About Us

The Communications Hub for Empowering Distributed Cloud Computing Applications and Research (CHEDDAR) is a new hub dedicated to advancing future communications, and funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) – part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).

CHEDDAR is part of a wider c. £40m EPSRC-UKRI investment in the communications technologies of tomorrow: CHEDDAR, TITAN, and HASC are three trailblazing platforms, each initially receiving funding of £3m, they have been put in place to develop innovations in communications systems, while connecting the wider academic, business, and international communities. Please refer to the EPSRC press release for further details: 

https://www.ukri.org/news/6m-boost-for-the-communications-technologies-of-tomorrow

CHEDDAR lies on the interface between communications fundamentals and infrastructures that serve our many communities. Bringing together a spectrum of experts, CHEDDAR aims to build a network that will provide the step change in research and be agile to address new opportunities as they arise.

The CHEDDAR Hub is being led by Imperial College London, and its core partner universities include the Universities of Cranfield, Durham, Glasgow, Leeds, and York.

Research Themes

One of CHEDDAR’s key objectives is to research, design and derive proofs-of-concept of the 6G technologies that will support edge-fog-cloud continuum of computation through three thematic pillars:

1. 1. 1. 1. Emergent systems: emergence, encompassing network embedded sensing & intelligence, and the support of emerging methods of computation from autonomy to quantum. Read more…
         2. Sustainable systems: sustainability of device, algorithms, data pipelines and service integration, green-by-design. Read more…
         3. Human-centric systems: human-centric design with trust, security, privacy, resilience, interpretability, transparency, and equitability. Read more…

We categorise the challenge domains as:

1. Critical Infrastructure (including Grid, Transport, Water, Tracking/Logistics, Precision Agri, etc.) that bring safety and security requirements but also new demands due to high-interaction control/feedback loops and growing autonomy.
2. There are new challenges to provide a compute continuum that network together; ground, maritime, air, and space computing capabilities providing on-demand edge computing.
3. Increasing usage of robotics and the need for continuous monitoring of next generation manufacturing systems requires new ways of integrating different communications systems and time-engineered networks where determinism is a key requirement.
4. Health and Medical technologies add the conflicting requirements of mobility, safety, security, and privacy as well as increasing demands for bandwidth, edge processing and flow management. The 3 domains are complemented by blue-sky and pilot research funded as part of the hub. Our projects are designed such that multiple partners contribute towards a single project to create critical mass around each of these research topics delivering true impact.