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Nano meta components for electronic smart wireless systems

Project description

A boost for industrial-scale design of tiny smart wireless systems

The Internet-of-Things (IoT) era is driving the need for small, tuneable high-frequency devices for wireless communications, radar systems and data processing. The EU-funded SMARTWAY project will address these demands by developing novel architectures that reduce energy consumption while improving speed and miniaturisation. SMARTWAY will leverage 2D materials, metamaterials and carbon nanotubes to create radar sensors suitable for IoT applications at millimetre-wave and terahertz frequencies. Project activities should help overcome limitations in antenna performance and frequency selectivity that currently hinder market penetration. Two demonstrators providing industry-compatible solutions will be developed.

Objective

New communications and radar systems require small and tunable high-frequency devices, since their backbone is the Internet-of-
Things (IoT). The need for ultrafast, low-energy-consumption information processing of an exponentially increasing data volume will
lead to a global mobile traffic reaching 4394 EB by 2030, thus starting the 6G era (data rate up to 1 Tb/s) of an “ubiquitous virtual
existence”. In today’s wireless applications, radar sensors play one of the major roles. Due to the increased need for higher sensitivity
and non-destructive inspection systems, the frequency of the radar sensors has reached up to 300GHz on silicon-based technologies.
On the other side, 60GHz radar sensing is considered one of the main products for smart home, non-destructive material
classification, monitoring vital signals, and all the IoT application that need micro-motion detection. The market penetration for these
sensors is now hampered by (i) the limited antenna performance (mainly for the 300GHz case) and (ii) the frequency selectivity and
tunability (mainly for the 60GHz case). SMARTWAY proposes novel architectures based on new paradigms that exhibit a significant
decrease in energy consumption while improving on speed/performance and miniaturization. The disruptive nature of the targeted
approach relies on a progress towards the wafer-scale integration of two-dimensional (2D) materials, metamaterials (MMs), and
carbon nanotubes (CNTs) into radar sensor suitable for IoT sensing applications at both millimetre-waves (i.e. 24–60GHz) and THz
frequencies (i.e. 240–300GHz). The final outcomes of the project will be two demonstrators, apt to provide industry compatible
solutions for radar sensor technologies. For the first time, the nanotechnological paradigms “2D materials” and “CNTs” will be
harmonized with the MM concept, thus producing brand-new designs of large-scale complete systems with emphasis on
compatibility and integration of different materials/technologies.

Coordinator

THALES
Net EU contribution
€ 884 565,00
Address
4 RUE DE LA VERRERIE
92190 MEUDON
France

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Region
Ile-de-France Ile-de-France Hauts-de-Seine
Activity type
Private for-profit entities (excluding Higher or Secondary Education Establishments)
Links
Total cost
€ 884 565,00

Participants (4)