Electrical engineering
3DPIEZOMEMS
Microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) support the acceleration of existing microelectronic systems trends including edge computing, robotics & automation, Industry 4.0, mobility, biometrics, and augmented/virtual reality. In these applications, the performance of the current MEMS devices needs to be improved vastly in the field of latency, accuracy, sensitivity, energy efficiency, fail- operational level reliability and miniaturization. However, shortcomings in the current approaches to MEMS design limit the prospects. At the MEMS component level, sensing is achieved by static or resonant motion in mutual or perpendicular directions as the motion being measured. Currently, this directional behaviour require complex designs that adds to costs in manufacturability, increased device sizes and waste.
This project focuses on a disruptive new approach to fabricating MEMS components. The technology, called 3DPiezoMEMS, addresses the problem of simultaneous in- and out-of-plane element motion. This is enabled by depositing piezoelectric aluminium nitride (AlN) on the vertical and horizonal surfaces of a MEMS element, giving the design fully unhindered 3D-motion. Having fully integrated 3D-motion reduces MEMS element complexity, reducing overall the costs and size of MEMS devices. In addition, the use of PiezoMEMS brings significant power reduction for the actuation and sensing due to the intrinsic mechanical-electrical coupling behaviour of piezoelectric materials.
Contact: Pekka Kettunen, Innovation Advisor (ELEC)
A-GATE
Hyperspectral imaging technologies are expected to be used in our daily life, for example, for agriculture, food industry, surveillance, safety, environment and medicine applications. This A- GATE project aims to prepare the commercialisation of our newly-invented miniaturized spectrometers. The project will research the first-of-its-kind low-cost high-efficiency miniaturized hyperspectral imaging array sensors, and then bring industrial utilization and market exploitation to the researched hyperspectral imaging sensors for commercialisation preparation.
Contact: Pekka Kettunen, Innovation Advisor (ELEC)
ALDEL
The ALDEL project focuses on studying nanostructured erbium-doped films in silicon nitride slot waveguides for photonic applications. The devices we aim to create in the project can send the information in an optical form on the integrated silicon platform. The key benefits of our devices include small footprint, high power efficiency, and compatibility with modern microelectronics systems. Potential applications are optical transceivers, integrated ultrafast mode-locked lasers, navigation devices, point of care devices, sensing, etc.
Contact: Pekka Kettunen, Innovation Advisor (ELEC)
BATTERY MONETIZER
A huge automotive batteries boom is imminent in electric transportation. Besides that, various electricity grid, commercial and industrial, as well as residential needs drive a rapid growth of stationary batteries. The best way to get the most value out of a battery is to use it for multiple purposes efficiently. However, optimizing revenues from such multi-use is a difficult, continually repeating task. It is difficult because of uncertainties, various timescales, and numerous constraints plus alternative costs and incomes involved. Today, many batteries are used based on fixed plans and limited to a single service. This does not utilize the full potential of the battery, and natural resources consumed in producing the batteries are partly wasted. Our solution applies a novel combination of modelling and artificial intelligence to optimizing the usage plan of a battery for the day ahead. Our solution takes into account on one hand the requirements of the various markets or usages, and on the other hand the non-linear properties of the battery itself.
Contact: Pekka Kettunen, Innovation Advisor (ELEC)
DESIGN.AI
This R2B project focusses on algorithmic research for Automation tools assisting in the User interface design process. DESIGN.AI is an AI-based Assistant for UI designers. It revolutionizes the productivity and creativity of designers. It enables new paradigms for the design process to create self-adapting UIs leading to a substantially enhanced experience for all stakeholders.
Contact: Sami Ala-Luukko, Innovation Advisor (ELEC)
FACADES
The Façades project aims at developing the missing components for enabling AR-based real-estate listing and advertising in outdoor environments and finding the most suitable commercialization path. Technically, we will focus on AI-based outdoor 3D localization, including building façade detection, parsing and localization using the data collected from smartphones, e.g., video, GPS and motion data. With our inventions, it will become possible to precisely locate a property in a multistorey building (i.e., identifying the windows and balconies belonging to the property), and to automatically create insights into the property (e.g., orientation, illumination) and its surroundings (e.g., nearby services). To evaluate our business ideas, we will follow the human-centered design process to create two mobile AR applications based on our inventions and will conduct pilot studies together with Finnish real-estate agents. These AR applications are expected to assist real-estate agents in creating digital listings and advertisements and home seekers in searching and viewing the properties of interest on the spot.
Contact: Sami Ala-Luukko, Innovation Advisor (ELEC)
IMMUNATE
Immunate develops microscopy technology with the goal of significantly enhancing the adoptability of 3D cell culture in research and industry. Transitioning from conventional 2D culture to the 3D culture is expected to open new horizons for research and industrial processes, particularly, in the area of cancer-treatment development. Specifically, we aim to significantly enhance repeatability of 3D culture samples, and the applicability of 3D culture in cancer-drug discovery, screening of cancer-drug efficacy, and personalized cancer medicine. The technological realization is based on a software, and a device that can be provided as stand-alone, or as microscope add-on. Immunate is currently a research to business (R2B) project of Business Finland, and it is led by Aalto University and the University of Helsinki with spinoff ambitions in Q1/2023.
Contact: Pekka Kettunen, Innovation Advisor (ELEC)
MILLISCAN
Millimeter wave imaging is used to search for hidden objects in security screening applications. Millimeter waves penetrate ordinary clothing well and the short wavelength allows adequate resolution for personal inspection applications. The technique can detect both metallic and non-metallic objects. The MilliScan project is developing an imaging method that is much simpler to implement: the technology is based on a dispersive hologram connected to a high-speed integrated millimeter-wave transceiver and neural network. The neural network interprets complex reflection as images in real time.
The technology enables remarkably light mechanical implementation without moving parts, demanding installation work, or long start-up time. In the past, millimeter wave imaging has been used only in the most critical destinations, such as airports. The cost benefit of the new technology is significant, and the commercial outcome of the project is expected to find new markets where millimeter-wave imaging could not previously be introduced due to cost, size, or frequent maintenance required.
Contact: Pekka Kettunen, Innovation Advisor (ELEC)
NANOTHRUST
Compressed air systems are widely used in industry due to, among other things, their ease of use, operational safety and environmental friendliness, and compressed air can be considered one of the basic commodities essential for most industries. However, compressed air is the most expensive energy in industry - in large EU countries, industry uses up to 7-12% of all its electricity to produce compressed air. The project investigates the utilization of waste heat to produce compressed air.
Contact: Pekka Kettunen, Innovation Advisor (ELEC)
UCT-DC
The importance of information technology is ubiquitous in today’s society. Enormous amounts of data are being transmitted around the globe, and this data transmission is carried out mostly via fiber optic networks. Regarding the ever-increasing importance of data centers, the applications such as video streaming, virtual meetings, AI etc. are drastically increasing the required capacity of data centers. The needs for high bandwidth, low latency and low power consumption, and small footprint are becoming of utmost importance, which are difficult to meet in today’s data centers. Key components in data centers are optical transceivers, which detect, modulate, and generate light. However, the requirements of future data centers cannot be met without the development of new types of optical transceivers. Their size and power consumption need to be drastically reduced. In this project, we will investigate new types of high-speed transceivers based on Siphotonics, which have potential to meet the needs of future data centers.
Contact: Pekka Kettunen, Innovation Advisor (ELEC)