HÀ NỘI — Dương Quang Trung, 39, of Hội An, the central province of Quảng Nam, was given the 2018 “Research Innovation” award on Tuesday by Queen’s University Belfast in the United Kingdom.

Trung, who works at the university, received the award thanks to his outstanding achievements in scientific research that affect society and the community. Trung and his colleagues have improved a communication system to transmit signals when a disaster strikes.

Their research was previously awarded the Newton Prize in 2017, worth GBP200,000 (some US$254,000), by the British Government.

He and his colleagues developed a new communication system using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that could be operated under extreme weather conditions and during natural disasters.

Trung was the research project’s head.

According to Trung, technology could make a big difference in natural disasters, helping save lives and supporting those in affected areas. UAVs could play an important role because they can reach groups of affected people and provide necessary resources.

The researchers developed an algorithm that allocates time effectively to maximise the energy efficiency of the communication system using UAVs. The algorithm reduced the system-processing time from a second to a millisecond.

Time is a key factor while communicating under bad conditions to support fire fighting, rescue efforts and emergency medical services during natural disasters, Trung said.

"It is very important to successfully carry out search and rescue missions in the first 72 hours of a natural disaster,” he said.

Trung received PhD in telecommunications from Blekinge Institute of Technology, Sweden in September 2012.

He has authored more than 280 technical papers (including 157 International Scientific Indexing journals). He has been a visiting scholar at NYU-Poly (USA) and STUD (Singapore). — VNS