UPWARD

UPWARD is a curiosity driven project that addresses “Circular Economy'' strategic emerging topics. The rationale of the proposal belong to CLUSTER 4 “Digital, Industry and Space”, mainly in the area of Sovereignty in digital technologies and in future emerging enabling technologies.
Recent advances in wireless communications and IoT open huge and promising perspectives for new applications, such as digital healthcare services, ubiquitous robotics, industrial automation, autonomous systems. These applications require high data-rate and bandwidth, capabilities offered by 6G in unlicensed bands at THz. THz wireless systems are an emerging technology that opens new perspectives towards the integration of communications and sensing into portable devices for the pervasive upgrade from the Internet of Things to the Internet of Everything. The latest electronics and material science improvements represent the enabling technological advancements for the engineering of high-performing, energy saving, small footprint devices. In this rich and articulated scenario for IoT applications in industrial automation, healthcare, and ambient intelligence, it is very important to deeply analyze the propagation mechanisms of THz signals and to develop new materials and components to make feasible and reliable the integration of communications and sensing at THz. The multipath characterization is very important for Industrial applications, where UWB communications in THz unlicensed bands enable the development of joint sensing-communications-localization services by the same THz system acting as a “distributed” radar-like system. However, THz technology is not yet mature enough to be commercially viable. This project aims at investigating the possibilities of end-to-end THz communication systems, as enabled by the novel graphene-based technologies, by developing a robust simulation framework for the integrated THz communication system. Because of excellent electrical, thermal, and mechanical properties, as well as its tunable electromagnetic (EM) behaviour, graphene has been regarded as the most valuable material for the interaction with THz frequency EM radiation since its discovery. The project’s overall objective is to investigate the ultimate performance of graphene-based electronic components to support integrated THz communications and sensing for future 6G networks. Components will be optimized by simulations that will incorporate newly developed channel models obtained through dedicated measurement campaigns within the project. The optimization of graphene-based components will provide significant energy savings, making THz technology green and sustainable. Both design methodologies and complete simulation tools realized within the project will be made available to the scientific and industrial communities to support the design of future innovative components and materials for THz communications and sensing in the 6G era.