The main objective of ROADART is to investigate and optimise the integration of ITS communication units into trucks. Due to the size of a truck-trailer combination the architecture approaches investigated for passenger cars are not applicable. New architecture concepts have to be developed and evaluated in order to assure a sufficient Quality of Service (QoS) for trucks and heavy duty vehicles. An example of a specific use case is the platooning of several trucks driving close behind each other through tunnels with walls close to the antennas that support the communication systems. Due to the importance of tunnel safety, significant research effort is needed in order to check the behaviour of the antenna pattern, diversity algorithms and ray tracing models especially for trucks passing through tunnels. V2V and V2I systems specified from the C2C Communication Consortium are focussing on road safety applications. The ROADART project aims to demonstrate especially the road safety applications for T2T and T2I systems under critical conditions in a real environment, like tunnels and platooning of several trucks driving close behind each other. Besides that traffic flow optimization and therefore reducing Greenhouse Gas emissions are positive outcoms of the use cases demonstrated in this project. Demonstration and Evaluation of the use cases will be performed by simulation and by practical experiments on several levels. Besides evaluation on component and system level, the complete system wll be evaluated on the Dutch Integrated Test Site for Cooperative Mobility (DITCM), consisting of a 7 km stretch of highway, equipped with roadside units consisting of cameras to track the highway traffic, and with ITS G5 wireless communication for V2I and I2V.

GENIUS (Glide-symmetric mEtamaterials for iNnovative radIo-frequency commUnication and Sensing) is an Industrial Doctoral Programme led by top European actors of research and innovation in the field of radio-frequency (RF) systems with applications to aerospace communications and automotive sensing proposing novel scientific tools provided by glide-symmetric (GS) artificial materials (or metamaterials). It has recently been discovered that these metamaterials, characterized by a special symmetry inside their constitutive unit cells, possess marvelous electromagnetic (EM) properties (propagation in an ultra-large bandwidth, strong isolation and high absorption features) capable to address the open challenges of modern RF systems, motivated by the increasing demand of ubiquitous connectivity, and the growing automation of transports. GENIUS aims at training highly skilled and creative researchers capable to propose out-of-the-box solutions to industrial needs by means of their knowledge of physical properties of complex EM systems. The design of devices will be enabled by the development of suitable modelling methods (circuit-based, integral-equation-based, quasi-optical) shedding light on the properties of GS materials and providing fast and reliable data on their behaviour. The inter-sectoral character of the training reflects its inter-disciplinarity content: researchers will benefit of academic expertise in GS metamaterials, of the industrial knowledge of applicative needs and of fabrication and test facilities not commonly found at individual institutions. GENIUS will be the only international training program bringing together metamaterial physics and application-oriented RF design. Its researchers will benefit of a dense network of contacts with scientists acquired during network-wide training events suitably complementing the skills acquired through research, to improve their career prospects in the European and worldwide innovation sector.

Wireless Chip-to-Chip (C2C) communication and wireless links between printed circuit boards operating as Multiple Input Multiple Output devices need to become dominant features of future generations of integrated circuits and chip architectures. They will be able to overcome the information bottleneck due to wired connections and will lead the semiconductor industry into a new More-Than-Moore era. Designing the architecture of these wireless C2C networks is, however, impossible today based on standard engineering design tools. Efficient modelling strategies for describing noisy electromagnetic fields in complex environments are necessary for developing these new chip architectures and wireless interconnectors. Device modelling and chip optimization procedures need to be based on the underlying physics for determining the electromagnetic fields, the noise models and complex interference pattern. In addition, they need to take into account input signals of modern communication systems being modulated, coded, noisy and eventually disturbed by other signals and thus extremely complex. Recent advances both in electrical engineering and mathematical physics make it possible to deliver the breakthroughs necessary to enable this future emerging wireless C2C technology by creating a revolutionary electromagnetic field simulation toolbox. Increasingly sophisticated physical models of wireless interconnects and associated signal processing strategies and new insight into wave modelling in complex environments based on dynamical systems theory and random matrix theory make it possible to envisage wireless communication on a chip level. This opens up completely new pathways for chip design, for carrier frequency ranges as well as for energy efficiency and miniaturisation, which will shape the electronic consumer market in the 21st century.

The aim of this research is to fabricate microwave radiating antennas and substrates using nanomaterials. These novel dielectric substrates will facilitate electromagnetic advantages.Antennas are becoming increasingly prevalent in our modern, wireless and digital society; they are crucial for voice and data communication, GPS information and the provision of wireless communication between components of larger integrated systems. Antennas are subject to constant market forces which demand that products and their antennas become cheaper and smaller with improved functionality. With multiple antennas with multiband and MIMO capabilities whilst in very close proximity, for example on a mobile phone, the isolation between the different antennas also requires technological advances for improvement. The establishment of a novel technique to create antennas with improved radiation efficiency would reduce energy consumption.Nanoparticles are typically smaller than one millionth of a metre in at least one dimension and can be combined to form nanomaterials. Yet because the size of nanoparticles is so small and their resultant surface area-to-volume ratio so extremely large, nanomaterials possess a range of very useful and exciting properties. These include proportionately increased electrical conductivity, strength, heat and scratch resistance. Note, we will not be using nano-powders so the health risks will be minimal - and we will take all necessary steps to further minimise them.The use of nanomaterials will fundamentally allow increased versatility and improve functionality by design innovations. This area of research is highly novel as the use of nanomaterials as proposed here has not previously been reported at the application-rich microwave frequencies (wavelength ~ 30cm >> 1 micron). Using such nanomaterials for microwave antennas would allow manufacturing benefits as the antenna, the substrate and RF circuitry can be constructed together and integrated into one process. Currently, antennas designs are limited to certain specific fixed substrate properties. By constructing the substrate from non-metallic nanomaterials, advantageous, novel and heterogeneous substrates, with low losses and desirable electric and magnetic properties, can be produced, which can then be tailored for specific applications. Creating antennas from nanomaterials enables highly conductive and thinner than conventional layers.Intensive simulations using high performance computers will enhance Loughborough University's (LU) recent pilot study of how these novel antennas can behave. When these preparatory stages have been completed, prototype samples and antennas will be fabricated. Initially, geometrically simple antenna designs such as dipoles and patches will be used, enabling extrapolation to more complex antenna geometries later in the project. Once these are created their characteristics will be measured using LU's anechoic chamber, and compared with the simulation results.LU is ideally placed to research this exciting new area. The Communications Group has extensive expertise of simulating, design and measuring antennas and metamaterials. We have assembled an extremely strong multi-disciplinary team which has over 700 journal publications and more than 100 patents and book chapters. The Centre for Renewable Energy Systems Technology (CREST) has the capabilities to produce and characterise our specially made nanostructures. We also have close contacts with Patras University in Greece, which can fabricate nanostructures by an alternative (but viable) method using polymers.