Subject Area: Engineering
Project Title: Advanced Antenna Technology for a Smart World
Project Coordinator: Prof Kwai-man Luk (CityU)
Abstract
Antenna is a critical technology for any wireless system such as wireless communications, navigation, remote sensing, automotive radars, wireless powering, millimeter-wave security screening at airports, microwave medical imaging, Internet of Things (IoT), broadband internet, etc. The global antenna market is forecasted to experience significant growth in the coming decade owing to the increasing demands for faster and more reliable and secure wireless connectivity. To meet the demands and challenges ahead, we are determined to leverage our existing international leading expertise to revolutionize the antenna technologies. The AoE project will cover the whole radio frequency spectrum for future wireless systems, including radio frequency (RF), microwave, millimeter wave and terahertz wave. We take a holistic approach to tackle the tremendous existing and emerging needs. In next-generation mobile communications, Smart Electromagnetic Surfaces will efficiently distribute the wireless signal received from the Transparent Antennas. A plethora of Transparent Antennas can ameliorate our smart cities by wirelessly connecting the world while staying invisible to human eyes. Remote sensing as well as satellite and deep space communications for global connections require multi-band, high-gain and beam-steerable antennas. Budding medical applications can significantly benefit from broadband and multi-band miniaturized antennas and arrays. Wireless power transfer systems and booming IoT networks will be fuelled by next-generation rectifying antennas. Focusing on new antenna technologies, we will provide a one-stop shop service that covers all aspects, including innovative design, theoretical modelling, prototyping, verification and evaluation of antennas and antenna systems serving these applications and the opportunities for knowledge transfer.
Our diverse and international research team, including many world-renowned antenna experts from Hong Kong and covering key areas of antenna technology and wireless communications, is highly capable of successfully conducting this strategic project. The team also includes multiple generations of talents and is well-positioned to advance antenna technology in Hong Kong during and after the project term. This AoE project will serve as a high-technology hub for advancing innovative antennas and related technologies over a wide spectrum of applications. It will not only accelerate the growth of the antenna industry in Hong Kong and the Greater Bay Area (GBA) and demonstrate excellence in the world but incubate the required local young talents and attract more talents to Hong Kong. The achievements will open a new page for the high-tech industries and businesses in Hong Kong and the GBA.
Subject Area: Physical Sciences
Project Title: Study of the Regional Earth System for Sustainable Development under Climate Change in the Greater Bay Area
Project Coordinator: Prof Jianping Gan (HKUST)
Abstract
The Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA) is one of the fastest developing bay areas in the world and covers a vast land area of 56,000 km2 over the Pearl River Basin (PRB) and 20,000 km2 of adjacent ocean. It has a population exceeding 80 million and aspires to become a global technology and innovation hub under national development strategies. Ensuring the GBA’s sustainable development will require a healthy and resilient environment as determined by the sustainability of the regional earth system (RES) composed of the lithosphere (land), the hydrosphere (oceans and rivers), the atmosphere and the biosphere (living things) — the “spheres”.
The RES of the GBA is regulated primarily and intrinsically by each sphere’s dynamic processes and influenced extrinsically by interactions among the spheres. For example, the terrestrial (land) processes of the PRB are controlled by complex interactions between the land, aquatic environments, and atmosphere, which collectively regulate the freshwater volume as well as nutrient and pollutant loadings that are discharged into the adjacent ocean from the Pearl River. As such interwoven physical and biogeochemical processes occur at multiple spatiotemporal scales in the RES and respond to intensifying human activities and climate change, they form an integrated land-ocean-atmosphere-human activity-climate system, which determines the short- and long-term environmental sustainability, the carbon budget required to achieve neutrality, and the prosperity and development trajectory of the GBA.
A single discipline alone cannot holistically address the complex and pressing environmental challenges in a particular region. RES research has thus become a key national initiative to better understand and realize environmental sustainability in many countries but remains in its infancy globally. The proposed project will therefore take an unprecedented holistic approach to investigate the interactions among natural forcings, human activities, and climate change using an integrated system to create an RES framework in the GBA. This pioneering interdisciplinary project will also develop a digital twin or a digital model that integrates all streaming data and provides a visual interface to understand the spatiotemporal status and evolution, and simulate the future of the RES for facilitating data-driven decision-making in the GBA. By integrating interdisciplinary perspectives, advanced methodologies, and a world-class research team, this project will provide comprehensive knowledge and science-based mitigation strategies grounded in the human-RES integrated assessment framework to safeguard the environment and the development of the GBA and present a case study for similar bay areas worldwide.