The last decade has witnessed the convergence of three giant worlds: electronics, computer science and telecommunications. The next decade should follow this convergence in most of our activities with the generalization of sensor networks. In particular with the progress in medicine, people live longer and the aging of population will push the development of e-Health solutions based on Wireless Personal Area Networks (WPAN) and Wireless Body Area Networks (WBAN), as more and more people will prefer not to go to hospital, should it be for convenience or for cost reasons. The recent advances in wireless technology have helped the development of wireless body area networks (WBAN), where a set of communicating devices gathered in/around a human body can communicate in a ad-hoc way. These devices are connected to sensors which monitor movements and vital body parameters. The most critical point for BAN networks is the energy saving issue. The main target of our proposal is to develop original “green” low-power simple original solutions and to include some of them in a wireless multiprotocol gateway. The most effective way to save power is the cooperation between the nodes of the WBAN. Several original tasks will be developed towards this goal. An original channel estimator will be developed. It is a smoothing off-line low-complexity estimator that allows to really shorten the training sequence and thus prevents spoiling energy by transmitting less information. This algorithm is adaptive and allows the different links knowledge that will be chosen for cooperation. By allowing information processing in the intermediate nodes, Network Coding (NC) schemes, originally proposed for noiseless wired networks, have been proved to achieve network multicast capacity bounds. We will develop an efficient relay node selection based on the network power/energy constraint and we will perform optimal power allocation among nodes to achieve maximum rate with limited power constraint. The joint design of NC and channel code taking the overall network error correction ability into consideration, should lead to a high performance. The task of green cognition technology in wireless body area networks is also of utmost importance. On one hand, cognitive communication is known to be an effective technology for addressing WBAN-based applications across heterogeneous networks. On the other hand, cooperative transmission is known to enhance the transmission reliability and maintain low transmission power for WBAN. We will propose a novel network architecture for cognitive and cooperative transmission in WBANs. In particular, two schemes, Energy-aware Cooperative Transmission and Reliability-aware Cooperative Transmission, will be developed for different applications that have distinct energy consumption or reliability requirements. Finally, we aim not only at simulations but at integrating some of those algorithms in a real platform dedicated to low-energy BAN. In particular, to the best of our knowledge, neither off-line smoothing channel estimation, nor network coding was ever implemented on a real test-bed in France.

Decarbonising both heating and cooling across residential, business and industry sectors is fundamental to delivering the recently announced net-zero greenhouse gas emissions targets. Such a monumental change to this sector can only be delivered through the collective advancement of science, engineering and technology combined with prudent planning, demand management and effective policy. The aim of the proposed H+C Zero Network will be to facilitate this through funded workshops, conferences and secondments which in combination will enable researchers, technology developers, managers, policymakers and funders to come together to share their progress, new knowledge and experiences. It will also directly impact on this through a series of research funding calls which will offer seed funding to address key technical, economic, social, environmental and policy challenges. The proposed Network will focus on the following five themes which are essential for decarbonising heating and cooling effectively: Theme 1 Primary engineering technologies and systems for decarbonisation Theme 2 Underpinning technologies, materials, control, retrofit and infrastructure Theme 3 Future energy systems and economics Theme 4 Social impact and end users' perspectives Theme 5 Policy Support and leadership for the transition to net-zero

There are significant concerns about the UK's ability to meet national and international climate change targets and long term security of supply. There exists many opportunities to improve the efficient use of thermal energy in existing buildings/plants and modes of transport and to give greater consideration to thermal energy management in future designs. Industrial consumption accounted for 18% of total UK final energy consumption in 2011. Within this industrial sector, heat use (space heating, drying/separation, high/low temperature processing) accounts for over 70% of total UK industrial energy use. The market potential for waste heat is estimated to be between 10TWh - 40TWh per annum. Recent developments in energy processing and the need for CO2 reduction have led to a growing interest in using this heat. SMEs account for 45% of industrial energy use but their processes and plants are often less efficient, largely due to the financial cost of optimisation . It is therefore important to ensure support and focus is given to SMEs, particularly addressing the barriers to effective thermal use applicable to this part of the economy. Commercial and residential buildings are responsible for approximately 40% of the UK's total non-transport energy use, with space heating and hot water accounting for almost 80% of residential and 60% of commercial energy use between sectors. Marine and rail transport contribute over 14 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent to UK annual greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and similar opportunities to those in the industrial and building sectors to reduce thermal energy demand exist. The adoption of increasingly stringent emissions legislation and increasing fuel costs have made it even more important that the thermal energy in the power and propulsion is optimised, for example through greater energy recovery and storage. The SusTEM Network will build upon the success of the PRO-TEM Network and expanding its remit. This will include the engagement of researchers with social and economic expertise and widening the network through further engagement with industry, particularly SMEs, academia and government and policy makers (local and national) who have not previously participated in the PRO-TEM Network. SusTEM Network will have the following key objectives: 1. Provide a forum to incorporate stakeholder opinions in the area of thermal energy management for the industrial, building, and transport sectors. 2. Engage with multi-disciplinary researchers within the research community at UK HE institutions, including End Use Energy Demand Centres, to maximise dissemination, impact, reach and significance of research outcomes. 3. Stimulate knowledge transfer between academia, industry, government and other stakeholders. 4. Identify and promote future research requirements based on partner contributions, road-mapping and links to Knowledge Transfer Networks (KTN), European Technology Platforms (ETP) and other relevant networks and initiatives. 5. Foster long-term collaboration between outstanding research teams in the UK and China and to ensure there is a two way transfer of knowledge.