CSIRO team wins Clunies Ross Award

A team of five CSIRO scientists have been presented with the Clunies Ross Award by the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering (ATSE).

The award was presented for the team's work on wireless local area networks (WLANs), which led to the development of IEEE 802.11a and 802.11g Wi-Fi standards, which are found in most laptops and devices.

This is the second time CSIRO's scientists have been awarded for their work on the technology, as they were also recognised as the winners of the Prime Minister's Prize for Science in 2009.

All five scientists were present to accept their reward, though many of them have moved on from working at CSIRO.

WLAN team leader, Dr John O'Sullivan said that the invention and widespread adoption of WLAN technology helped enable a global revolution in mobile computing.

The team consisted of Diet Ostry, Terry Percival, Graham Daniels, John Deane and O'Sullivan.

Despite being lauded for their achievements in science, CSIRO's Australian scientists have been embroiled in a number of patent battles since the invention of Wi-Fi, the most recent of which awarded the company millions of dollars in settlement fees.

Licensing of the WLAN technology has drawn significant revenue to CSIRO. The company has since reinvested $150 million of the settlement and its revenue from Wi-Fi licensing back into Australia by rejuvenating the Science and Industry Endowment Fund.

CSIRO did not respond to requests for comment by time of publication.

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