Meeting the European industrial and political ambition of making the transport sector free of fossil fuel in the near future depends heavily on continued advancement of battery technology. Safe and optimal use of battery systems is crucial but difficult due to the lack of accurate internal state information and optimal battery control algorithms. This project aims to make step changes in research and innovation of battery management by developing health-aware fast charging strategies as well as realise an advanced career development for the experienced researcher using a clearly defined training-through-research approach. The proposed battery charging management will benefit from and integrate advanced mathematical modelling, robust state estimation and a holistic control framework within this project, along with several on-going battery energy management projects at Chalmers University of Technology. The research outcomes will include faster charging capability and prolonged lifetime for batteries on the premise of a safety guarantee, which will significantly improve the cost and resource efficiency and the convenience of battery powered devices. The hosting research group at Chalmers has a reputation for working closely with industry (e.g., Volvo Cars, Volvo Group and ABB) and applying their research to real world problems, therefore maximising the opportunity for the results to be commercially implemented in the shortest possible time. Ultimately, this project will contribute to UN Sustainable Development Goals in terms of “Affordable and clean energy” and “Sustainable cities and communities.” Furthermore, this fellowship will provide an excellent opportunity for the experienced researcher to advance the career training and secure a leading independent position at the end of the fellowship.

Frequency combs are remarkable photonic devices for precision frequency synthesis and metrology. The core technology behind conventional frequency combs is a mode-locked laser. Today, so-called microcombs constitute an alternative for the generation of a frequency comb on a chip-scale microresonator. Microcombs have a frequency separation between lines that is orders of magnitude larger than standard mode-locked lasers. The combination of small footprint and large line spacing is opening up entirely new scientific and technological opportunities, one of the most prominent ones being optical communications. However, one outstanding problem with microcombs is their fundamentally limited power conversion efficiency, which hampers the potential applications of this otherwise promising technology. In my ERC CoG DarkComb, we have overcome this issue by developing an innovative arrangement of linearly coupled microresonators implemented with an original silicon nitride fabrication process that features ultra-low optical losses. The aim of this ERC PoC is to conduct a yield analysis of our technology, investigate the freedom to operate and pursue a rigorous market evaluation. These results will form the basis for the development of a sound business strategy upon the conclusion of the project.

Laser frequency combs based on mode-locked lasers are extraordinary photonic devices that have revolutionized precision frequency synthesis and metrology in the 21st century. They have enabled groundbreaking developments such as optical clocks, femtosecond-level timing synchronization, and ultra-pure microwave generation. Microresonator-based frequency combs (microcombs) offer a transformative potential to reduce the complexity and size of traditional laser frequency combs. Recent advances in dissipative Kerr solitons have demonstrated the viability of these chip-scale devices, which can be manufactured at the wafer level through semiconductor processing techniques. However, microcombs still fall short in stability and phase noise compared to their non-integrated, mode-locked counterparts due to intrinsic scaling limitations when operating at the chip scale. This proposal seeks to bridge this performance gap by developing high-performance, octave-spanning microcombs with photodetectable repetition rates using innovative arrangements of coupled microresonators. These advancements will enable single-point optical frequency division, whereby the comb’s degrees of freedom will be determined by an optical frequency reference. The project will explore 3D integration of ultralow-loss silicon nitride with advanced materials, aiming to create high-performance microcomb-based systems on a chip, and lay the foundation for novel optoelectronic synchronization architectures in datacenters. These innovations address key challenges in energy consumption and capacity scaling in datacenters and large scaling computing architectures, paving the way for future advancements in global communication infrastructure.

Wireless communication systems are using increasingly larger carrier frequencies, from 900 MHz for 2G cellular, over 2 GHz for 3G, 2.5 GHz for 4G/LTE, and leaping to 28 GHz in 5G. Similar trends are visible for WiFi-based communication, with the 802.11ad standard operating at 60 GHz. This places wireless communication services very close to short range radar frequency bands. Such radars operate at frequencies around 24 GHz, 63 GHz, as well as at 76-81 GHz, and include both automotive radars and indoor personal radars. In next-generation networks, a large number of spectrally coexistent radars and communication devices can thus bring up the problem of mutual interference, which threatens radar safety and communication throughput. The objective of this action is to provide a new and industrially relevant solution to the problem of interference in spectrally congested wireless environments. To this aim, we propose a novel co-design of radar and communications (RadCom) systems via a joint Orthogonal Time-Frequency-Space (OTFS) waveform, which enables both functionalities to be implemented on a single hardware. By multiplexing symbols in the delay-Doppler domain, the OTFS can overcome major limitations of the Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) waveform (the de-facto standard for downlink communications), such as high peak-to-average-power ratio (PAPR), small channel coherence time and inter-carrier interference. The OTFS has recently been proposed for communication and we believe it holds great potential for radar as well. In close collaboration with local industry (Volvo, Ericsson), we propose to (i) derive and experimentally validate OTFS received signal models, (ii) design OTFS radar signal processing chain, and (iii) design an integrated OTFS RadCom solution. If successful, the project results can be employed in a wide range of applications (e.g., high-speed automated vehicles, dual-functional radar base stations) and contribute to beyond 5G standards.

Imagine a world, in which countless embedded microelectronic components continuously monitor our health and allow us to seamlessly interact with our digital environment. One particularly promising platform for the realisation of this concept is based on wearable electronic textiles. In order for this technology to become truly pervasive, a myriad of devices will have to operate autonomously over an extended period of time without the need for additional maintenance, repair or battery replacement. The goal of this research programme is to realise textile-based thermoelectric generators that without additional cost can power built-in electronics by harvesting one of the most ubiquitous energy sources available to us: our body heat. Current thermoelectric technologies rely on toxic inorganic materials that are both expensive to produce and fragile by design, which renders them unsuitable especially for wearable applications. Instead, in this programme we will use polymer semiconductors and nanocomposites. Initially, we will focus on the preparation of materials with a thermoelectric performance significantly beyond the state-of-the-art. Then, we will exploit the ease of shaping polymers into light-weight and flexible articles such as fibres, yarns and fabrics. We will explore both, traditional weaving methods as well as emerging 3D-printing techniques, in order to realise low-cost thermoelectric textiles. Finally, within the scope of this programme we will demonstrate the ability of prototype thermoelectric textiles to harvest a small fraction of the wearer’s body heat under realistic conditions. We will achieve this through integration into clothing to power off-the-shelf sensors for health care and security applications. Eventually, it can be anticipated that the here interrogated thermoelectric design paradigms will be of significant benefit to the European textile and health care sector as well as society in general.