The main goal of RE-EMPOWERED was to develop and demonstrate solutions for the energy transition of local energy systems based on multi-energy microgrids, interconnecting multiple energy vectors.

To fulfil its objectives, RE-EMPOWERED project has developed novel tools (energy management systems, smart meter, digital tools for community engagement and tool’s interfacing, energy planning, power electronic converters, charging station, resilient structures, air quality monitoring) for complete energy solutions for islanded /isolated communities. The ecoToolset consists of 10 tools (ecoEMS, ecoMicrogrid, ecoDR, ecoPlatform, ecoConverter, ecoVehicle, ecoMonitor, ecoResilience, ecoCommunity, ecoPlanning) that were developed and lab validated using advanced methods such as Hardware in the Loop and Digital Twin.  Next, the tools were successfully demonstrated in four demo sites complementary in terms of size, primary resources and technical maturity; two in Europe (Bornholm in Denmark and Kythnos/Gaidouromantra in Greece), and two in India (Ghoramara and Keonjhar).

The electrification of more than 700 households, the significant CO2 emission reductions at the installations, the commercialization of ecoMicrogrid tool and the formation of a citizen energy community in India prove the significant contribution of the project to the energy transition, the improvement of living conditions and the citizen engagement.

RE-EMPOWERED project has significantly enhanced citizens engagement through 41 training activities. Moreover, 13 scientific journal papers and 16 scientific conference papers were published, while 1 patent was also filed. Overall, the project’s results have been disseminated in more than 80 events.

More information can be found at RE-EMPOWERED website https://reempowered-h2020.com/

Launch Year: 2022
End Year: 2024

i-TRIER addresses the challenges associated with the effectiveness and efficiency of Emergency Medical Services (EMS) and Civil Protection agencies decision making, management and response to major emergencies, either due to natural disasters or man-made incidents, supporting the development of novel, modular and highly flexible triage management system.

i-TRIER, being in line with the above main objectives of the iProcureSecurity PCP, brings as a legacy one of the very first fully digitized Triage Solution (ICCS Digital Triage Solution), fully qualified Common Operating, Command and Control, Decision Support Picture (CS Group, CRIMSON) and Computer Aided Dispatch (Beta80 Life1st) systems and a unique toolkit of Hospital Management Systems (ERC Avicenna) providing interoperability solutions for unifying Emergency and Victim Tracking data domains with the health-data related ones. i-TRIER brings also at the forefront the citizens through the optimized management of their personal health record (PHR) and by securely and transparently providing access to it by EMS. A modular, open, interoperable yet strongly integrated solution will be provided, through advancements in existing functionalities both in hardware and software components, responding to the requirements of iProcureSecurity PCP.

In this framework, i-TRIER will establish a flexible interoperability framework, based on the decentralized data-mesh architecture, integrating the User Management, Emergency, Victim Tracking and Health data domains through an efficient streaming service in the Cloud, supporting also the local exchange of information to ensure robustness.

Towards the design, prototyping and testing of the i-TRIER solution, the technology providers will be supported by experts (UPO) throughout its development stages, ensuring that KPIs related to the MCI response will be actually improved.  i-TRIER has established an efficient workplan, having at its heart a co-creation process to involve the procurers in all phases of solution design and evaluation, while it combines all the necessary steps in order to proceed to a successful pilot testing.

i-TRIER is part of the iProcureSecurity PCP project that has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme.

[January 2021 – December 2023]

PCRL coordinated the AEOLUS Project. AEOLUS, leveraging on the experience of its partners on novel photonic components (e.g. broadband thermal emitter, graphene photodetector), demonstrated in an operational environment (TRL 7) an affordable, miniaturised, multi-gas (10 – 15 gases) sensor based on highly integrated photonic chips in the mid-IR (3 μm – 10 μm). AEOLUS sensors are cloud connected, deployed in an existing IoT testbed, while the plethora of data acquired will be used to develop deep learning algorithms for chemometric analysis. AEOLUS sensing system demonstrated the calculation and accurate prediction of indoor and outdoor air quality, greenhouse gases concentration, and toxic gas leakages detection. The sensing system provides many functionalities for the end-user such as real-time alerts, notifications, visualized reports and overlays while it will allow taking automatic actions where they are needed. AEOLUS also demonstrated how user engagement can be promoted through its system, employing gamification concepts and incentivise the end users. AEOLUS targets for a cheap portable sensor, tested for its interoperability, with many functionalities and quality of life services, targeting a very wide range of applications to ensure its widespread deployment. The proliferation of the AEOLUS sensor in the community acts in an exponential manner (leveraging Big Data techniques and Deep Learning algorithms), further enhancing the system’s accuracy and speed. AEOLUS sensing system is completely in line with its industrial partners’ roadmaps and exploitation plans and it is foreseen to have a product in the market 0-2 years from the end of the project. Ultimately, the acquired data and analysis were made available to policy-makers and stakeholders, so that AEOLUS has a far-reaching impact in EU’s citizens life.

Read the project’s final press release here.

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under grant agreement No 101017186 and it is an initiative of the Photonics Public Private Partnership.

[January 2021 – December 2023]

PCRL coordinated the PICaboo Project. The rapid expansion of cloud applications, 5G, and IoT pushed modern networks to their limits, requiring higher capacity and lower latency. Photonic integration emerged as a key enabling technology to address these challenges and introduce new products and services to the market.

PICaboo developed novel building blocks on the InP PIC platform of TUe and III-V Lab, following the generic foundry model to enhance PIC performance and reduce development costs. Compact models of these building blocks were created and compiled into PDK-compatible libraries, enabling designers to explore their use across a wide range of applications and maximizing their exploitation potential.

PICaboo’s PIC demonstrators transformed optical metro and access networks by improving speed, reducing footprint, lowering power consumption, and cutting costs. The high-speed EAM-based transmitters incorporated all-optical equalization functionality on-chip, scaling PON line rates to 50/100Gb/s while minimizing the need for electronic signal pre-processing to meet the 29dB power budget within dispersion limits.

Both single EAM-MZM and coherent EAM-IQM transmitter PICs achieved significant power consumption reductions—50% and 65%, respectively, compared to 50G EML solutions—while lowering overall costs by nearly 20%. Additionally, the dual-polarization coherent receiver PIC featured integrated reset-free phase and polarization control, allowing complex DSP functions to be performed directly in the optical domain. This led to power consumption reductions of over 30% and cost benefits of 3.6x compared to standard coherent transceivers, thanks to simplified direct detection DSPs and low-cost tunable lasers. These advancements positioned PICaboo as an attractive technology for the 20-80km DCI range.

Exploitation of PIC demonstrators was pursued by NOKIA and ADVA, while VLC leveraged the developed PDK libraries to facilitate the adoption of PICaboo building blocks by end-users.

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under grant agreement No 101017114 and it is an initiative of the Photonics Public Private Partnership.

[November 2020 – October 2023]

PCRL coordinated the Int5Gent Project. Int5Gent focused on integrating innovative data plane technology building blocks within a flexible 5G network resource, slice, and application orchestration framework, providing a comprehensive 5G system platform for validating advanced 5G services and IoT solutions.

The project built upon a suite of innovative 5G technological solutions spanning hardware, software, and networking systems. These solutions had been conceptualized and developed under the latest 5GPPP initiative projects and were further advanced to TRL-7 and beyond. It also combined novel and state-of-the-art solutions to further enhance the capabilities and maturity of cutting-edge 5G core technologies, fostering the creation of an innovative 5G ecosystem.

A selection of the developed and implemented technologies included flexible multi-RAT baseband signal processing, beam steering, mmWave technology solutions at 60GHz and 150GHz, hardware-based edge processors with TSN and GPU processing capabilities, innovative 5G terminals, and elastic SDN-based photonic data transport.

The integration of these technology blocks was carried out within a holistic 5G architecture that promoted edge processing. The architecture was orchestrated by an NFVO-compatible framework with edge node extensions at the network layer and an overlay vertical services application orchestrator at the user plane layer.

The complete platform was deployed across two extensive testbeds, which included actual field-deployed segments managed by the network operators of the consortium. The validation and demonstration testbeds hosted three use case scenarios, covering services for multiple vertical sectors as well as innovative applications for smart IoT networked devices. These use cases were designed to showcase the benefits of the adopted technologies, particularly in terms of increased bandwidth, low latency, and high reliability. Furthermore, they created new market opportunities, especially for the participating SMEs, by facilitating pilot validation of their offered solutions.

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme and it is an initiative of the Photonics Public Private Partnership

[January 2020 – December 2023]

PCRL coordinated the SEER Project. SEER was an Innovation Action that aimed to develop smart self-monitoring composite tools, capable of measuring process and material parameters and, thus, providing real-time process control with unprecedented reliability. The SEER consortium achieved this by:

1. developing miniature photonic sensors,
2. embedding those sensors in the tool using through-the-thickness techniques that minimized alteration of the tool’s structural integrity, and
3. optimizing the manufacturing control system through the implementation of a prototype process monitoring, optimization, and process control unit.

SEER adopted a multi-sensor approach that comprised a temperature, refractive index, and pressure sensor, all operating in the near-infrared and integrated on a miniature photonic integrated circuit (PIC). The SEER solution was compatible with and optimized existing composite manufacturing methods. Its reuse for several resin curing cycles increased efficiency and saved resources. The embedded PIC sensors in a reusable tool addressed preprocessing challenges and used acquired raw data for process optimization through theoretical models and machine learning algorithms. This established a link between sensor data, material state models, process parameters, and tool degradation for each tool.

This approach enabled efficient preventive maintenance with minimal effort and provided insights for better tool design. Finally, the acquired data from quality testing of cured parts optimized process control, enhancing quality yield and providing a part quality fingerprint.

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme. Grant agreement No. 871875.

[January 2020 – December 2022]

PCRL participated in the NEBULA Project. NEBULA aimed to provide the foundations for a common future-proof transceiver technology platform with ultra-high bandwidth capabilities, offered by a CMOS-compatible toolkit and tailored to meet performance, cost, and energy metrics in both inter-DCI coherent and intra-DCI ASIC co-packaged optics.

NEBULA invested in the established bandwidth- and energy-saving credentials of plasmonic modulator solutions, combined with the functional digital processing portfolio of neuromorphic optical reservoir computing engines, to shape the next major disruption in transceiver evolution. These technologies were tailored into System-in-Package prototype assemblies designed to meet the demanding requirements of both inter- and intra-DCI segments.

NEBULA targeted the demonstration of:

i) a fully functional 8-channel 112Gbaud 16QAM C-band transceiver prototype, offering an aggregate capacity of 3.2Tbps while consuming only 2.65W per single 400Gbps wavelength—achieving an energy efficiency of just 6.625pJ/bit and delivering energy savings of 93% compared to current 200Gbps, 19W-consuming pluggable optics, and

ii) a fully functional sub-Volt 8-channel 112Gbaud PAM4 O-band transmitter co-packaged with a data-generating ASIC from Mellanox, offering a 1.6Tbps aggregate capacity with up to 37% energy savings compared to the estimated power requirements of equivalent Si-photonic-based co-packaged solutions.

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under Grant Agreement No. 871658 and it is an initiative of the Photonics Public Private Partnership

[January 2020 – December 2022]

PCRL coordinated the POETICS Project. POETICS was an H2020 Research and Innovation project funded by the European Union, aiming to advance optical interconnect technology by enhancing performance, functionality, and cost efficiency, enabling Datacenter (DC) networks to scale and 5G wired infrastructures to expand.

Achieving terabit-capacity optical interconnects required a paradigm shift in packaging approaches. The electrical interconnect distance between the optical engine (OE) and the digital switching chip had to be minimized, while signal conditioning chips and unnecessary components—such as sockets that would otherwise increase power consumption and degrade signal integrity—needed to be removed. It also demanded the integration of the right combination of photonic and electronic technologies to deliver high-performance, low-cost, and energy-efficient optical engines.

POETICS developed novel terabit optical engines and optical switching circuits, co-packaging them with digital switching chips to create Multi-Chip Modules (MCM) for next-generation switching equipment with capacities exceeding 12.8 Tb/s and high energy efficiency, aligning with vendor roadmaps.

To achieve these goals, POETICS utilized SiGe BiCMOS, InP, PolyBoard, and TriPleX technologies, relying on hybrid integration to select and combine the best-performing components. The specific targets of POETICS included the development of:

MCM coherent 64 Gbaud OEs with up to 600 Gb/s capacity for DC interconnect applications, supporting 80 – 120 km reach in accordance with the 400G-ZR specification.

MCMs with 1.6 Tb/s OEs based on 8-fold InP-EML arrays (200 Gb/s per lane) and PolyBoard with parallel SMFs, aligned with the PSM/DR specification for 500 m – 2 km intra-DC connectivity;

MCMs with 1.6 Tb/s OEs based on 8-fold InP-EML arrays (200 Gb/s per lane) and 3D PolyBoard with duplex MCFs for 5G optical fronthaul applications;

A low-power-consumption 3D Benes optical switch;

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme and it is an initiative of the Photonics Public Private Partnership

[December 2019 – November 2023]

PCRL coordinated the TWILIGHT Project. The rise of IoT, 5G, and cloud applications led to a massive increase in datacenter traffic, driving demand for 400GbE and the ratification of 800GbE and 1.6T standards, which were expected between 2013 and 2015. Datacenter operators had to keep pace with increasing speeds while managing the rising power consumption required for airflow management and cooling. Additionally, they needed to address the extensive interconnectivity between servers and switches required for 5G ultra-low latency applications.

100Gb/s per lane became the next step for realizing 800GbE modules, marking the transition from pluggable optics to co-packaged optics with ASICs, paving the way to 1.6T and beyond. TWILIGHT aimed to leverage InP membranes and InP-HBT electronics at unprecedentedly close distances (<20μm) to unlock the full speed potential of its high-performance components and enable 112Gbaud per lane.

Through wafer-scale bonding, high-accuracy assembly, and co-packaging concepts, TWILIGHT’s optoelectronic engines achieved capacities of up to 1.6T. Selective area growth was utilized to develop C-band and O-band EMLs and UTC photodiodes, integrating them with echelle gratings on the same system-on-chip platform. The adaptation of the SAG layer stack enabled the development of polarization-insensitive SOAs, allowing for complex functionalities on-chip.

TWILIGHT leveraged analog bandwidth interleaving to interface its transceivers with next-generation 112G SERDES and developed analog (de)multiplexers, >110GHz linear drivers, and 100GHz TIAs. Additionally, it utilized PI-SOAs to create 4×4 and 16×16 optical space switches with nanosecond latency and a >50% smaller footprint.

The O-band and C-band SiP transceiver demonstrators achieved up to 72% and 74% power consumption savings, respectively, compared to established technologies. They targeted the datacenter market (2–10 km) and DCI (<40 km) at an estimated cost of 0.89€/Gb/s. TWILIGHT’s technologies were exploited through its industrial partner, MLNX.

TWILIGHT is a 4-year Horizon 2020 ICT project funded by the European Commission under the Photonics Public Private Partnership (PPP)

[January 2018 – June 2021]

PCRL coordinated the 3PEAT project. 3PEAT developed a powerful photonic integration technology with all size, functionality and quality credentials in order to help a broad range of optical applications like optical switching and remote sensing, to achieve a strong commercial impact. In order to do so, the project introduced a fully functional 3D photonic integration platform based on the use of multiple waveguiding layers and vertical couplers in a polymer technology (PolyBoard), as a means to disrupt the integration scale and functionality. Moreover, 3PEAT combined this powerful 3D photonic technology with a silicon-nitride platform (TriPleX), via the development of a methodology for the deposition and processing of multilayer polymers inside etched windows on TriPleX chips. In parallel with the development of this hybrid 3D technology, 3PeaT brought a number of key innovations at the integration and component level relating to:

a) the heterogeneous integration of PZT films on TriPleX platform for development of phase shifters and switches for operation up to 50 MHz,

b) the development of a disruptive external cavity laser on the same platform with linewidth less than 1 kHz,

c) the development for the first time of an integrated circulator on PolyBoard with isolation more than 25 dB, and

d) the development of flexible types of PolyBoards for the purpose of physical interconnection of other PICs. This enormous breadth of innovations can remove the current limitations and unleash the full potential of optical switching and remote sensing and ranging applications. The main switching module that was fabricated was a 36×36 optical switch with 20 ns switching time and possibility for power and cost savings of almost 95% compared to standard electronic solutions. The main sensing module on the other hand was a disruptive Laser Doppler Vibrometer (LDV) with all of its optical units, including its optical beam scanning unit, integrated on a very large, hybrid 3D PIC.