Wireless power transfer (WPT) systems are electromagnetic devices able to transfer wirelessly energy over the distance. The current implementation of WPT systems is generally based on magnetic resonators interacting within each other’s reactive near-field zones. These systems respond to the widespread proliferation of portable rechargeable electronic devices and current limitations of battery charges and wire-based distribution networks. The social impact will be important since WPT systems are seen as the last frontier for the complete mobility of people. The revenue of the wireless power industry market is estimated to $1 billion with a very strong increasing rate in the coming years. The main research effort on WPT systems is registered in USA. The WPT system proposed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT, USA) is still the state of the art for WPT systems. It presents a power efficiency of 40% over 2 m distance. During the years, new adaptive networks or cumbersome relay systems have been proposed to improve the performances of such system. No attempt as be done to date to define and investigate new operation schemes. For the first time here, we propose to tailor the near-field of WPT systems (tailored WPT systems) to improve both the power efficiency and distance range and go much beyond the current state of the art. The innovative idea is to tailor the near field of the system to reduce the decay ratio of the magnetic field over the distance without radiating in free space. Indeed we are aiming to design super slowly-evanescent localized fields. The radiation resistance is kept small as for current systems, but the tails of the near field are enhanced by properly loading the structure. In other words, the equivalent impedance supporting the required near field is created on the aperture of the system. The system can be also electrically larger without radiating thanks to the imposed small radiation resistance. In this way the available space of domestic or industrial environment may be used to enhance the performances of the system by using larger transmitting systems. The overall system will be analyzed with an in-house code able to define an electromagnetic device from a given near-field profile. The developed code will be unique for the present state of the art of simulator tools. The proposed WPT systems may open new opportunities and possible technology transfers for many daily life applications. WIREFREE is a 36-month JCJC (Jeunes Chercheurs - Jeunes Chercheuses) ANR project coordinated by IETR.

Context. The development of new intelligent transport systems (ITS) is of prime importance in many industrial countries so as to improve road safety and reduce the total number of fatal accidents. Many current on-board or embedded ITS equipments are considered as comfort systems; they must evolve towards active safety systems. Indeed, it is considered that 90% of road accidents involve human factors. In this context millimetre-wave automotive radars play a crucial role for adaptive cruise control, brake assistance or blind spot detection. The currently-available systems offer limited capabilities, and new antenna configurations must be invented to comply with the wide diversity of new end-user specifications; the latter are more and more stringent and deal with many different road scenarios for short range, medium range and long range detection. General objective and market. The major objective of the MM-Scan project is to develop a very innovative ultra-compact antenna architecture for automotive active safety systems at millimetre waves. This architecture will complying with end-users requirements and account for all technological PCB fabrication constraints in order to provide a final demonstrator compatible with already-available industrial manufacturing processes. The target market is quite narrow today (about 50000 radars a year), but the growth expectation is very high and new solutions must be invented by anticipation. Partnership, Dissemination and Exploitation of results. This MM-Scan project is coordinated by IETR (Institut d’Electronique et de Télécommunications de Rennes, UMR CNRS 6164) and is accompanied by Bretagne Valorisation. The corresponding antenna concepts have been patented by the University of Rennes 1. Pilot studies carried out in 2009 and 2010 have demonstrated successfully the relevance and performance of simple antenna breadboards. Our major technical objective is to conduct further studies to design, optimize, fabricate and characterize a final demonstrator. This prototype is ultra-compact (double-folded configuration) and will produce multiple beams for short range, medium range and long range radar systems covering the 76-81 GHz band using one single sensor. The expected results are far beyond the state-of-the-art. This demonstrator will be the key element for the dissemination and exploitation of the results (technology transfers, patent licensing, new industrial partnerships, opening towards new commercial markets in telecommunications, defence or aeronautics, etc.).

The SNAPSTER project aims to tackle key challenges in the field of energy conversion for lighting and optoelectronics. Rare earth oxides (REO) are currently used in these fields and are nowadays considered by EU as strategic minerals for high technology applications like electric vehicles or energy efficient lighting. As the main natural resources of REO are located outside Europe, there is a real need to develop REO free emissive materials to guarantee energetic independency. The multidisciplinary SNAPSTER project proposes a new alternative to REO containing emissive materials. SNAPSTER aims to develop new phosphorescent hybrid nanomaterials and introduce them in optoelectronic devices to evaluate their potential in terms of applicative prospects. On one hand, An[M6Qi8Xa6] (A = alkali, Q = chalcogen/halogen, X = halogen, M = Mo, Re) metal cluster compounds, obtained by high temperature synthesis, are very attractive for light emitting devices: they are highly luminescent in the red NIR and are very robust in contrast to organic dyes which suffer from photochemical, thermal or oxidative decomposition. On the other hand, molecular self-assembling is a promising way to generate nanostructured hybrid materials where functionalities are given by inorganic moieties while the structuration is mainly directed by the organic counter-part. In that way, columnar liquid crystals (LCs) are of great interest for the design of smart materials: they are easy to process, show self-organizing and structural defects self-healing abilities as well as high charge carrier mobility. Yet, one of the main challenge to overcome in hybrid materials is to prevent phase segregation between the organic and inorganic moieties. The SNAPSTER project aims to introduce metal clusters in columnar LCs by taking advantage of the ability of LC crown ether derivatives to complex the alkali ions contained in the metal cluster compounds. The convergent synthesis of these hybrid materials via coordination chemistry will give a rapid access to a library of related materials for investigation of structure-property relationships and charge transport evaluation. SNAPSTER is a multidisciplinary German-French project joining 3 research teams P1 – P3 with complementary skills in solid state and organic chemistry, hybrid materials, LC, physics and electronics. P1 and P3 have a long term ongoing collaboration, supervising jointly PhD students working on projects involving chemistry and electronic. P2 who possesses a complementary expertise in the field of organic liquid crystals containing ionic species and crown ether derivatives is now involved in a bilateral DAAD/PHC Procope program with P1 from which, first SNAPSTER proof of concept results have been published in Chem Commun in 2016. This unique German-French consortium will provide complementary training to Master,PhD students and Postdocs via secondments in the partner labs and produce innovative research with a high international impact.

The current state of the art for communication/surveillance systems show a need for complex radiating frontends. Such systems should be able to handle multiple beams in order to cover large areas with a high antenna gain. 3D integrated multi-beam antennas can represent a breakthrough for military and civil applications for the integration of such systems in moving platforms. At the moment, the most promising solutions are based on quasi-optical Beam Forming Network (BFN) realized using multilayer Substrate Integrated Waveguide (SIW) technology. We strongly believe that a significant breakthrough in the antenna frontend integration could be achieved by combining quasi-optical SIW BFN with the 3D integration technology. However, the appealing benefits of 3D integration are strictly depending on the ability of academies and industries to provide accurate and reliable analysis and design tools. In particular, from an electromagnetic point of view, the problem at hand is really challenging and current analysis tools cannot handle such a complex problem. The goals of this project are: 1) develop a novel electromagnetic analysis and design tool able to handle complex 3D Substrate Integrated Waveguide structures and extendible in the future for any integrated 3D structure; 2) apply this method to design innovative compact 3D SIW multibeam antenna frontends for SATCOMM applications operating in Ka-band. In our opinion, due to the complexity and variety of the 3D integrated antenna structures, it is impossible to address the problem by using a single analysis approach or full-wave simulator. On the contrary, several ad-hoc tools need to be defined and interconnected to analyze the various parts of the antenna module in an efficient way and with different degrees of accuracy. The core ideas able to overcome all the limitations at once of the current state-of-the-art EM tools are resumed in the following 3 key-points: Domain Decomposition and Smart reuse of existing solutions; Hybridization of different numerical methods; Parallel ad-hoc analysis methods. The developed fast numerical tool will be used in conjunction to the optimization algorithms for the design and realization of a novel complex multilayer quasi-optical Beam Forming Network (up to 10 metallic layers) for SATCOMM antenna frontends. The project will benefit from a unique expertise at L2E-IETR of several leaders in numerical modelling and quasi optical SIW beam forming networks.

Security of citizen is a major societal challenge due to its interaction with the freedom feeling which is a basic part of our democracy. The last few month news have played a part in increasing insecurity feeling through media coverage of violent events such as settling of scores related to by drug traffic, jewelleries hold-ups, valuables thefts and the example of the media hijacking of an armoured van in Toni Musulin case. A recent poll lead by IFOP, a French survey institute, from 18th to 20th September 2013, revealed that 84% of the French people feel an increase in crime. This result should be compared with these of the past years: 72% in 2012, 59% in 2010 and 43% in 2007. Physical aggressions such as hold-ups have led to a strained atmosphere and have given the impression that violence is commonplace and latent. Aggressors profile has changed regarding crime: crime formerly organized around some rules becomes nowadays less organized and rational and thus hard to understand. Otherwise, the boundary between delinquency / organized crime and terrorism is more and more reduced as for source of funding (drug traffic or hold-up) or terrorist profile. For example, Merah case or the last questioning of 9 persons in June 2013 suspected to have committed hold-up at La Poste with the aims of funding terrorism against French personalities. To struggle against those threats, the security forces use several information means namely GPS tracker embedded in suspects vehicles. These devices, used in a well-defined legal framework, represent invaluable tools to officers in charge of investigation and minimize risks taken by prime-participant. Police services are facing difficulties with jammers used to interfere with GPS reception and lately all the GSM (2G, 3G, and 4G) bands disruption for geo localization data transmission. Common use of those devices in organized crime and terrorism drives to seek out alternative solution. NB: Although forbidden in France (except in jails, theatre, concert hall, etc), jammers are available on the web for some 15 to 200€. Combining complementary competences in the field of navigation (Sysnav, whose CEO has just been nominated among the 10 most innovative and impactful French people under 35 by the MIT Technology Review), radio-communication (Éolane), and antennas (IETR), the ALTER-TRACK project addresses the issue explained previously by suggesting an autonomous and real-time solution of vehicle localization free of GPS (for localization) and GSM (for transmission of position data). This project, which is the continuation of ANR CSOSG projects (GPS localization only), is based on: ? localization acting improvement; ? supply of a long range communications solution different from GSM, which presents characteristics such as autonomy, inconspicuous and insensitive to interferers; The goals of this real-time tracking of vehicle rely on: - buried technologies independent to infrastructure: satellite for GPS, base station for GSM; - improvement regarding accuracy of localization information before transmission through several techniques (embedded Map-Matching processing); - long range radio communications for data localization exchanges between the tracking vehicle and the follower one. Both vehicles are distant of some km each other in urban area; - small and inconspicuous antenna; - low susceptibility to radio jammer / interferer; - high autonomy. From an operational point of view, several types of communications (data link) can be considered in urban area in the suggested frequency band (VHF < 300 MHz): ? vehicle being tracked – tracking vehicle link: mobile-mobile link with diversity ? vehicle being tracked – fix node link (temporary or standing infrastructure)