CAREER: Frequency Agile Real-Time Reconfigurable RF Analog Co-Processor Design Leveraging Engineered Nanoparticle and 3D Printing

The demand for high speed, reliable, and high data rate transmission are continuously increasing, and emerging upscaled spectrum and efficient spectrum utilization are key methodologies to support those urgent needs. However, the new spectrum with wide instantaneous bands brings unprecedented challenges for filters design, high performance analog to digital converters design, and digital signal processors design in conventional hardware systems.

Therefore, this project aims to investigate reconfigurable real-time radio frequency (RF) analog co-processor in low-cost compact form factor to reduce the processing load in digital domain, which can accelerate computation speed, save the energy consumption, and reduce the overall system cost. The RF analog co-processor will lead to new solutions for developing future communication and computing hardware platforms, and the research outcome can be directly applied to radar, 5G/6G/NextG wireless communications, autonomous driving, internet of things (IoT), quantum computing, AI, machine learning, wireless sensing, smart city, smart health, and smart living.

In addition, leveraging advanced 3D printing and phase-changing nanoparticle-controlled composite ink development for compact printable RF co-processor design will pave the way towards novel low-cost fast-paced design methodology in RF/microwave components, circuit, and wireless system with new features and high degrees of flexibility, tunability and adaptability. The education and outreach effort in this project will broaden the participation of students in HBCU in the engineering fields, both locally and across the nation.

Furthermore, the model of research and education plan in this project will be excellent resource to help other HBCUs generate impacts in K-12, undergraduate, and graduate education, expanding the pool of multi-disciplinary talent for STEM workforce development in the U.S.

The overarching goal of this CAREER project is to investigate reconfigurable real-time RF analog co-processor circuits in low-cost compact form factor by developing novel composite film with configurable dielectric characteristic and incorporating 3D printing technique. To be specific: 1) An RF analog co-processor will be developed to perform configurable mathematical operations directly at its electromagnetic waveform domain to relax high computational load in digital signal processing. 2) A film with configurable dielectric property will be developed by manipulating the shape, size, and filling factor of phase-changing nanoparticles in carrier matrix material to achieve frequency-tunable RF analog co-processor. 3) With the printable phase-changing composite ink, a simultaneous metal-dielectric 3D printing technique will be leveraged to fabricate the frequency-configurable RF analog co-processor in 3D compact form factor with low cost.

The RF real-time configurable analog signal co-processor features the following advantages to cater the needs of high-date-rate transmission and high-speed computation with low energy consumption: a) It processes the signals directly at RF frequency in analog domain before converting them to digital domain, which accelerates the computing speed. b) It relaxes the processing demand of spectrum sensing, signal transformation, mathematical operation, signal modulation, frequency conversion, and analog/digital conversion, which reduces power consumption in digital signal processing. c) The novel printable composite material and the advanced 3D printing technique enable designs with light weight, compact size, and low cost, which facilitates the integration of these designs in complex systems.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.