Project description
Innovative antenna technology could increase satellite internet adoption in remote areas
Satellite internet could help bring broadband access to rural, remote and hard-to-reach areas. Although satellite communications offer more bandwidth and broadcasting possibilities, the technology has not been reliable or responsive enough to compete with fibre- or cable-based internet, mainly owing to the drawbacks of the ground terminals (antennas). The EU-funded RF Beamformer project is developing innovative antenna technology that provides the benefits of a phased-array antenna but with better performance and at a fraction of the cost. The technology, which leverages transformational optics to provide the self-aligning capability of large phased-array antennas, could allow massive-scale deployment of satellite internet in areas with no internet access.
Objective
Broadband has become an essential part of 21st-century infrastructure. New cloud services are making it a necessity for starting and growing small businesses, as well as advancing a wide variety of industries. However, more than half of the world's population still does not have access to internet being at a disadvantage; and the digital gap will continue to grow wider. Traditional wireless networks are expensive to install or expand and consequently low subscriber areas and less lucrative developing regions will likely never see cellular access. As an alternative, satellite access offers more than 5,000 times the spectrum compared to terrestrial networks -plus it is global and cover land, sea and air. Nevertheless, this technology is held back by current ground-based terminal (antenna) solutions that are expensive, single beam, require high power and have limited scalability.
Isotropic’s Radio Frequency (RF) Beamformer technology is a highly innovative system that exploits the science of transformational optics to provide the self-aligning ability of large phased array antennas but with significantly reduced complexity. This allows for drastically reduced cost and power consumption whilst increasing operational flexibility and performance. RF Beamformer is an ultra-low cost antenna technology that enables an optimised ground-based terminal that is otherwise currently missing in the industry development roadmap.
To date we have received $6M in venture capital and following successful results from founder´s research, the technology has reached TRL 5. We are now looking for funds to following our detailed product roadmap, translate our technology to products and bring satellite connectivity to the mass market by 2021.
The proposed work in Phase 1 of the SME Instrument fits into our overall plan to reach the market by contributing the financial resources needed to plan a fast sound wider deployment of RF Beamformer and its market uptake.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
- engineering and technologyelectrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineeringinformation engineeringtelecommunicationsradio technologyradio frequency
- engineering and technologymaterials engineeringfibers
- natural sciencescomputer and information sciencesinternetinternet access
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Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
SME-1 - SME instrument phase 1Coordinator
N17GU LONDON
United Kingdom
The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.