Flexible electronics have been around for several decades and are the basis for electronic devices in applications that require bending, rolling, folding, and stretching, properties that cannot be fulfilled by conventional electronics. However, their emitted power levels are only in the range of up to 500mW and there is no current flexible technology that can satisfy upcoming needs like conformal antenna for avionic radars and light weight flexible antenna for satellite IoT that require power levels approaching or exceeding 10W. NANOMAT comes to fill in this emerging technological gap through the inauguration of the new domain of “Flexible power RF nanoelectronics”. An innovative heterogeneous technological platform comprising material and fabrication novelties in carbon-based electronics and thermoelectrics, wide band gap semiconductor based MMICs, RF MEMS and acoustic sensors will deliver flexible components and circuits. The concept will be demonstrated through two prototypes of escalating innovation and complexity, starting from a flexible hybrid proof of concept for satellite IoT at Ka-band and climaxing with a fully monolithic flexible power RF transceiver for next generation avionic radars at X-band. The NANOMAT consortium is made up from 12 partners from 9 European countries with a wide geographical spread. Half of the consortium are industrial entities, one a major global player and the rest dynamic upcoming or established SMEs thus it is an industrially driven proposition. It has strong interdisciplinary character from semiconducting material growth to technology and component fabrication and from electromagnetic and multi-scale physics simulation to system engineering and from machine learning to circularity and sustainability. The challenges posed, demand that the consortium works with state-of-the-art characterization methods but also improves them and create new ones when the need arises in this project. Starting TRL 3 and commencing TRL5.

The vision of NexaSphere is to create a system capable of facilitating a 3D network of networks. This framework seamlessly integrates multi-path transmission to enhance multi-connectivity in an energy-saving manner, bringing together spaceborne and airborne platforms with terrestrial infrastructure. The main goal is to deliver societal benefits to the future European landscape, with a particular focus on mobile transportation (including air mobility, railway, and automotive sectors), smart cities, and communities beyond the year 2030. NexaSphere's primary objective is to conceptualize and develop advanced hardware prototypes and software algorithms for a sustainable multi-connected 3D network. This network will integrate radio and wireless-optical technologies, and enabling network orchestration through AI-driven programmability. Additionally, NexaSphere aims to extend the edge-cloud continuum into space, creating a Radio & Wireless-Optical Connectivity Continuum from short-range to long-range. By integrating scalable simulation models in a hardware-in-the-loop approach and conducting in-lab and relevant environment validation, NexaSphere seeks to demonstrate proof-of-concept for this TN/NTN unified network architecture, targeting a Technology Readiness Level (TRL) of 4-5. These demonstrations will showcase the benefits of the proposed architecture, particularly within the mobile transportation sector, covering aeronautics, railway, and automotive industries.