Just to be clear, I’m not an employee of Techconnect organization, but I’m a user of this forum and a great fan, and I try to disseminate my true motivation with that kind of even both internally and externally.
This year was the third time in three that we participated to Techconnect Summit (http://www.techconnect.org/Summit2008/). If you have been there this week of June 2008 in Boston, you certainly heard about the “photonic guitar”. Thanks to Raman Kashyap, the inventor and to Pierre-Matthieu Demizieux, his student, that was us (http://techupdateunivalor.wordpress.com/2008/02/25/88/)!
If you were not able to be there, you should plan next year. Why’s that? First of all, you will be able to see another great invention from one of the institutions Univalor serves! But more importantly, whatever you are involved in technology transfer from university or other organization, or an industry player or an investor, that’s certainly the kind of place you want to be every year. In a very compact 2-3 days show, you will be able to meet with representatives from the industry whom, through their vision of the future of their company, will be able to define areas of interests. You will be able to meet with investors in your new technology based venture. You will be able to meet with researchers and technology transfer professionals to access worldclass technologies and R&D capabilities. All of the above having in common the fact that they consider innovation as a driver for growth.
Let’s hope that there will be more and more initiatives such as Techconnect Summit so we can streamline the process of technolgoy transfer. It could be in many ways, area or domain specific, it could be virtual as well.
And if you are skeptical about such match-making conference, I am pretty sure you will find organizations, such as ours, that made deals following such an event. More than that, I made friends almost all over the world!
Heard about CRLH leaky wave antennas? They are capable to radiate from backfire to endfire.
Prof. Christophe Caloz, École Polytechnique de Montreal, and Shulabh Gupta have been developped a new spectrogram analyzer which uses the unique properties of CRLH antennas.
This system is time and frequency independent and enables monitoring, in real-time, UWB signals. Then, it opens doors to faster and more reliable signal measurement and characterization.
This system is fully tested and characterized with a first prototype and we’re looking for an industrial partner interested in moving to commercialization. Interested?
Further info is also available on Flintbox…
After Photonics West, AUTM, and WBT, we’ll be featuring 5 of our technologies at the TechConnect Summit 2008
The TechConnect Summit is focused on bringing together the world’s top technology transfer offices, companies, and investment firms to locate the most promising technologies and early stage companies from across the globe.
It’ll be the third time that we’re going to participate in this summit. This is THE place to make great contacts within universities, venture capitalists and companies (Just look at their Review Board…). We recomment everyone to go, but… DON’T forget your business cards!
After Photonics West and AUTM, we’ll be featuring 2 other technologies at the WBT showcase (Arlington (TX), March 26 and 27).
1 – Metamaterial Smart Antenna for MIMO
We’ll be presenting an adaptive antenna for MIMO developed at Ecole Polytechnique by Prof. Christophe Caloz and his team. Based on the non-usual properties of metamaterials, this innovation discloses a novel method of dynamically optimizing in real-time wireless communications. Van-Hoang Nguyen, will be presenting this project.
2 – Now you can build Direct Freeform 3D Microstructures
We’ll be also featuring a new method of direct writing to build 3D microstructures.
Developed at Ecole Polytechnique and INRS, it offers to solution to build in real time and in the ambiant condition complex microstructures. Louis Lebel Laberge will be presenting the project and will show a video of the process
To address the well-known problems of integrated millimeter-wave antennas at 60 GHz and above, a novel type of dielectric antenna was developed by Ph.D. student Andreas Patrovsky and Prof. Ke Wu at the Poly-Grames research center, Ecole Polytechnique of Montreal.
One major issue is the amount of electromagnetic energy that is actually radiated, the so-called radiation efficiency. Other antennas are metal-based and achieve only low efficiencies (strong influence of the skin effect), whereas our dielectric antenna uses a dielectric substrate to guide and radiate the electromagnetic energy efficiently. The radiation efficiency is about 70 % to 80 %, mostly depending on the used substrate material.
A high antenna directivity, i.e. focus of the antenna beam, is required to bridge longer distances up to 10 meters due to the high free space path loss at 60 GHz. Increased directivity is also necessary to reduce interference from waves reflected at walls and other objects, which strongly reduce the data transfer capacity of the wireless link. In contrast to common printed microstrip patch or dipole antennas, our antenna easily attains customizable 10 dBi to 20 dBi directivity through a simple and inexpensive planar lens. Low input return loss is achieved in a bandwidth of at least 20 % – enough to cover the entire unlicensed 60-GHz band.
Last but not least, the antenna must be capable of being integrated and fabricated at low cost. Compatibility with millimeter-wave MMICs is particularly important. As shown in the attached graphic, MMICs can simply be placed on top of the used substrate and connected by a CPW input, so that the planar structure allows for low-cost mass production. Since our antenna is compatible with high-permittivity substrates like silicon, it is also possible to fabricate the antenna and the MMIC on the same wafer.
Prof. Yves-Alain Peter, École Polytechnique de Montréal, developed a tunable fiber laser able to tune over the C-Band.
This system uses a Fabry-Perot cavity actuated by an electrostatic comb drive, developed by Yves-Alain as well, to tune the fiber laser.
This allows a very compact integration, as well as large and fast tuning of wavelength.
This fiber laser finds applications in telecommunication, laser machining and bio-mechanical sensor using high quality integrated tunable fiber lasers.
Yves-Alain’s system is now protected by a US provisional patent application and we’re seeking an industrial partner interested in commercializing it. Further info is available on Flintbox. Interested in learning more?
We’ve already presented here Andreas Patrovsky and Ke Wu’s research results. They developed at the Poly-Grames Research Center at Ecole Polytechnique an antenna specifically designed for mmW communication systems (including the 60GHz to 94GHz band).
This week, Thomas and I are in the Silicon Valley, attending & exhibiting at Photonics West 2008 and touring companies arround for partnership opportunities. During the last years, we’ve received quite an important amount of technologies related to photonics, enough to consider being an exhibitor for the second year as a part of the Canadian Photonic Consortium (a very nice opportunity of exhibiting in such a great conference) in partnership with Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal and Universite Laval. First of all, it’s a unique opportunity to connect with colleagues from Quebec Province and Canada. Second, this is a good opportunity to connect with companies in search for growth or leadership through technology advantage. But overall, this is a great opportunity to make new friends, revisit the world and dream about its future. It is not limited to people we got used to meet. It is true also for people we just meet during a breakfast (Hi Gary!) or during a face-to-face meeting with a guy we’re in contact with a couple of years ago (Hi VK!). It’s also true for people willing to open their door and spend time to get to know each others. The take-away: “when we take the time, people take the time as weel”. We wish you welll during this Photonics’ week! If you are in San Jose, come to us at Booth6098. If you were not able to attend please feel free to contact us.
This tuneable delay system enables to create of both continuous and impulse delayed signals. It is suitable for any planar circuit implementation technology and operates on a carrier frequency between 1 and 100GHz (or more). This technology, already prototyped, is advantageous to countless areas from UWB to cellular communications including all areas of radio signal processing
Non confidential package available upon request.
Further info available on Flintbox
Other than at lower microwave frequencies, the dissipation loss at millimetre wave frequencies is an important challenge that can significantly degrade the link budget in wireless systems. Prof. Ke Wu and Andreas Patrovsky (Ph.D Candidate) developed a antenna specifically designed for millimeter waves communications (24GHz and above).
This antenna has been fully tested with a scaled prototype at 12GHz and could be quickly tested at higher frequencies (including the 60 GHz to 94GHz band).
Further information are available on flintbox.
Non confidential package available upon request.
