption. 

Links

• Optical Networks Group 
• EPSRC TRANSNET 
• Prof Bayvel’s research profile