10 really cool university networking labs

Page 2 of 4

The University of Arkansas RFID Research Center 

Created: 1985
Location: Fayetteville, Ark.
Why it's cool: This lab is used not just by engineering students and faculty, but is staffed by students from almost every college on campus, including the Sam M. Walton College of Business. That speaks to the many applications RFID has and will have, including loss prevention, inventory accuracy. Consists of a 10,000-square-foot lab at Hanna's Candle Co., plus a 4,500-square foot lab in a cold storage facility. The labs feature conveyors, forklifts and other things you'd find in stores and warehouses that use RFID for their supply chains, asset tracking and such. Big name companies such as J.B. Hunt, Dillard's and Wal-Mart are among more than 50 supporting work at the lab. The center is a founding member of the Global RF Lab Alliance.
Current projects: Bill Hardgrave, the center's director, says "the most exiting ones involve the item-level research we are doing with Dillard's, Wal-Mart and others on the use of RFID for such things as inventory accuracy, out-of-stock reduction and loss prevention. It doesn't sound 'hot', but is significant in its importance to industry" in the realization of return on investment of RFID.

Iowa State University of Science and Technology's Internet-Scale Event and Attack Generation Environment (ISEAGE) 

Created: 2004
Location: Ames, Iowa
Why it's cool: This lab is capable of simulating attacks, defenses and network loading scenarios, and of identifying weaknesses in equipment and networks before those attacks hit the real thing, says Doug Jacobson, an associate professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Iowa State University. The lab supports educators, researchers, equipment vendors and government agencies.
Current projects: MapIowa, a graphical simulation of the Iowa Communications Network that can be dynamically attacked, crippled or modified to research the effects of a catastrophic failure of the network; ISECUBE, a portable ISEAGE that can be used to create a virtual copy of a network for testing; national and local Cyber Defense Competitions; IT Adventures; a program to motivate high school students to pursue a career in IT.

Stanford University's Nanoscale and Quantum Photonics Lab 

Created: 2003
Location: Stanford, Calif.
Why it's cool: The researchers in this lab aren't messing around with any incremental technology updates. Led by Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering Jelena Vuckovic, the lab has made advances in energy efficient and solid-state lasers that could support 100Gbps telecom connections. 

"We had quite a lot of interest from venture capitalists and companies at that time, but we postponed any steps towards
commercialization until we develop an electrically pumped laser and until students graduate. We have almost completed both of these goals now, and we will see where to go from here," Vuckovic reports. The lab has also developed a quantum "light switch" that could be used one day to power computers whose speed would blow away today's top-of-the-line models and to support quantum cryptography used to safeguard data.