The goal of the project is to engage young PhDs and students in the development of a new and highly innovative commercial product based on groundbreaking research: a software package that will enable companies in Poland and elsewhere to carry out fast and accurate simulation-based design of sensing devices and their associated passive circuitry with carefully engineered electromagnetic properties.
If a sensor is to operate with radio signals (for measurement or data transmission), electromagnetic design is needed to develop the device. By electromagnetic design, we mean finding the shape (geometry) of a sensor with the best sensitivity to the quantity, measured using an electromagnetic wave at a given frequency, or determining the shape of an antenna or other passive components appropriate to efficient wireless data readout in a given environment. Take, for example, the new class of on-skin sensors and their associated electronics. Epidermal (on-skin) sensors that conform to the body and adhere well to the skin, Such sensors may be printed and may use different sensing mechanisms, including electromagnetic waves for dielectric property assessment. To enable external sensor readouts for health and wellness monitoring, an antenna that can be placed directly on curved skin (which could be stretched or shrunk) and yet can radiate into the air with good efficiency needs be designed. Similar problems are found for biodegradable and low-energy sensor technologies that are desired for ecofriendly electronics used in low-cost remote sensing of environmental conditions, with potential applications in agriculture, the food industry, transportation, logistics, and weather monitoring.
Practically any prototyping of an electronic device involves computer simulations. To develop sensors that use electromagnetic waves to probe the material sample, detect radiation, or transmit the results of measurements using a wireless link, the shape of the sensor, a receiving/transmitting antenna (or an array of radiators/detectors) must be carefully designed. Each design is unique, as it depends on the properties of the constitutive parameters, the operation frequency, the environment in which the sensor is to be used, and the curvature of the surface in the case of flexible, stretchable, or bent substrates. These factors make the design process particularly challenging, as the final form of the device can only be determined via a large number of computer simulations that involve solving Maxwell’s equations in presence of curved surfaces and inhomogeneous, often lossy and dispersive media, resulting in signal attenuation and the potential degradation of wireless transmission. Fast yet accurate software packages capable of performing such tasks in the most efficient way are thus needed to develop the sensors.
EDISOn, project will develop a software product based on several advanced state-of-the-art computing technologies for the tasks that require shape optimization with frequency sweeps. The project will be carried out by a consortium consisting of a team of young researchers and students from the Gdansk University of Technology group and a spin-off company EMInvent in partnership with three international research entities and two small local enterprises - members of the Interizon ICT cluster acting as economic partners.
