Looking back at looking forward: revisiting Imperial’s experts’ insights

Imperial’s world-leading researchers have shared reflections on the advances in technology following predictions they made ten years ago.

The follow up comes from Imperial Tech Foresight, who interviewed the experts a decade or so earlier, and wanted to see how far their fields of research have evolved and where they might go next.

In some cases, predictions have been spot-on, whereas others have seen significant shifts in the way in which technology has developed and been applied, leading to wholly new directions for the sector. In others, Imperial’s experts were spot on, and their 20-year vision of the future of their industry is well on the road to becoming a reality.

Sensors, sensors everywhere, now helping us to think

Back in 2014, the sensor technology was already quite mature, but developing tiny, low-power sensors to contribute to data capture of anything and everything was still a pipe dream for many.

Professor Julie McCann – now Head of the Department of Computing – said then that the proliferation of smart technology would lead to smaller and smaller sensors, even to the point of being as small as dust.

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Added to that, the processing of data and information would become decentralised, moving to Edge Computing, where the sensors or devices themselves would contain all the relevant information needed to understand the environment around them.

And in many ways, this has come to fruition – especially with how sensor rich wearable devices like smart watches, sleep monitors, active headphones and earbuds have taken off.

Reflecting back, Professor McCann’s field experience showed that information from the transmission to and from radio devices itself gave useful insights as well that from of the specifically designed soil sensors used in studies, which meant her research has pivoted to look at ways to better-utilise existing infrastructure to get the right data and insights.

It’s a different type of challenge, essentially aiming to retrofit some systems to enable data capture, but she envisages that with the roll-out of 6G technology, which will create ubiquitous high-speed internet, this will be a much more sustainable way of achieving the same results.

AI imaging to improve healthcare efficiency and efficacy

When Imperial Tech Foresight spoke with Dr Ben Glocker in 2016, AI was still very much in its infancy – and applications were part of some dystopian future rather than a reality that we have experienced for much of the past two years.

But that didn’t stop Dr Glocker making bold predictions about the adoption of machine learning and AI in medical imaging, particularly for cancer diagnoses. At the time he anticipated that by rolling these out would provide expert consultants more time to consider therapy and treatment practice rather than diagnoses, and democratise the practice where specialist clinicians wouldn’t be easily  available.

Fast forward eight years and we are well on the way to seeing that become a reality. Advances in the technology mean that it is increasingly reliable and able to provide timely diagnoses – providing relevant information about a patient’s biopsy in time for the clinician to be provided clearer decisions on next steps for treatment.

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Yet with all AI, the team are conscious that ensuring it is ethical, safe and reliable – and that decisions aren’t based on biases from clinical trials and programming – will be the next major hurdle in its wider adoption. Dr Glocker is proudly positive about this, though, and is adamant that “patients have a right that the best technology is used as widely as possible.”

You can find out more about the deployment of Dr Glocker’s technology in practice through his partnership with Kheiron Medical Technologies.

Elsewhere, innovation across Imperial inspired by this increasingly mature technology, including Venture Catalyst Challenge winners DotPlot, AI stethoscopes being trialled with the NHS and artificial intelligence in mammograms through a partnership involving Google and the NHS.

The rise of electric vehicles, battery technology and infrastructure development

One of the most noticeable changes to our lives over the past decade is the proliferation of fully electric vehicles (EV), hybrids and the supporting charging infrastructure.  Batteries are also being increasingly deployed in homes and grids.

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So while Professor Greg Offer was already at the forefront of battery technology research and design that underpins this – and has been involved in startups and spinouts from Imperial, such as Breathe Battery Technologies and About:Energy, that have driven these forwards – the limited progress in autonomous vehicles has not quite taken off.

The lack of enabling policies and regulation that supports the wider electrification of our infrastructure has prevented further roll out over the past decade.

Yet, as Professor Offer explains, we’re at the first stages of a 100-year transition. Looking back on progress to internal combustion engines, we can see the opportunities that will develop as technology catches up to the vision, with innovation at Imperial and elsewhere leading the charge.