Inspired by recent scientific breakthroughs in the area of transformation optics (TO) and metamaterials, QMUL in collaboration with its partners and UK industries have demonstrated several novel antenna solutions which potentially offer new composite flat lens antenna, surface wave and metasurface devices that could be embedded into the skin of vehicles without compromising aerodynamic performance, representing a major leap forward for future technologies related to the Internet of Things (IoT), CubeSat and Space Communications. The potential of the underlying design approaches have much wider applicability in arguably all technical challenges as addressed above. For example, we extended the TO technique to design novel beam steerable antennas . Instead of moving or tilting the feed/reflctor, we employ an alternative way to manipulate the reflected emission by varying the permittivity of dielectrics derived from TO. This method has the merits of maintaining a flat profile, being capable of beam-steering and frequeny agility. Combining with appropriate feed designs, the system can be effectively be used as either a single radiator or an array fulfilling massive MIMO functions. In a broad sense, dielectric substrates with spatially varying permittivity and/or permeability can be regarded as a "magic black box", whose properties are programmable according to required functional requirements. In the proposed ANIMATE project, we refer to this magic black box as "software defined materials", since they demonstrate far-reaching capabilities well beyond conventional antennas and arguably in all devices and systems that exploit electromagnetic spectra. To enable this step change, a suite of novel advanced materials must be studied and developed, especially, active materials and structures with low loss, high tunability but low DC power dissipation are desirable. In addition, a robust biasing network is needed so that material building blocks can be individually controlled. In spite of the longstanding quest and intensive research over the years, this subject area still remains insufficiently explored. With ongoing advances in modelling and manufacturing tools, it is now possible to revisit some fundamental limits imposed on conventional materials and antenna designs. The vision of ANIMATE is therefore to unlock contributions and expertise from multiple disciplines, to develop a core programme of research on software defined materials, which will enable dynamic control of electromagnetic waves for applications in sensing, communications and computation. The ultimate objective of ANIMATE is to remove the traditional boundary between the designs of antennas and RF/microwave electronics as well as materials and devices, so that a generic material platform can be developed that is programmable and flexible for multifunctional applications integrating communication, sensing and computation. Specifically, in this project, we will: 1. Establish a holistic approach of software-defined materials for communication, sensing and computation, by building novel integrated and adaptive antenna technologies. 2. Integrate wireless sensor networks into the design of computer interface and control units for tunable materials to demonstrate and validate the wholly new concept of "networked materials" at subwavelength scales. 3. Exploit challenging applications of proposed antenna and material technologies with our core industrial partners at all stages of development: prototyping, manufacturing, toolbox validation, platform integration and testing. 4. Research novel active and tunable materials and investigate fundamental limits of relevant materials to industrial challenges. 5. Develop simulation tools that span from materials, device and process modeling with intricate complexities that open up the design domain significantly and enable the production of optimal structures with improved performance.

Global demand for broadband communications continues to increase substantially every year. A major factor contributing to this demand is the growing number of fixed and mobile broadband users, data-hungry applications like video as well as an ever-increasing number of network-connected everyday objects and machines. It is forecast that by 2020 the number of network-connected devices will reach 1000 times the world's population while data volumes transported over networks will progressively grow to Zettabytes and upwards. These trends pose entirely new challenges related to data volume, granularity, end-to-end connectivity and reach as well as increasing heterogeneity in network technologies (i.e. wireless and wired), networked-connected devices (i.e. sensors, mobile phones, computers, TVs, Data Centres) and services (i.e. Tbps data transfer for e-science, ultra-low latency financial transaction, real-time media streaming, kbps for sensor-based monitoring). Addressing these challenges necessitates radically new network models supporting convergence of traditionally separate network technology domains and offering high flexibility and adaptability in data granularity and throughput. TOUCAN aims to achieve ultimate network convergence enabled by a radically new technology agnostic architecture targeting a wide range of applications and end users. This architecture will facilitate optimal interconnection of any network technology domains, networked devices and data sets with high flexibility, resource and energy efficiency, and will aim to satisfy the full range of Quality of Service (QoS) and Quality of Experience (QoE) requirements. TOUCAN will realise its goals by including the network infrastructure and its control as part of the end-to-end service delivery chain. Important enablers will be that of separating the data and control planes, which will rely on Software Defined Networking (SDN) principles. TOUCAN will drastically evolve SDN to incorporate fundamentally new technology-specific interfacing and resource description followed by infrastructure resource abstraction, virtualisation and programmability. These features will enable any network technology and device to become "TOUCAN-ready" which means that the devices are programmable and interoperable. This is the foundation upon which the technology-agnostic feature of the TOUCAN architecture will be realized; thereby ultimate seamless end-to-end convergence will be achieved. TOUCAN will revolutionize the way we build and operate communication networks in a similar way that computer networks and more recently mobile terminals were transformed from platform-oriented to platform-agnostic solutions (e.g. through Linux and Android) and will drive towards commoditisation of network devices. Any new technology generation, regardless whether wired or wireless, will connect to the TOUCAN network in a plug-and-play fashion. Our research will open up a new network innovation eco-system, which will allow for the first time applications to compose, deploy and program their own virtual network infrastructures, as part of the service delivery mechanism to optimally support their specific and very diverse requirements. Such an environment will be able to adapt to challenging and unpredictable infrastructure and service evolution scenarios, meeting future application requirements. This highly challenging £12M project will bring together an Internationally renowned team of academics for a period of 5 years, allowing in depth technical exploration based on holistic and radical thinking in order to achieve the project goals. 58 person years of postdoctoral researcher time are requested for TOUCAN while the Universities have allocated a further 30 person years or more of PhD students. The TOUCAN consortium includes an impressive list of external partners who collectively are committing critical and tangible resources in excess of £3.6M.

TOPIC: "Semiconductors" are often synonymous with "Silicon Chips". After all Silicon supported computing technologies in the 20th century. But Silicon is reaching fundamental limits and already many of the technologies we now take for granted are only possible because of Compound Semiconductors (CS). These technologies include The Internet, Smart Phones, GPS and Energy efficient LED lighting! CSs are also at the heart of most of the new technologies expected in the next few years including 5G wireless, ultra-high speed optical fibre connectivity, LIDAR for autonomous vehicles, high voltage switching for electric vehicles, the IoT and high capacity data storage. To date CSs are made in relatively small quantities using fairly bespoke manufacturing and manufacturers have had to put together functions by assembling discrete devices. But this is expensive and for many of the new applications integration is needed along the lines of the Silicon Integrated Chip. CDT research will involve: the science of large scale CS manufacturing (e.g. materials combinations to minimise wafer bow, new fabrication processes for non-flat surfaces); manufacturing integrated CS on Silicon and in applying the manufacturing approaches of Silicon to CS. The latter includes using generic processes and generic building blocks and applying statistical process control. By applying these approaches students will address and invent new ways to exploit the highly advantageous electronic, magnetic, optical and power handling properties of CSs and generate novel integrated functionality for sensing, data processing and communication. NEED: This CDT is a critical part of the strategic development of a CS Cluster supporting activity throughout the UK. It is part of the development of a wider training portfolio including apprenticeships and CPD activities, to train and upskill the CS workforce. Evidence of the critical need for a CDT, has been identified in a survey and analysis conducted by UK Electronics Skills Foundation highlighting the specific skills required in this rapidly growing high technology industrial sector. "We are looking for PhD level skills plus industry experience. We don't have the time to train up new staff." "There are no 'perfect employees' for CS companies, as this is effectively a new area. Staff, including those with PhDs, either have silicon skills and need CS-specific training, or have CS skills and need training in volume tools and processes, either in the cleanroom or in packaging." - quotes from CS Skills Survey - Report UKESF July 2018. We have worked with the CSA Catapult utilising the skills need they have identified as well as companies across the spectrum of CS activities and are confident of the absorptive capacity: the expected PhD level jobs increase for the existing cluster companies alone would employ all the students and the CDT will support many more companies and academic institutions. APPROACH: a 1+3 programme where Year 1 is based in Cardiff, with provision via taught lectures using university approved level 7 modules and transferable skills training, hands on and in-depth practical training and workshop material supplied by University and Industry Partner staff. A dedicated nursery clean room to allow rapid practical progress, learning from peer group activity and then an industry facing environment with co-location with industry staff and manufacturing scale equipment, where they will learn the future CS manufacturing skills. This will maximise cross fertilisation of ideas, techniques and approach and maximise the potential for exploitation. Y2-Y4 consist of an in depth PhD project, co-created with industry and hosted at one of the 4 universities, and specialised whole cohort training and events, including communication, responsible innovation, entrepreneurship, co-innovation techniques and innovative outreach.

EPSRC have a delivery plan to align their portfolio to areas of UK strengths and national importance and have designated a number of 'Grow' areas. This application addresses two of these areas: 'RF and microwave communications' and 'RF and microwave devices', specifically matching the terahertz technology aspect of the latter. Why has EPSRC highlighted these areas? The answer is that society is evolving with a continuously increasing demand for the exchange of digital information. There is an expectation that everyone will be permanently connected to the Internet, no matter where they are. People are expecting that more information of a higher quality is delivered immediately: therefore newer services are requiring higher and higher data volumes and transfer rates. On demand video is an excellent example, with in-home delivery with standard definition now common place and demonstrations of new 4k on demand video now taking place. The data rates expected for these services are vast and the infrastructure needs adapt to cope. One way to achieve this is to move to higher frequencies for wireless links. We propose to demonstrate new building block components for such a communications system, designing and building these on an entirely new basis. A frequency of 300 GHz is chosen as it is at the cusp of technology; systems are now being deployed at frequencies below about 100 GHz where as systems approaching 1000 GHz are some years away because of the lack of active circuits. The components will also be applicable in radar and sensing scenarios. Once the individual components have been demonstrated, a full communications system will be designed, built and tested. There are very few demonstrations of communication systems at 300 GHz and the unique design methodology will provide a world-class demonstration. Three groups are collaborating in this project: the Fraunhofer Institute in Freiburg, Germany (IAF), and it the UK the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL) and Birmingham University. All partners have substantial design and measurement capabilities at these very high frequencies. IAF are world leaders in the production of submillimetre wave integrated circuits and will be supplying transistors for the amplifiers. RAL will deliver world class Schottky barrier and the University of Birmingham has advanced micromachining capabilities. At Birmingham a new interconnect principle has been developed to link the Schottky diodes and transistors. Instead of using wires and their analogues, hollow waveguide tube based resonant cavities will be used. Currently 300 GHz components are mounting in conventionally milled gold pated blocks. The required waveguide dimensions are about 0.8 mm by 0.4 mm. Although conventional milling machines can machine this, once internal structures for resonators are required, milling becomes difficult or impossible. A technology that can be used for the waveguide cavities, and for smaller resonators at higher frequencies, is micromachining. Birmingham University have demonstrated micromachined waveguides, filters, diplexers and antennas at and above 300 GHz. This technology is now ready for the next step, which is the inclusion of active and non-linear devices. The micromachining work at Birmingham has been done by a number of techniques, the primarily technique is by etching an ultraviolet sensitive photoresist called SU8. This allows a pattern to be defined photolithographically by a mask and then etching sections produces the waveguide. The final structure is made by bonding a number of SU8 etched layers together and then metal coating them. The performance of the SU8 waveguides has been shown to be as good as metal. Other techniques for micromachining circuits will be investigated in order to find the optimum solution.

As mobile radio systems developed, their operating frequency increased to the millimeter (mm) wave band (> 30 GHz) first used in the fifth-generation mobile radio network (5G). Now, as we look beyond 5G, higher frequencies are being considered with increased interest in the 140-170 GHz (termed D-band) and beyond (275 GHz band). At these frequencies, where there is plenty of available spectrum to satisfy the spectrum hungry applications of wireless systems, new designs are required, with little work done in this area world-wide. This proposal brings the complementary expertise of three world leading UK research groups, to research, design and experimentally demonstrate systems working at these frequencies, in an integrative and holistic fashion. For such work, there are three key challenges relating to the radio channel and the signal and system design. Challenge 1: to design wireless communication systems, it is paramount to have a verifiable model of the physical propagation channel by collecting measurement data from a specialist and bespoke designed equipment termed "channel sounder", which sends signals over the air and the receiver measures these signals after propagation. Such a model depends on several physical factors, but mainly the transmission signal parameters e.g. the frequency of transmission, the bandwidth of the signal, and the propagation channel physical parameters, such as the channel size and environment and whether it is indoors or outdoors, environmental factors, presence of obstacles, water moisture, pollution and other factors. Professor Salous and her group at Durham has been building channel sounders for over thirty years and the models she has developed are considered amongst the best in the world, used by regulators, industry and the United Nations through the International Telecommunications Union, (ITU). Professor Salous proposes to design and test new channel sounding in the D Band and at the higher 275 GHz band. These will be unique sounders and the aim is to develop unique models and set the standards for future generation wireless systems. The models will be verified in a practical setting through collaboration with the teams at QMUL and UCL. Challenge 2: The transmission of information at high frequencies requires specialist circuit and equipment design. Whilst there are several circuits for such signals, there are few antennas that can transmit and receive the signals and process them spatially. Professor Yang Hao at QMUL, who has been designing antennas for high frequencies for nearly three decades, will design specialist antennas, to be manufactured using simple 3D printing processes, to integrate to the system designed at Durham for full channel measurements. The designs will be optimized with consultation between the teams and taking the channel models into account. The outcome is a system with multiple antennas that can focus the transmission beams and change their shape and direction (a process termed beam forming) so that a system can be constructed that will fully utilize the benefits of the high frequencies and link to signals addressed by the UCL team. Challenge 3: for the past 20 years the UCL team, led by Professor Darwazeh, has designed and demonstrated the use of specialist signals for mobile and wireless systems that can maximise the amount of information while minimizing the energy required for good signal transmission; these processes are termed spectral and energy efficiencies. UCL will design spectrally and energy efficient signals, based on the D Band channel models derived at Durham and suitable for transmission using the antennas designed by QMUL; the outcome will be a complete transmission system at D Band with projected bit rates beyond 50 Gbit/s; nearly an order of magnitude beyond what can be achieved using 5G systems. The three teams bring strong industrial support to achieve what is predicted to be a world first and which brings interest from all sectors.