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Engineering and technology
- Optical fibre communications
- Electronic design
LiDAR – or Light Detection and Ranging – technology is popping up everywhere. Industry experts are predicting an ever-greater enabling role for LiDAR in everything from advanced driving support systems to autonomous driving, to autonomous mobility applications, to gas sensing, etc. The demand for the technology is at an all-time high, and it is expected to experience a steadily accelerating adoption across markets. NiteLiDAR will break new ground in LiDAR technology by allowing higher levels of integration including optical phased array based solid-state beam steering and on-chip frequency-modulated continuous-wave based ranging, thus moving away from mechanical components, which will bring down the cost of LiDAR. To achieve this, NiteLiDAR will leverage on beyond-state-of-the-art knowledge being generated around photonic integrated circuits (PIC) and electronic integrated circuits (EIC), while addressing current gaps, and tackling the paucity of knowledge around the largely underexploited LiDAR-on-a-chip technology. NiteLiDAR, therefore, creates a platform solution vouching for the European leadership in next-generation LiDAR technologies. The mission of NiteLiDAR is to train 10 Doctoral Candidates (DCs) with out-of-the-box thinking and an entrepreneurial mindset in the field of LiDAR technologies as a specific expertise, and photonic and electronic integration (i.e., semiconductor) skills and expertise in a broader perspective, which are KEY for the implementation of the EU Chips Act, and - wider - for the European semiconductor autonomy.