Skip to content | Change text size
 

Faster optical communications coming down the line

28 June 2006

Professor Arthur Lowery and Associate Professor Jean Armstrong, pictured here with Business Development Manager Ms Leonore Ryan (right), have won the 2006 Peter Doherty award.

Monash researchers scooped the pool of prizes -- including the $100,000 Peter Doherty Prize for Innovation -- at the Commercialisation Expo 2006 last week for their work in developing faster optical communications.

Professor Arthur Lowery and Associate Professor Jean Armstrong, from the Faculty of Engineering, won the Peter Doherty prize for developing optical OFDM (orthogonal frequency division multiplexing) -- the optical equivalent of ADSL.

While ADSL allows faster communication along telephone lines, optical OFDM uses similar technology to speed up communications along optical fibres and infrared wireless systems.

The technology enables existing fibres to carry four times the data over longer distances without the need for modification or new infrastructure, making internet applications on existing lines much faster.

The Peter Doherty prize recognises optical OFDM technology as the most outstanding commercialisation opportunity submitted to the Commercialisation Expo 2006, held in Melbourne from 18 to 20 June.

Professor Lowery and Dr Armstrong were also awarded the sectoral $20,000 ICT prize and the US$4000 ANZA Technology Network Award.

Their project was one of 11 short-listed for review by an independent panel chaired by Nanyang Ventures CEO Mr Mike Hirshorn.

The optical OFDM technology automatically configures itself to the optimum bandwidth of existing optical fibres. While conventional systems transmit on a single frequency, optical OFDM transmits many parallel frequencies more slowly, but all at the same time.

Dr Armstrong said the technology would give people quicker and better access to the internet and could eventually be used as a basis for a 'world without wires' where, for example, home entertainment systems could communicate using infrared light, eliminating the tangle of cables behind television sets.

She said the technology could also allow wireless technology in laptops to be replaced with infrared technology. "This has many advantages -- because the signals don't go through walls, they don't interfere with a neighbour's system. It also reduces security problems," she said.