Characteristics of the partnership

1. Poznan University of Technology

Poznan University of Technology is one of leading technical universities in Poland, with the number of over 16,000 students. Institute of Electronics and Telecommunications PUT is one of the biggest units within the Faculty of Electrical Engineering. It offers two-stage BSc and MSc studies in electronics and telecommunications. IET PUT will be the contracting and co-ordinating institution of the project. It will undertake overall and financial management, administration, and organisation of all project activities. Specific tasks related to the realisation of the project aims on the part of IET PUT are as follows:

• IET will co-ordinate, within the network of partners, the development of a coherent set of Internet-based experiments and courses to be prepared by the partner institutions.
• IET staff will prepare several sets of ICT experiments for students and engineers from industry. The main subjects of the experiments will be: multiple access methods, MLSD algorithms, TCMs, CPMs, digital signal processing, digital transmitters and receivers, simulation methods, digital circuits design, ATM networks, image processing and multimedia.
• On the IET www homepage interactive sites with the prepared experiments will be placed, as part of the regular study programme for students of electronics and telecommunications, communication engineers, and other professional staff interested in ICT.
  

2. École Nationale Supérieure des Télécommunications de Bretagne

École Nationale Supérieure des Télécommunications de Bretagne is one of the three institutions making up the Groupe des Écoles des Télécommunications (GET). It graduates over 600 engineers per year in the fields of electronics, computer science, and telecommunications. So far, ENST has been involved in Leonardo da Vinci mobility projects. It has co-operated with IET PUT for ten years as contracting institution in four TEMPUS projects.

For the needs of the project, ENST-Bretagne undertakes to set up a set of experiments and practicals to be used as building blocks in telecommunication courses in the following areas of ICT: telephone traffic simulation, GSM network, MAP protocol simulation, simulation of routing algorithms, antenna network simulation, non-linear circuit simulation.

Because of an experience in the preparation of demos and practicals written in Java, ENST is very interested in joining the project and applying the existing courses to teaching ICT through the Internet. In the project ENST staff will develop their professional and educational skills, exchange their experience with other partners, in order to provide real internalisation of the experiments available on the web. ENST staff is ready to participate in expert consultations and professional meetings necessary to realise the project.

3. Tampere University of Technology

Tampere University of Technology provides the highest-level education in technical science and architecture, engages in research and product development and furthers technical and scientific development in Finland. The number of students equals ca 10,000. Telecommunications Laboratory is an important unit within the Department of Electrical Engineering. It carries out research and teaching activities with a wide scope of communication technologies. Great emphasis is put on various aspects of wireless broadband communication systems, as well as networking. The activities are organised into three groups: Networks and Protocols Group, Digital Transmission Group, and Analog Circuits for Digital Communications Group.

The University staff involved in the project is ready to prepare an extensive set of experiments in the area of receiver and transmitter signal processing, starting from basic concepts and extending to advanced DSP techniques. The scope of the experiments would include the following topics: bandpass and complex signal concepts, analytic signals, Hilbert transforms, sampling bandpass signals; mixers, I/Q imbalance effects; receiver and transmitter architectures with emphasis on increased use of DSP; system calculation basics; sampling and A/D-conversion, dynamic range requirements, sampling jitter effects; symbol timing and carrier frequency/phase recovery. The work could also include some selected blocks for modulation/ demodulation/detection/channel equalisation parts; multicarrier and CDMA systems, etc.

4. Institut National des Télécommunications (INT)

The vocation of the Institut National des Télécommunications (INT) is to provide graduate programmes in the field of telecommunications, electronics, information systems, and business administration, tailored to meet challenges of rapidly changing environment. INT is a member of the “Conference des Grandes Écoles” (the French Association of Graduate Schools in Engineering and Management) and of EFMD (the European Foundation for Management Development).

A wide range of teaching, research, and consulting activities are conducted by its two Schools of Engineering and Management, the Continuing Education Division (CED), and its eight teaching and research departments. INT CED with twenty years of experience, 140 permanent faculty members, is strongly positioned to offer a wide selection of seminars in continuing education in the following fields: Telecommunications, Computer Science, Information Systems, Multimedia, Image Processing, Electronics as well as Marketing, Economics, Business Management, and Finance.

INT is an important participant of the project and will use its experience in order to realise a distance education course entitled “TCP IP protocols”. It will be offered in French and English.

5. Instituto de Soldadura e Qualidade

Instituto de Soldadura e Qualidade is an independent, private technical and scientific industrial organisation, founded in 1965. It derives more than 80% of its income by selling its services to industries and other businesses in Europe and beyond it; ISQ has collaborated with many partners in more than 30 countries.

National and EU funding for RTD and training projects constitute the remaining. Over the past ten years, ISQ has been involved in many high-tech research projects, national and EU-funded. ISQ provides technical inspections, RTD activities, vocational training and consultancy services in an integrated way. ISQ expertise areas are focussed on e.g.: health and safety, energy, metrology, industrial automation, environmental technologies, industrial organisation, quality and training. The letter field of activity is realised mainly by the ISQ Training Department, which is to participate directly in the INVOCOM project.

Based on wide experience in designing suitable didactic materials for training purposes, and especially innovative training tools (interactive multimedia software, manuals for distance education and e-learning), ISQ is ready to play active role in the test phase of the project as well as in its dissemination activities. First of all, ISQ task in the project will be to organise and realise a pilot course (or courses) for ICT professionals in Portugal and abroad via the Internet, with the use of the simulation experiments prepared by the university partners. ISQ is going also to spread out the project results all over Europe through its numerous collaborative bodies and institutions.

6. Activis Poland Co. Ltd.

Activis Poland Co. Ltd was established in the year 2000 with the main aim to realise the business on the field of Internet access and web services. The company was founded by French company Activis and a group of polish engineers involved since several years with telecommunication business. In 2002 Activis Poland extended its activity after overtaking the group of engineers from the company TTI Inventel. The competences of the company became wider because of many years experience of this R&D engineering team. The majority of the Activis PL staff are engineers with University degrees, and wide experience in the designing and development of telecommunication, data transmission and specially access devices and systems. This creates wide perspectives with previously owned high competences in Internet and web designing. During the last few months the size of the company increased from 5 to 20 employees.

Since its foundation Activis PL has concentrated its activities on the modern and fast growing market services and IT projects. The major aim of the company is the introduction of new software and hardware products to the Polish telecommunication and informatics market.
The Activis PL portfolio consists of:

• Web site activation, consulting and services on the field of effective Internet and data transmission solutions including software and hardware projects
• Telecommunication equipment designing,
• Service and maintenance of telecommunication equipment and network,
• Specific R&D projects

The company realises also as subcontractor the service and maintenance of RLA access network for main Polish telecom operator Telekomunikacja Polska S.A.

Activis co-operates with polish Institute of Telecommunication, polish telecom operators and high schools in Poznan. Several companies outside Poland are in the past and actually are involved in the projects realised by Activis team. Actually Activis except the Internet and web designing projects finalise the designing and introducing into production the set of modern access devices – NetMaster family. NetMaster system offers the effective way to build multimedia and/or data transmission network for telecom operators, ASP and ISP providers and corporate clients. The system handles with digital data streams from low (128 Kb) to medium (2Mb and higher) density and uses many years experience of Activis designers as well and modern components and technologies. It supports wide range of signalling interfaces and uses internally the TDM and IP approach for transmission.

Activis Poland is led by the following key staff:

The excellent R&D team, experience achieved by projects realised in the past and actually developed market oriented products creates the optimistic view on the future.