The Quest for Ultimate Electromagnetics using Spatial Transformations (QUEST)

From Marconi's first transatlantic wireless transmission through Sir Henry Tizard's radar to modern cellular communications, the rapid advance of applied electromagnetics during the 20th century has changed our world. Now, in the 21st century, a new revolution in exploiting electromagnetism (EM) is emerging; one that brings together two recent developments: spatial transformations and the design and fabrication of novel electromagnetic materials. The idea of spatial transformations (ST) is to provide entirely fresh solutions to the distribution of the spatial arrangement of materials so as to enable new ways to manipulate the emission, propagation and absorption of EM radiation. This goes far beyond what can be accomplished with traditional materials in the form of lenses and mirrors, requiring both conventional materials and also those with properties that do not exist in nature (i.e., metamaterials). ST are at the heart of exciting ideas such as invisibility cloaking and optical illusion. To make the required exotic materials in large quantities, modern fabrication techniques will be needed, including the use of nano-composites and graded-index coatings. The material palette can be further widened by the inclusion of active metamaterials and superconducting dielectric composites. As an example of the type of application one may envisage, there is an increasing demand for wireless communications anywhere and at any time. However, many environments such as offices and crowded shopping centres contain obstacles and scatterers that lead to signals being 'confused'. Signals either reach places they ideally should not, or worse, are not accessible where they are required. Current methods try to deal with these problems by additional signal processing of the received signals, but this can only be seen as an interim fix. A more resilient solution would be to modify the local EM environment so as to ensure quality reception at any given location by, for example, making certain obstacles or scatterers 'invisible'. Materials and devices based upon the concept of STs offer the exciting prospect of warping electromagnetic space so as to overcome problems due to obstacles and scatterers. Such applications are at the heart of the QUEST project. We will build and demonstrate several devices in collaboration with defence, aerospace and communication stakeholders in the areas of healthcare, security, energy and the digital economy. QUEST solutions will place the UK in a leading position in this exciting area, pushing the conceptual boundaries whilst at the same time exploring the practical problems of design and manufacturability.The Programme Grant will bring together a new grouping of leading UK experimentalists and theorists from physics, materials science and electronic engineering to work together on the exciting opportunities and challenges emerging in the area of spatial transformations (STs) and electromagnetism (EM). The potential of the underlying ST approaches however have much wider applicability than cloaking alone, in arguably more important applications that span communications, energy transfer, sensors and security. However, theory and concepts are outstripping practical demonstration and testing, leading to a mismatch in what may be theorised and computed and what can be realised for impact in society and commerce. We contend that the timing is now ideal for UK theorists, modellers, manufacturers and engineers to work together to maintain the UK strength in this field, with a clear focus on the reduction to practice and demonstration of potentially radical new concepts and devices.

There is now widespread agreement that the UK economy would benefit from a re-balancing towards high-technology manufacturing so as to be more resilient to downturns in the financial markets. This project is designed to contribute to this goal by developing new and improved applications for utilising the electromagnetic spectrum, from the radio communication and radar industries in the lower frequency spectrum in the shorter timescales, to the optical communication and optical device industries at higher frequencies in the long term. Research into electromagnetics already supports some of the most successful companies in the UK economy (e.g. BAE Systems and QinetiQ). The application of radio alone contributes in excess of 13 billion to UK GDP and supports more than 400,000 jobs; the mobile communications sector directly employs around 164,000 people in the UK . Indeed, the UK telecommunications industry, an industry totally based on the ability to control the propagation of electromagnetic waves through a medium, had a turnover of 50.4 billion (three times as much as the UK's electricity, gas and water supply industries combined in terms of Gross Value Added (GVA)). A recent report estimated that the continued adoption and exploitation of electromagnetics would generate 35 billion of GVA to the UK economy over the next five to seven years. The concept of spatial transformations has an important part to play in the future growth of these industries. For example, spatial transformations will find application to drastically improve spectrum efficiency and signal quality for mobile radio communication, especially in electromagnetically complex and dense environments such as modern cities, by providing be-spoke antennae that are conformal and sympathetic to the local environment. In another application, airport communications can be electromagnetically masked (to be invisible ) in certain directions in order to render the link between an airplane and the control tower more secure. Spatial transformations also provide an opportunity to optimise the performance of thin, broadband absorbers for communication and radar application, to enhance the efficiency and range of wireless electricity technologies, to correct for spherical aberration in lenses, and to improve the performance of solar-cells by wider bandwidth anti-reflection coatings. Liaison with beneficiaries and dissemination will be spearheaded by the Investigators in collaboration with the Management Board (MB) and the Advisory Board (AB) and Industrial Steering Group (ISG). Both AB and ISG is a special interest group consisting of leading academics and representatives of all industrial partners associated with QUEST, with representation from leading users and manufacturers of electromagnetc devices including dstl, QinetiQ, BAE Systems, NPL and Cobham/ERA. In all these application areas, we will heighten public understanding. We will also publish details of the project on our web sites and jointly contribute to press releases and publications released by our respective press offices. We will encourage the investigators to engage with the public and the stakeholder by having interviews, round table discussion and exhibition in science festivals in order to raise the status of the field in the UK and encourage the generation of a significant number of young scientists with the skills to carry forward and diversify the myriad economic and social opportunities promised by spatial transformations.