
Dr Faouzi Bouali
Academic and research departments
Institute for Communication Systems, Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences.About
Biography
I have a solid background in wireless communications together with a strong experience in both academia and industry. I am currently a Research Fellow in the 5G Innovation Centre (5GIC) of the University of Surrey, United Kingdom. I'm the Technical Manager of the Automotive vertical of the Horizon 2020 5G-HEART project (5G-PPP phase 3; 14.3 M€). Since 2009, I have been contributing to various research projects funded by the European Commission Horizon 2020 Framework Programme (i.e., 5G-HEART, 5GENESIS and SPEED-5G), the 7th Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development (i.e., FARAMIR, OneFIT and HELP) and BT Research, United Kingdom. Additionally, I have been working for over a decade as radio optimization engineer and consultant in various public and private projects with most of the top manufacturers all over the world (e.g., Ericsson, Huawei and Alcatel). I'm a member of the 5G PPP Technology Board (TB), 5G PPP Automotive WG, 5G PPP Pre-standards (WG), British Standards Institution (BSI), review panel of the British Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and editorial-board of IEEE Access.
Areas of specialism
University roles and responsibilities
- Research Fellow
- Teaching Assistant
- Delegate in various committees of the British Standards Institution (BSI).
My qualifications
Affiliations and memberships
ResearchResearch interests
- Mobile radio-communication systems.
- Innovative architectures for next-generation networks.
- Advanced radio resource management (RRM).
- Vehicular communications.
- Spectrum sharing.
- Quality of service/experience (QoS/QoE) provisioning.
- Cognitive radio networks.
- Network slicing.
Research projects
Role: Technical Manager (TM) of the Automotive Vertical.
5G-HEART will focus on the vital vertical use-cases of Healthcare, Automotive and Aquaculture. In the health area, 5G-HEART will validate pillcams for automatic detection in screening of colon cancer and vital-sign patches with advanced geo-localization as well as 5G AR/VR paramedic services. In the Automotive area, 5G-HEART will validate autonomous/assisted/remote driving and vehicle data services. Regarding food, focus will be on 5G-based transformation of aquaculture sector (worldwide importance for Norway, Greece, Ireland). The consortium includes major vertical players, research/academic institutions and SMEs. Partners have proven know-how in 5G, vertical applications,standardisation, business modelling, prototyping, demonstrations and trials. 5G-HEART KPI validation will ensure improved healthcare, public safety, farm management and business models in a 5G market, stimulating huge business opportunities within and beyond the project.
The “Genesis of 5G” has entered the crucial phase of experimentation, working to validate the 5G network KPIs and verify the 5G technologies with an end-to-end approach. Towards this objective, a key challenge is to integrate all the highly diverse results and technologies from EU, global as well as internal (corporate) R&D projects, to “glue together” the 5G picture and unveil the potential of a truly full-stack, end-to-end 5G platform, able to meet the defined KPI targets. In this context, the main goal of 5GENESIS will be to validate 5G KPIs for various 5G use cases, in both controlled set-ups and large-scale events. This will be achieved by bringing together results from a considerable number of EU projects as well as the partners’ internal R&D activities to realise an integrated End-to-end 5G Facility.
Efficient Radio Access Technology Selection, BT-funded project at the 5G Innovation Centre (5GIC) of the University of Surrey.This project aims at facilitating service delivery over wireless networks on an “always best connected” or “always best served” basis. From the operator perspective, this includes selection of spectrum, air interface, link access and control, and mobility, to achieve connectivity at scale, with the requested Quality of Service/Experience (QoS/QoE) and minimum cost.
The objective of SPEED-5G is to research and develop technologies that address the well-known challenges of predicted growth in mobile connections and traffic volume. A major challenge is the cost of meeting the objective, in terms of both infrastructure and deployment. Today, lack of dynamic control across wireless network resources is leading to unbalanced spectrum loads and a perceived capacity bottleneck. These will be solved by SPEED-5G through eDSA (extended DSA), which is resource management with three degrees of freedom: densification, rationalized traffic allocation over heterogeneous wireless technologies, and better load balancing across available spectrum.
Funded by the European Union in the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7), Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and Future Networks, Ref. FP7-ICT-257385, 6.76 M€.
Funded by the European Union in the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7), Information and Communication Technology (ICT), Small or Medium Scale Focused Research Project (STREP), Ref. FP7-ICT-248351, 5.37 M€.
Research interests
- Mobile radio-communication systems.
- Innovative architectures for next-generation networks.
- Advanced radio resource management (RRM).
- Vehicular communications.
- Spectrum sharing.
- Quality of service/experience (QoS/QoE) provisioning.
- Cognitive radio networks.
- Network slicing.
Research projects
Role: Technical Manager (TM) of the Automotive Vertical.
5G-HEART will focus on the vital vertical use-cases of Healthcare, Automotive and Aquaculture. In the health area, 5G-HEART will validate pillcams for automatic detection in screening of colon cancer and vital-sign patches with advanced geo-localization as well as 5G AR/VR paramedic services. In the Automotive area, 5G-HEART will validate autonomous/assisted/remote driving and vehicle data services. Regarding food, focus will be on 5G-based transformation of aquaculture sector (worldwide importance for Norway, Greece, Ireland). The consortium includes major vertical players, research/academic institutions and SMEs. Partners have proven know-how in 5G, vertical applications,standardisation, business modelling, prototyping, demonstrations and trials. 5G-HEART KPI validation will ensure improved healthcare, public safety, farm management and business models in a 5G market, stimulating huge business opportunities within and beyond the project.
The “Genesis of 5G” has entered the crucial phase of experimentation, working to validate the 5G network KPIs and verify the 5G technologies with an end-to-end approach. Towards this objective, a key challenge is to integrate all the highly diverse results and technologies from EU, global as well as internal (corporate) R&D projects, to “glue together” the 5G picture and unveil the potential of a truly full-stack, end-to-end 5G platform, able to meet the defined KPI targets. In this context, the main goal of 5GENESIS will be to validate 5G KPIs for various 5G use cases, in both controlled set-ups and large-scale events. This will be achieved by bringing together results from a considerable number of EU projects as well as the partners’ internal R&D activities to realise an integrated End-to-end 5G Facility.
This project aims at facilitating service delivery over wireless networks on an “always best connected” or “always best served” basis. From the operator perspective, this includes selection of spectrum, air interface, link access and control, and mobility, to achieve connectivity at scale, with the requested Quality of Service/Experience (QoS/QoE) and minimum cost.
The objective of SPEED-5G is to research and develop technologies that address the well-known challenges of predicted growth in mobile connections and traffic volume. A major challenge is the cost of meeting the objective, in terms of both infrastructure and deployment. Today, lack of dynamic control across wireless network resources is leading to unbalanced spectrum loads and a perceived capacity bottleneck. These will be solved by SPEED-5G through eDSA (extended DSA), which is resource management with three degrees of freedom: densification, rationalized traffic allocation over heterogeneous wireless technologies, and better load balancing across available spectrum.
Funded by the European Union in the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7), Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and Future Networks, Ref. FP7-ICT-257385, 6.76 M€.
Funded by the European Union in the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7), Information and Communication Technology (ICT), Small or Medium Scale Focused Research Project (STREP), Ref. FP7-ICT-248351, 5.37 M€.
Teaching
- Mobile Applications and Web Services (EEEM042): XML, XSLT RDF/S, OWL, Semantic Web, connected Services, Cloud provision, Mobile Cloud and Data mining techniques.
- Internet of Things (EEEM048/COM3023): Embedded device programming, Contiki and/or TinyOS, XM1000 boards.
- Object oriented design and C++ (EEE3013): Object orientated design, C++, skills to solve large/complex programming problems.
- Computers and Programming II (EEE2039): Programming basics, fundamentals of C, hands-on labs
Publications
Highlights
F. Bouali, K. Moessner, and M. Fitch, “Energy-efficient QoE-driven Strategies for Context-aware RAT Selection,” IEEE Transactions on Green Communications and Networking, January 2020 (accepted)
M. Lu, F. Bouali, “Potential 5G Applications for Connected Vehicles: Use Cases, Opportunities and Challenges”, The 27th ITS World Congress, Los Angeles, USA, October 4-8th, 2020 (accepted).