The Técnico-Vodafone workshop held on 19th October brought together several company employees, researchers and professors from Instituto Superior Técnico, who shared their research work and the main challenges faced by the company. The event aimed to present the various topics on which the company intends to work, as well as the current challenges. The Técnico community presented various technological innovation projects, as well as lines of future research. At the same time, there were identified topics for potential master’s dissertations, for Técnico students, that will be supported by three grants funded by the company.
Pedro Amaral, Vice-president of Técnico for Operations and Corporate Partnerships, stressed the importance of this partnership at the beginning of the event. “Técnico wants to understand the challenges of the future to align the School’s lines of research and respond to the challenges by bringing our ideas and our inputs”, he said.
Rui Gomes, Manager Access Implementation & Tools at Vodafone, also emphasised the important role of partnerships with the academic world. “These collaborations are of the utmost interest to Vodafone. We have both short-term and long-term challenges, and it’s always interesting to understand your opinion, and your perspective, in responding to these challenges. Your ideas are always welcome,” he stressed.
Projects presented: From streaming services to urban sustainability
Vodafone’s first presentation was given by Rui Gomes, who talked about site power management and the challenges of managing the energy consumption of radio sites. António Rodrigues, professor and researcher at Instituto de Telecomunicações, presented some lines of research on this topic and the solutions to the challenges pointed out by Vodafone.
Ricardo Mah, TV Engineer at Vodafone, spoke of Optimising Video Streaming in a Telco Environment, and presented the challenges the company faces in managing the traffic used by customers for streaming and TV services. João Ascenso, a Técnico professor, presented the proposals and solutions developed at Instituto de Telecomunicações (IT), such as the ability to respond to different video formats, augmented reality or the free view point, an innovative technology that allows users to choose the point of view they want to see. These lines of research and innovation are intended to respond to the future challenges that Vodafone has identified with regard to its streaming services.
The third topic focused on urban decarbonisation and was presented by Miguel Campino and Alessandro Santiago dos Santos, from the Center for Innovation, Technology and Policy Research (IN+). Issues related to urban sustainability, urban energy consumption and energy management in cities were presented. A study carried out in a Lisbon neighbourhood that aims to account for the energy consumption of houses, taking into account insulation, lighting and other factors was highlighted.
The company’s last presentation was given by José Canelas, NW – Own Network Design & Planning at Vodafone, and Renato Gonçalves, TAN Telco Engineer at Vodafone, and focused on network coverage, analysis and resolution of network anomaly detection.
The closing remarks were given by Marta Candeias, Head of Research Funding Support Office at Técnico, who outlined some of Técnico’s research funding opportunities, and Tiago Guerra, Director of Técnico+ (Técnico’s advanced training school), who provided the venue for the event.
