Awards, honours and enterprise

The final round-up of 2021 showcases recent success of our staff and alumni.

IEEE Fellows

Two members of our EEE Community have been elevated to Fellows of the world’s largest professional association for the advancement of technology.

Professor Bruno Clerckx has been elected Fellow for contributions to multi-antenna communications and wireless power transmission.

His work focuses on developing mathematical models and signal processing algorithms to understand how to make the best use of radio waves in various wireless systems such as communications, power transmission, and sensing.

 “I am delighted to receive this award and honoured to be part of such a select and distinguished group of researchers and engineers. I am also grateful to my mentors, professors, students, postdocs, collaborators, and colleagues all around the world for their support and thankful to all researchers who have shown interest in my work.”

Professor Deniz Gunduz receives the honour for contributions to the foundations of source-channel coding, cooperative and cache-aided communications. 

His significant contributions in these areas involve the characterisation of fundamental limits of communication networks using information and coding theoretic technique, which lay the mathematical foundations of efficient and reliable information storage and transmission. 

"It is a great honour to be recognized at such an international level; but just like any other achievement in science and academia, this is a result and culmination of years-long joint efforts and hard work together with my mentors, collaborators, colleagues, and students. I would like to thank all of them for their contributions throughout my career, and for making it such an enjoyable journey."

Blondel Medal 2021

Professor Clerckx has also recently received the prestigious Blondel Medal, which is awarded each year in France by the French Association of Electrical Engineering, Electronics, Information Technology and Communication (SEE).

Full story from Imperial News

EEE Alumna wins young scientist award

Congratulations to Dr Xin Deng, a former PhD student of Pier Luigi Dragotti, who has won the Female Young Scientist Award from the Chinese Society of Image and Graphics (CSIG).

CSIG's “Shi Qingyun” Female Scientist Award is presented to women who have made remarkable contributions to the development of image and graphics research. 

Xin is an outstanding scholar who was the winner of our department's Eryl Cadwallader Davies Prize for best PhD thesis in 2021, and was awarded a bursary from the department to help her pursue her studies. Her work has led to the introduction of many new deep neural network architectures that are more interpretable and simpler than existing ones, yet lead to state of the art results.

Acurable, Bumblebee and Bonnet: three EEE technology companies powering ahead

AcuPebble device set to become a 'game-changer' in the USA

AcuPebble SA100, a small wearable device that enables automated, remote home testing to detect obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) in adults, obtained FDA clearance as a Class II medical device in the USA at the end of November.

The device combines multi-disciplinary innovations in acoustic sensing, electronics and signal processing, developed and commercialised by medical device company Acurable, led by Professor Esther Rodriguez-Villegas.

The AcuPebble sensor is a very small and non-invasive device which provides an instant sleep test result equivalent in accuracy to those obtained using the gold standard method – cardiorespiratory polygraphy, which requires time consuming clinical interpretation. 

Having obtained FDA clearance, Acurable’s focus over the next two years will be expansion into the US market, where OSA affects at least 25 million adults.

Esther explains "Sleep apnea is a condition that affects millions of Americans, and diagnostic bottlenecks lead to the majority not having a timely diagnosis. This not only has serious health implications, but results in billions of dollars being spent on avoidable medical costs. Receiving FDA clearance is a major milestone for Acurable and we are very excited to be able to enter the US market to serve the millions living with undiagnosed sleep apnea."

Bumblebee raises £750,000 to accelerate commercial development of its transformational wireless charging technology

Bumblebee Power, the developer of lightweight, high frequency wireless charging technologies for transport and mobility applications, has raised a £750,000 seed round from investors including the Imperial College Innovation Fund.

Bumblebee was founded by engineers Dr David Yates, and Professor Paul Mitcheson with the aim of transforming wireless charging into a practical, efficient and safe technology suitable for multiple applications, including e-bikes, e-scooters, drones and electric vehicles.

Full feature in Imperial News

Bonnet, a startup founded by alumni Eliot Makabu and Patrick Reich that focuses on improving the experience of electric vehicle drivers, has raised a £920,000 pre-seed round.

Eliot and Patrick founded the company in 2020, following the completion of their studies, which focused on electricity balancing and storage.

Patrick said: “Our vision for Bonnet is to develop a super app that supports electric vehicle users to do everything they need to make EV ownership better. Securing access to charging away from home is the first step. Our focus following this funding round is to grow our userbase and bring on board more Charging Point Operators, in order to continue validating with customers.”

Full feature in Imperial News