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Additive Manufactured Automotive Antenna for Autonomous Driving

Project description

Overcoming sensor hurdles for smooth autonomous driving

Autonomous vehicles rely on sensors to perceive their environment in all conditions. This demands high-performance systems like cameras, lidar, and radar. While cameras and lidar face drawbacks, radar shows promise but encounters technical hurdles. The EIC-funded ACTIVATING project will focus on high-performance antennas, vital for radar sensor systems. Traditional antennas built on printed circuit boards (PCBs), and commonly used in various electronic devices, have limitations. However, new 3D-printed waveguide antennas offer a solution. By streamlining manufacturing, they boost performance, cut costs, and accelerate time-to-market. With this innovation, the future of autonomous driving takes a leap forward.

Objective

To enable autonomous driving, vehicles need to perceive their surroundings in 360 degrees under any conditions. Autonomous vehicles thus require a variety of high-performance sensors, including camera-, lidar- and radar systems. These sensors need to be weather-independent, reliable, cost-effective, and invisible. While cameras and lidar are struggling with various drawbacks, radar sensors have the potential to fulfil all requirements. However, critical technical hurdles need to be addressed first, and Golden Devices' technology plays a key role in overcoming them. High-performance antennas are a crucial factor in achieving the necessary level of sensor system performance. Antennas are the connecting and at the same time limiting element between chips, software, and the external environment. The antennas transmitting and receiving signals from radar sensors are currently based on printed circuit boards (PCB). Due to their 2-dimensional structure and very limited design possibilities, these PCB antennas have severe shortcomings in terms of performance. 3-dimensional waveguide antennas are a promising alternative, significantly reducing transmission losses and increasing bandwidth. However, the established design of waveguide antennas is based on a split-block approach, which means that several parts are assembled and manufactured mainly by injection moulding. Both factors are limiting the performance of waveguide antennas and therefore radar sensors. To overcome this limitation, Golden Devices has developed a unique manufacturing process based on 3D printing and a proprietary metallization concept. Unlike the split-block process, Golden Devices manufactures the waveguide antennas in one piece. This provides numerous essential advantages in terms of technical performance, significantly reduced product development times and costs, and thus faster time-to-market. In the next step, we will now scale and automate the manufacturing process to realise series production.

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Keywords

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Programme(s)

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Topic(s)

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Funding Scheme

Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.

HORIZON-EIC-ACC-BF - HORIZON EIC Accelerator Blended Finance

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Call for proposal

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(opens in new window) HORIZON-EIC-2023-ACCELERATOR-01

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Coordinator

GOLDEN DEVICES GMBH
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 1 779 750,00
Address
KONRAD-ZUSE-STRASSE 3
91052 ERLANGEN
Germany

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SME

The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.

Yes
Region
Bayern Mittelfranken Erlangen, Kreisfreie Stadt
Activity type
Private for-profit entities (excluding Higher or Secondary Education Establishments)
Links
Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

€ 2 542 500,00
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