Professor Tim O'Farrell

PhD, MSc, BSc

Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering

Chair in Wireless Communication

Communications Research Group

Headshot of Tim O'Farrell
Profile picture of Headshot of Tim O'Farrell
t.ofarrell@sheffield.ac.uk
+44 114 222 5193

Full contact details

Professor Tim O'Farrell
Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering
Profile

I received my BSc degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from the University of Birmingham and my MSc and PhD degrees in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from the University of Manchester, respectively.

Currently, I am Chair Professor of Wireless Communications at the University of Sheffield.

My research is focused on wireless communications systems specialising in physical layer signal processing, radio resource management and wireless network planning.

I have pioneered research on energy efficient mobile cellular communications, the mathematical modelling of CSMA based MAC protocols for WiFi, iterative block coding for wireless communication systems and spreading sequence design for CDMA wireless communications.

I was an entrepreneur, being the cofounder and CTO of Supergold Communication Limited (1997-2007), a start-up that participated in the standardisation of IEEE 802.11g with the M-ary Bi-Code Keying proposal.

In the framework of Mobile VCE, I was the Academic Coordinator of the Core 5 Green Radio project (2009-2012) and a leader in establishing energy efficiency as a global research field in wireless communications systems.

I have led 21 major research projects as the principal investigator and participated in 2 as a coinvestigator with a total research spend of approximately £12M.

My current EPSRC project portfolio includes the FARAD and SERAN projects as well as CommNet2.

I have published 312 journal & conference papers, book chapters, patents and technical reports; graduated 23 Ph.D. and M.Phil. students; and participated in standards, consultancy and expert witness activities within the wireless sector.

Currently, I am leading the UK Research Strategy Community Organisation in Communications, Mobile Computing and Networking within the EPSRC portfolio.

I am also a Director of the mVCE, a Chartered Engineer and a member of the IET and IEEE.

Qualifications
  • PhD Electrical and Electronic Engineering, University of Manchester
  • MSc Electrical and Electronic Engineering, University of Manchester
  • BSc Electrical and Electronic Engineering, University of Birmingham
Research interests
  • Multiple-access (OFDMA, CDMA & MC-CDMA)
  • Forward error correction coding and iterative decoding
  • Adaptive coding and modulation
  • MIMO and Massive MIMO techniques
  • Spreading sequence design
  • Wireless visible light communication
  • Energy and spectrum efficient wireless networking
  • MAC and packet scheduling techniques
  • Radio access network planning and optimisation (2G, 3G, 4G & 5G)
  • Large scale dynamic system level simulation (WCDMA, HSPA, LTE, LTE-Advance, 5G)
  • Video quality of service
Publications

Journal articles

Chapters

Conference proceedings papers

Datasets

Preprints

  • Singh R, O'Farrell T, Bui TC, Biagi M & David JPR (2019) Performance Evaluation of Frequency Domain Equalisation Based Colour Shift Keying Modulation Schemes Over Diffuse Optical Wireless Channels, arXiv. RIS download Bibtex download
  • Abukharis S, Alzubi JA, Alzubi OA, Alamri S & O'Farrell T (2016) Packet Error Rate Performance of IEEE802.11g under Bluetooth Interface, arXiv. RIS download Bibtex download
  • Sholiyi A, Alzubi JA, Alzubi OA, Almomani O & O'Farrell T (2016) Near Capacity Irregular Turbo Code, arXiv. RIS download Bibtex download
Professional activities and memberships
  • Director of CommNet
  • External Examiner at KCL
Research students
Student Degree Status Primary/Secondary
Abukharis S H S PhD Graduated Primary
Arbi A S PhD Graduated Primary
Singh R PhD Graduated Primary
Turyagyenda C  PhD Graduated Primary
Wang S PhD Graduated Primary