Flexible smart surfaces for augmented indoor communications
Kohesio
ESIGELEC
Interest in communications devices (CDs) is growing rapidly due to the important yet essential services they offer such as Internet, wireless healthcare, home automation, wireless access control systems, alarms, etc. Thanks to their advantages, the future of CDs is still bright as the market is growing at double digits per year with 18 billion devices predicted and worth $1.2 trillion by 2022. Such an increase in devices is expected to lead to high energy demand. For example, in the France (Canal) England (FCE) zone, the current usage of smoke detectors is approximately 5.6 million and 7.9 million devices in France and the United Kingdom respectively. This corresponds to more than 5.3 MWh and 7.4 MWh respectively in annual consumption. Another example concerns Wi-Fi routers/boosters estimated at more than 95,000 and 130,000 devices on the French and British sides respectively, which leads to annual consumption of more than 2.5 GWh and 3.4 GWh. Additional CDs (alarms, detectors, sensors, etc.) further increase the energy bill on both sides of the canal. Providing disruptive energy-efficient solutions to power future DCs is the common challenge of the FCE zone that this project is intended to address. The goal is to design a power-free electronic surface capable of optimally focusing ambient electromagnetic (EM) waves onto the appropriate receiver to enable both self-powered CDs and improve their performance (sensitivity, range, speed). Such a system is new and missing on the market. It is expected to reduce the energy bill of the FCE zone by more than 5.9 GWh per year, while saving 14.9 million euros considering (but not limited to) applications on Wi-Fi boosters and smoke detectors. For these targeted applications, two prototypes will be designed, manufactured, experimentally tested, validated on two demonstrators and transferred to interested SMEs (more than 217 in the FCE zone) developing different types of CDs. The first prototype will increase the power supply (lifetime) harvested from ambient waves over the ISM/GSM/3G/Wi-Fi bands to enable autonomous EM-based devices such as smoke detectors, detectors, sensors, etc. The second prototype will increase the range of Wi-Fi signals without consuming additional power unlike common Wi-Fi boosters. The specifications (costs, performances, etc.) and validation of the two prototypes will be carried out by GST, already marketing autonomous sensors (solar-based). Manufacturing tasks will be carried out on the UK side by IML and UoS, skilled in the manufacture of small and large area electronic boards. The design skills will be fulfilled by ESIGELEC on low frequency bands (ISM/GSM/3G/Wi-Fi-2.4GHz), and by UoK for higher bands (Wi-Fi-5/60GHz). In order to trigger the deployment of future products, the results will be promoted, disseminated and transferred to SMEs throughout the FCE zone by the partnership, led by the business consultant (Projaction) on the France side and by IML on the UK side.
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