Research Activities
The Digital Lab is a new multi-disciplinary centre for research in digitally enabled technologies. The Lab aims to achieve international leadership in several research areas through collaboration between university departments, industry and end-users:
Digital Healthcare
Three key themes will have significant impact on the healthcare sector, with the application of technology at the level of individual, organisation and society.
These will include: virtual reality, simulation and e-learning to improve the education and training of medical professionals, healthcare systems improvement through process simulation and the application of lean thinking and e-health to provide new ways of delivering healthcare to patients.
Digital Manufacturing
Simulation research will impact on the efficient design of production processes and minimise quality issues through reducing variation in products. Product complexity research will improve capability at the design and production stages to cope with the personalisation that modern consumers demand. Accurate materials and flow modelling research will impact the ability to build infrastructure and tooling right first time.
Visualisation
Examination of the techniques required to produce exceptionally high quality virtual worlds that can be perceived as real by the user. The research will consider both software and human perceptual factors to achieve this in real-time using existing computing hardware.
E-Security
Research into effective e-security solutions to provide protection against changing threats in real business environments. This will encompass trusted computing solutions, cost-effective global identity management solutions, inducing more secure behaviour in users and strategies for the prevention of run-time errors and vulnerabilities.
Product perception
Researching how to build brand values into products early in the design stage using qualitative measures and to improve urban and hospital environments. The work will build on successful research in the automotive industry to quantify subjective perceptions of sound and haptics or user interfaces.
Wireless technology
The Lab will further the application of wireless tracking technologies in supply chain and medical scenarios. It will go beyond simply tracking to look at how reliable tracking can provide first class management information and enable better decision making.
E-Business
Research into appropriate solutions for enterprise including cost effective online marketing and trading, successful collaboration methods, win-win supply chain relationships, data mining and reliable open source technology.
‘Serious’ Games
As part of a sub-regional initiative, the Lab will research how to increase business agility and efficiency using the latest games-derived technologies to support training and change.