COMPUTER SCIENCE

Remote-controlled wheelchairs, three-dimensional digital meetings and robotic control across national borders. Researchers and companies from across Europe have gathered at Karlstad University to explore how 5G and 6G networks could transform the way people connect and interact remotely

The Horizon Europe project 6G-PATH (6G Pilots and Trials Through Europe) aims to develop and evaluate new digital services in areas including healthcare and education.

Three of the project's international trials were recently conducted at Karlstad University, demonstrating how next-generation connectivity could create entirely new opportunities for remote interaction.

Many companies see the opportunities offered by new technology but lack the support needed to make use of it. That is why Karlstad University, together with Compare, is launching a joint test arena where research and technology will be made more accessible to companies and the public sector.

Small and medium-sized enterprises in Värmland need to be able to take advantage of AI, digitalisation and cybersecurity in order to continue developing and strengthen their competitiveness. At the same time, requirements for information security and digital resilience are increasing. The new arena will make it easier for companies and public-sector organisations to access new technology, knowledge and expertise.

When a video call stutters, an online game lags, or a webpage feels slow, internet speed is not always the problem. More often, the issue is network delays, known as latency. In his doctoral thesis, Simon Sundberg investigates how such delays arise and develops new methods for measuring them.

Most people associate network performance with bandwidth, that is, the amount of data that can be transferred per second. However, for many of today’s digital services, latency is just as important.

“If you are downloading a large film, bandwidth is usually the main factor determining how long it takes. But for interactive services such as video calls, online gaming and virtual reality, latency has a much greater impact on the user experience,” says Simon Sundberg.

On 7 September, representatives from the Knowledge Foundation (KK-stiftelsen) visited Karlstad University to gain deeper insight into how the university collaborates with industry in research and education. During the visit, several projects were presented in which the university and companies work together to develop new knowledge and strengthen Sweden’s competitiveness.

Throughout the day, the representatives from the Knowledge Foundation met researchers and academic staff from the Pro2Be research environment and the Department of Computer Science. The aim was to gain a better understanding of how the university works with research, education and skills development in partnership with companies and organisations.

When you enter a web address into your browser and arrive at the correct website a second later, a process takes place that most people never notice. Behind the scenes, one of the internet's most important systems is at work: DNS, the Domain Name System. In his doctoral thesis, computer scientist Jonathan Magnusson investigates how effectively today's DNS infrastructure protects users' privacy and what shortcomings still remain.

DNS is often described as the internet's address book. The system translates domain names, such as kau.se, into the IP addresses that computers use to communicate with one another. Without DNS, the internet would be far more difficult to use. At the same time, every DNS lookup involves information about the websites a user wants to visit being passed through several different servers.

What if your heat pump knew when you were about to take a shower or use large amounts of hot water? It could then produce hot water at the right time instead of heating unnecessarily. This idea lies at the heart of the research conducted by industrial PhD student Manal Rahal at Thermia, where machine learning is being used to make heat pumps smarter and more energy efficient.

Today, many heat pumps are controlled using fixed rules and pre-set threshold values. The problem is that they do not take into account the fact that household hot water consumption varies over time. A family that showers early in the morning has different needs from a household where most people shower late in the evening. When a heat pump fails to understand these patterns, it can result either in unnecessary energy consumption or an insufficient supply of hot water when it is needed most.