Link枚ping University and Ericsson have had a special relationship for at least 20 years. It has been in the form of graduation projects, research exchanges and other collaborations, and LiU has supplied Ericsson with graduates from all levels.
鈥淲e鈥檙e a global corporation with research at many locations around the world, but a good deal of it is concentrated in Sweden. For us the most important universities are KTH, Chalmers, Link枚ping and Lund 鈥� in no particular order,鈥� said Sara Mazur.
Billions of connected devices
According to Ericsson鈥檚 predictions, in 2020 there will be 26 billion connected devices in the world, and the biggest increase is in the field of machine to machine, i.e. the Internet of Things.
鈥淓verything that benefits from being connected will be connected. Everything with some sort of intelligence: coffee machines, cars, fridges - almost everything.鈥�
Of course, all the connected devices and the services related to them place much tougher demands on the networks, such as higher speed and capacity, and better accessibility and safety.
鈥淏ut we have successfully developed four generations of mobile networks, and we鈥檒l manage the fifth as well, hopefully together with Link枚ping University.鈥�
Huge data centre
Two major initiatives in the region were highlighted in the presentations that preceded the signing of the agreement. One was Ericsson鈥檚 huge data centre, one of three in the world, soon to be completed in Link枚ping. The other was the research programme WASP, Wallenberg Autonomous Systems Program, where Ericsson is one of the major industrial stakeholders.
鈥淚t鈥檚 a fantastic joining of forces in fields such as vehicles, robots and people, systems of systems and software. Because if the processor is the heart of a computer system, the software is the soul,鈥� said Torbj枚rn Lundahl, head of Ericsson鈥檚 national research initiatives and Ericsson鈥檚 5G for Sweden.
He hopes that one of the demonstrators that will be built up within the WASP program will be the arena that Ericsson and Saab are jointly working for here in Link枚ping: Autonomous Research Arena, ARA.
鈥淲e will be able to test the connected city, we can connect all of Link枚ping and we can connect events like the Br氓valla Music Festival,鈥� Torbj枚rn Lundahl said.
Ongoing collaboration
Several examples of research collaborations were presented, such as positioning and tracking in wireless systems, a 20-year collaboration between LiU鈥檚 Fredrik Gustafsson and Ericsson鈥檚 Fredrik Gunnarsson, as well as collaboration in innovation and knowledge integration between LiU鈥檚 Nicolette Lakemond and Bj枚rn Andersson, head of hardware management at Ericsson. Professor Mattias Villani described a collaborative project where he uses statistical methods to facilitate the search for bugs in large volumes of program code.
鈥淲e have had a strong collaboration with Ericsson for many years, especially in education. Close ties to the industrial sector are important for our students and our research, and it is valuable for us that we can now extend and deepen our collaboration,鈥� said LiU Vice-Chancellor Helen Dannetun.
The strategic collaborative agreement is LiU鈥檚 fifth; in addition to Ericsson LiU has 10-year strategic agreements with VTI, ABB, Saab and Tekniska verken.