Five telecommunication projects from City University of Hong Kong (CityU) are on display at the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Telecom World 2006 at the AsiaWorld Expo, showcasing CityU's research strengths in high-tech telecommunications and offering potential partners for technology transfer.

ITU, taking place from 4 to 8 December, is dubbed the Olympic Games of the information and communications technology (ICT) field and takes place every three years. It is the largest telecom exhibition held in Hong Kong, and this is the first time it has been held in a city other than Geneva. The five CityU projects are exhibited at Booth 104, Hall 3, in the Hong Kong, China Pavilion.

“CityU is committed to broadening the base of ICT research projects and expanding its market in Hong Kong and the mainland,” said Mr Wong Hon-yee, Director of the Technology Transfer Office. “We want to make use of this event to showcase our strengths to the world’s leading ICT companies and policy makers, and in the long run upgrade our research profile.”

In line with the theme of the exhibition “Living the Digital World”, CityU is exhibiting projects that have strong application value for mobile phones, laptop security systems, base station antennas, consumer electronic appliances and audio and video capabilities for telecom equipment.

The Patch Antenna with L-shaped Probe (Principal Investigator: Professor Luk Kwai-man, Department of Electronic Engineering), is a patented design giving birth to a new family of base station antenna for 2G and 3G mobile communication, applicable to all types of frequency bands such as GSM, PCS, CDMA and UMTS.

AnyServer: PC-to-3G Video Call Gateway (Principal Investigator: Dr Jia Weijia, Department of Computer Science) is an integrated server which can be connected to any user-specific database to provide customized information. It has easy access interfaces—mobile, fixed line phones, PDA or PC—enabling users to dial a video call from any PC to a 3G phone.

Fast Mode Decision and Algorithms in H.264 Video Coding (Principal Investigator: Dr Po Lai-man, Department of Electronic Engineering) is a new rate-based macroblock classification for fast mode decision in H264 video coding standard. It can help reduce encoding time and reduce hardware and software implementation complexity.

Power Amplifiers for Mobile Phones and Consumer Electronic Appliances (Principal Investigator: Dr Xue Quan, Department of Electronic Engineering) is a novel bipolar junction transistor power amplifier topology with both linearity improvement and efficiency enhancement.

ZigBee Mobile System (Principal Investigator: Dr Tsang Kim-fung, Department of Electronic Engineering) is a set of high-level communication protocols intended to be simpler and cheaper than other wireless personal area networks. It can be applied to reminder on-board systems, lap-top security systems and location systems for mobile phones.

In addition, Professor (Chair) Hong Yan of the Department of Electronic Engineering and Professor Deng Xiaotie of the Department of Computer Science gave talks entitled “Automated avatar system for e-learning and entertainment” and “Internet identity frauds and counter measures”, respectively, on 6 December.

More than 600 exhibitors from around the world will showcase their latest telecommunication technologies and products at ITU Telecom World 2006, while 60,000 visitors are anticipated.