CODIFIANT

Communication systems for both civilian and military applications tend to cluster multiple standards and incorporate software reconfiguration techniques. The multiplication of standards, always more numerous, is in contradiction with the requirements of miniaturization of the terminals. To make the latter more compact, it may be envisaged to provide the transmission chain hardware reconfiguration capabilities to cover all communication protocols. Antennas and filters are the most critical extreme elements of the radiofrequency frontends with respect to miniaturization and agility, so the CODIFIANT project proposes to address this issue via an original approach of joint design of filter-antenna device. Indeed, rather than tackling the problems of miniaturization and reconfiguration by individual constitutive elements of the radiofrequency frontend, the project proposes a global approach of the filter-antenna subsystem present at the extremity of the frontends. The underlying strategy is then to share design constraints and find new combinations and compromises to optimize global performance. CODIFIANT is a fundamental research type project that aims at three main objectives and differentiating with respect to the state of the art. The first concerns the development of tools for analysis and joint design of filter-antenna device for their optimization. The second is the miniaturization of the filter-antenna device by rethinking and reorganizing the design options of the overall device (use of the fundamental limits of miniature antennas). A filter-antenna device smaller than the tenth of a wavelength will be searched. Finally, the last and most important objective of the project concerns the development of frequency reconfiguration properties of compact filter-antenna devices. It is based on the extension of the models and the co-design approach developed in static configuration. Frequency excursions of more than 25% of compact narrow band antenna devices (1 to 4 MHz band) will be targeted. The project is organized into five sub-projects: the first includes project coordination, dissemination and valorization; the second is dedicated to advanced tools for analysis and co-design of filter-antenna device; the third deals with the co-design of static compact filter-antenna device; the fourth concentrates the co-design developments of frequency agile antenna filter devices. The last is interested in the realization of demonstrators of filter antenna filter devices highlighting the progress made in the project. The total effort planned to carry out the work program is 101 people.month over a period of 36 months. The consortium brings together two reserch laboratories (CEA Leti, XLIM) whose fields of expertise are perfectly complementary and adapted to the research theme. CEA Leti and XLIM have been developing joint design approaches for RF front-ends since 2005. The two institutes have been cooperating more closely on the specific filter-antenna topic since 2012. This project is part of the thematic axis 3 "acoustic and radio waves" of the ASTRID 2019 call for projects and aims at developing tools for the co-design and the realization of compact and reconfigurable filter-antenna devices that will equip next generation of radio frequency terminals.