Projects
Project Lead
Project Duration
2024 - 2025
Project Summary
The SatNEx V Call-off Order 9 WI Y4.7 "Direct Position Determination in Satellite Swarms" is funded by the European Space Agency and organised by the Centre Tecnològic de Telecomunicacions de Catalunya (CTTC).
In this cooperation project between JMU Würzburg and ITIS GmbH at the Universität der Bundeswehr München, Direction of Arrival (DoA) methods for estimating the location of a transmitter on earth using a satellite swarm are derived and evaluated.
Project Lead
Prof. Dr. Guido Dietl and Prof. Dr. Marco Schmidt
Project Duration
2023 - 2026
Project Summary
The "Collaborative project UWE-5: Student training project to investigate the integration of nanosatellites in 5G networks; subproject: satellite system and communication software" (Universität Würzburg's Experimentalsatellit-5, UWE-5) is funded by the Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Action.
In this cooperation project between JMU Würzburg and BTU Cottbus-Senftenberg, two nanosatellites are being developed for student training. Extended by a novel communication system, the integration of the satellites into 5G networks of the future will be investigated.
More details about the project can be found under the following link:
https://www.informatik.uni-wuerzburg.de/uwe5/
Project Lead
Prof. Dr. Guido Dietl (previously Prof. Dr. Sergio Montenegro)
Project Duration
2021 - 2025
Project Summary
The project "Multifunctional antenna films with AI-supported design for satellite communication in the automotive sector; subproject: AI-supported design" (Multifunktionale Antennenfolien mit KI-gestütztem Entwurf zur Satellitenkommunikation im Automobilbereich, MAKISA) is funded by the Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Action and is a cooperation project between JMU Würzburg and TU Dresden.
The goal of the project is to develop phased-array antennas for the automotive sector that can be applied to vehicle surfaces as part of an adhesive film. To meet the specific requirements for antenna geometry, the design of the antenna structures will be supported by artificial intelligence.
Two-way communication between automobiles and satellites presents unique challenges: Since both communication partners are constantly in motion, the vehicle's antenna technology must be able to transmit signals in different directions and quickly adjust its alignment. At the same time, the strong directionality of the transmissions must be maintained to keep the required transmission power as low as possible. Mechanically aligned, rotatable antennas cannot sufficiently meet the high demands for precision and speed. Instead, phased-array antennas enable very fast and precise signal alignment through beamforming.
To integrate these antennas into vehicles easily and flexibly, they are applied to carrier films that can be adhered to any surface—including non-planar ones. This results in numerous possible configurations with different transmission and directional characteristics. In particular, for curved antennas in varying spatial orientations, these properties can only be determined analytically with significant mathematical effort. Therefore, machine learning will be used to predict these properties as accurately as possible.
Project Lead
Project Duration
2019 - 2021
Project Summary
The research project “Energy Efficient Firefly Synchronisation” (EnEFiS) develops and investigates synchronisation algorithms for energy efficient meshed networks. Energy efficiency is of special interest because it results in networks with high battery lifes and low maintenance costs. The focus with respect to synchronisation lies on self-organised and decentralised synchronisation methods like, e.g., the firefly synchronisation algorithm which is based on pulse-coupled oscillators and is motivated by nature where firefly swarms synchronise in a similar way.
The following movies show a simulation and a hardware implementation of a communications network whose nodes are synchronised based on the firefly synchronisation algorithm.
