Driving Closer to Autonomous Cars – Arralis & Tyndall sign €400k deal

Leading Irish tech manufacturer, Arralis, has entered into a €400k research development agreement with Tyndall National Institute, to develop a next generation mmWave fabrication technology for use in applications such as autonomous vehicles, satellite communications, 5G and radar imaging.

Welcoming the collaboration and investment, Tyndall’s Senior Staff Scientist Dr James Rohan said, “We are delighted to work with Arralis on this exciting project which combines Tyndall’s micro-fabrication expertise in thick-film electrochemical simulation, processing, integration and testing with the design capabilities of Arralis for the rapidly developing mmWave devicemarket.”

Supported by Enterprise Ireland through the Innovation Partnership programme, the development of new Monolithic Microwave Integ rated Circuits, MMICs, is vital given the growth of data-centric traffic, increased demands on our current communications networks and future Internet of Things (IoT) application requirementsinclud ing autonomous vehicles and satellite communications.

“Our data-hungry society demands constant, uninterrupted access to more and more information, and this demand will only increase in the future. New cost-effective, high-volume and geometry-scaled mmWave manufacturing is needed to meet future IoT demands.  The partnership of two leaders in this area, Arralis and Tyndall, will enable us to take a step closer to global interconnectivity through new integrated mmWave technologies,” said Marie Bourke, Arralis Business Process Manager and Technical Programme Manager.

As autonomous vehicles require unimpeded data access to connected vehicles, Ka and W band wireless communications are essential. Ka band supports high data rates, device connectivity, data collection and traffic handling capacity at lower latency than current technologies, leading to the expectation that 5G will be up to 60 times faster than 4G networks.

“The combination of world-class research at Tyndall, and market leading manufacturing expertise of Arralis ensure that this will be a highly effective collaboration as well as a timely one, given the proposed testing of autonomous vehicles on Ireland’s road infrastructure  in the coming years. Tomorrow’s cars will be computers on wheels and will require Ka band mmWave technology to simplify and support the communication protocol between the car and its environment.  Arralis is a leader in the field of mmWave design and together with Tyndall, we will accelerate innovation in this and otherareas,” said Carlo Webster, Senior Strategic Business Development Executive at Tyndall National Institute.