Swiss Research Program Engineering Multi-Scale Systems in Health and the Environment

Introduction to Nano-Tera Phase II

Giovanni De Micheli Program Leader
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Nano-Tera.ch
A very successful Swiss research program

funding large collaborative multi-discipline projects

aiming at the engineering of complex systems for applications in the domains of Health and the Environment

Mission
Research, Design & Engineering of complex tera-scale systems using nano-scale devices and technologies Foster research and crossbreeding of technologies Main application domains are Health and Environment, with Energy and Security as transversal support areas
Develop new markets Improve living standards Better the quality of health and environment Foster a vision of engineering with social objectives Promote related educationl programs

Why Nano-Tera.ch ?
Major innovation is likely to happen at the intersection of disciplines
Need large research groups Need multi-disciple competence

Collaborative research has low overhead in Switzerland because distances are small
Leverage combined expertise of the Polytechnics and Universities

Funding size and long-term objectives enable challenging projects

Unique opportunity in Switzerland Interaction with industry and end-users
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Nano-Tera.ch evolution
First phase: 2008-2012
Research and develop enabling technologies and experimental systems

Second phase: 2013-2016

Integrate new technologies into systems, demonstrating the possibilities of new products and markets

Third phase: 2017-2020

Consolidation of results and deliverables of those projects that have a strong societal and industrial impact

Looking back

Nano-Tera.ch: key figures 2008-12

75 projects 15 MCHF/year in cash + ~15 MCHF/year institutional matching 31 Swiss research institutions involved 155 research groups ~700 researchers ~180 PhD thesis supported ~ 575 papers published ~ 1000 presentations
Current reporting period (2012)
Journals, books Conf. Proceedings Total

TOTAL since beginning of the program

Journals, books Conf. Proceedings Total

RTD 2009 RTD 2010 RTD add-on NTF SSSTC

48 44 1 6 6

69 77 3 10 9

117 121 4 16 15

144 82 1 14 6

133 147 3 36 9

277 229 4 50 15

105

168

273

247

328

575

Nuggets

All projects have been performing well

but some projects received special attention

IrSens

Integrated sensing platform for gases and liquids in the near and mid-infrared range

Jrme Faist (ETHZ)

Some media coverage: - ETH life 6.01.2012: Infrared detector unmasks cocaine addicts - 20 min 08.01.2012: Schnelltest der ETH soll Kokser entlarven - Teletop (Television) 09.01.2012 - Swissinfo 12.2.2012: Swiss develop rapid infrared cocaine test - Neue Zrcher Zeitung (NZZ) 15.02.2012: Auf Drogensuche im Speichel Awards:
- M. Mangold: Best poster award on MIOMD XI, Sept. 2012, Chicago, USA - N.Volet: Best student presentation award, Photonics Europe 2012, Brussels

Patenting:
- A patent for a specific element of the gas measurement cell is being filed - Working on the new patent application for a next generation of VCSELs

i-IronIC

Remote Monitoring Metabolic Conditions in human fluids

Giovanni De Micheli (EPFL)

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BioCS-Node
Target: Continuous heart monitoring Technology: Compressed sensing
Autonomous tool that automatically identifies anomalies in heart-rate and alerts doctors in seconds, helping them treat patients more quickly

Pierre Vandergheynst, David Atienza (EPFL)

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BioCS-Node

in Solar Impulse

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Looking forward

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Nano-Tera.ch: key figures 2013-16

18 large projects (+ ~5 large projects to be allocated) 4 small projects (+ ~4 small projects to be allocated) 13 MCHF/year in cash + ~13 MCHF institutional matching

28 research institutions involved as Co-PIs

>100 research groups 3 strategic actions:
Increasing usability of sensor-generated data

Pervasive Health
Thermal-aware design for energy-minimal datacenters

2 transversal actions:
International collaboration Technology transfer

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28 Swiss participating institutions

(Phase 2)

ETH-Board

Part of

OPET (BBT)

Part of

Federal Institute of Metrology METAS

SUK / CUS

Part of

REMSMED AG

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Distribution of research groups (Phase 2)

Distribution of research groups

Node size ~ Nb. of involved research groups

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Topic distribution
Initial Phase

Second Phase

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Main research directions

Smart prosthetics body monitoring and repair Advanced sensing and technology platforms

WiseSkin HearRestore SmartSphincter

WearMeSoC ObeSense

BodyPoweredSenSE UtraSoundToGo ISyPeM II WearableMRI Envirobot X-Sense II MIXSEL II

MagnetoTheranostics SpineRepair SmartGrid HeatReserves

Smart energy
Health Environment Energy

SHINE

Enabling technology for health

RTD call 2011 RTD call 2012 RTD follow-up

IrSens II

Environmental monitoring

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Health
Smart prosthetics, body monitoring & repair
HearRestore MagnetoTheranostics SmartRepair SmartSphincter WiseSkin

Advanced sensing & technology platforms

BodyPoweredSenSE ISyPeM II ObeSense UltraSoundToGo WearMeSoC

Enabling technology for health

MIXSEL II WearableMRI
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Smart prosthetics, body monitoring & repair

Image-guided micro surgery for hearing aid implantation
HearRestore

Investigate approaches for micro-scale surgical image-guidance by using the latest advancements of modern implants, imaging technology, signal processing & computational power.

Hybrid CMOS-polymer neural interfaces for restoration of sensorimotor functions after spinal cord injury
Design and integrate a novel type of spinal cord neuroprosthesis Use this neuroprosthesis in order to develop the optimal stimulation pattern to restore motion after spinal cord injury

SpineRepair

Smart muscles for incontinence treatment Realize prototype devices acting as artificial muscle (anal sphincter) to treat patients with severe fecal incontinence. Device to replace the destroyed natural muscle function using low-voltage electrically activated polymers controlled by pressure sensors & the patient.
SmartSphincter

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Smart prosthetics, body monitoring & repair

Wise Skin for tactile prosthetics Today: lack of sensory function in prostheses. WiseSkin: solution for restoration of the sensation of touch. Embeds tactility sensors into the cosmetic silicone coating of prostheses, which acts like a sensory skin providing sensation of touch.
WiseSkin

MagnetoTheranostics

From superparamagnetic nano-particles to tools for detection and treatment of cancer

Adsorption of these particles at tumor cells opens a large field of diagnostic applications, especially as contrast agent for molecular imaging by MRI. diagnostic tool for the detection of metastasis in lymph nodes therapeutic development (hyperthermia with nanocomposites) focused on the corresponding primary tumor
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Advanced sensing & technology platforms

Monitoring the Consequences of Obesity
Current physiological monitoring systems have limitations (invasiveness, poor patient compliance, non-portable, limited power autonomy, etc.) Goal: combine innovative & non-invasive sensors to be embedded into smart-textiles to provide advanced multi-parametric diagnostic tools for the management of obese patients.
ObeSense

Wearable ICT for Zero-power Medical Applications

BodyPoweredSenSE

Zero power medical devices to revolutionize human sensing, as new software & hardware architectures will lead to lower power demands.
Energy harvested from natural sources (body heat, body motion, solar) recharging no longer a prime necessity. Specific applications: early prediction of Alzheimers Disease diagnosis of epilepsy in young children
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Advanced sensing & technology platforms

WearMeSoC

Wearable wireless medical monitoring based on a multi channel data acquisition & communication management system on a chip Integration of the many functionalities required in a wearable medical monitor, including the management of wireless connectivity and its power consumption: key to the breakthrough required for clinical and user acceptance of many continuous use cases.

Therapeutic drug monitoring for personalized medicine Sample-to-result point-of-care system to measure drug concentration in blood samples provide doctors with information on the behavior of the patient and suggest dosage adjustment accordingly collect data into a remote database, enabling further refinements in dosage adjustment procedures.
ISyPeM II

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Advanced sensing & technology platforms

UltraSoundToGo

High performance portable 3D ultrasound platform Medical breakthroughs: Portable imaging device with capabilities of current large and stationary systems Enable 3D imaging Support for telemedicine: sonologist/doctor can be remotely located

Many-core

ultra sound application

mapping

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Enabling technology for health

WearableMRI

Wearable MRI detector and sensor arrays

Advance MRI technology, currently limited in terms of sensitivity, speed & fidelity of the dynamic magnetic fields involved. Develop wearable, adaptive detector arrays with miniaturized ondetector receivers.

Novel semiconductor disk lasers for biomedical and metrology applications Exploit research efforts from first MIXSEL project for real application demonstrations in biomedical imaging, compact efficient white light generation for general high brightness illumination and frequency metrology applications.

MIXSEL II

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Environmental monitoring
MEMS acoustic detectors for natural hazard warning systems
Advance knowledge about the complex processes in the mountain cryosphere, utilize the corresponding scientific concepts to improve quality of life and security of people. Exploit advances in MEMS technology to achieve a trigger-based dutycycling of complex sensing systems by monitoring acoustic events.
X-Sense II

Multi-component sensor for air pollutants & greenhouse gases IrSens: technological platform for high sensitivity, portable & lowcost sensors based on new near- and mid-IR technologies. Exploit these results to realize new tools for gas monitoring: highly specific & sensitive analyzer for nitrogen dioxide (NO2) all-in-one spectrometer covering the 10 major air pollutants & greenhouse gases.
IrSens II

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Environmental monitoring
Envirobot

Automated surveying of surface water quality by a sensor equipped anguilliform robot Build a demonstrator robot platform that samples & measures water quality parameters in surface water bodies with optical/physical/chemical/biological sensors

Platform based on existing segmented anguilliform robots, with adaptations for energy use & efficiency, sensory decision programming & communication possibilities
2 modes: Autonomous surveying: Robot analyzes water bodies according to a preset path Autonavigation : Robot guides its movement & sampling based on the sensory input

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Smart energy
Smart grids, buildings & sensors for optimal management of electricity distribution using dedicated microelectronic ICs and real-time ICT Will use the power systems of the EPFL campus as a test platform for research groups to integrate their competences & deploy the technologies.
SmartGrid

Demand response for ancillary services: Thermal storage control Goal: Use thermal loads as additional means for ancillary services to account for the expected increase in renewables. Control of heating, ventilation and A/C system of office buildings Control of a large number of household appliances

HeatReserves

SHINE

Solar Hydrogen Integrated Nano Electrolysis Develop a hydrogen production system using sunlight in an integrated manner with earth abundant materials mimicking natural photosynthesis.
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Strategic actions
To further strengthen the impact of Nano-Tera.ch, the Executive Committee has launched five strategic actions:

Thematic actions: Analysis of the reliability/usability of sensor generated data

Promotion of user involvement in pervasive health systems

Setup of industrial test-beds for research on smart energy systems

Transversal actions:
International collaborations Technology transfer to industry
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Strategic action 1
InUse Increasing usability of sensor-generated data
Main applicant: Christoph Hglin, EMPA Excom supervisor: Lothar Thiele, ETHZ To make sensor data useful, even without expert supervision in the loop, context annotations, analysis and modeling are key components

Goal: Increase the usability of sensor generated data by:

Determining the performance characteristics and long-term behavior of sensors based on gathered data Annotating data with sensor performance characteristics & context information (e.g. properties of operating environment & phenomenon-related dependencies) Developing modeling techniques for construction of the fine-grained space and time sensor data maps and model-based data validation.

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Strategic action 2
Tera-Health Strategic action on pervasive health
Main applicant: Pearl Pu, EPFL Excom supervisor: Boi Faltings, EPFL
With pervasive measurements of vital signs in everyday environment by wearable sensors: a paradigm shift in medicine from treating sickness to supporting well-being

Goal: Study the use of data analytic methods to achieve the goals of pervasive
health: prediction, prevention, personalization & participatory healthcare.

Carry out practical experiments and participatory design to study:

How users accept and adopt sensing equipment; How users accept and adopt persuasion through recommender systems; How users can be motivated to sustain their quality of life via methods such as gamification in the design of mobile applications.
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Strategic action 3
Transcend Holistic thermal-aware design for energy-minimal datacenters
Main applicant: David Atienza, EPFL Excom supervisor: Giovanni De Micheli, EPFL

Goal: Develop a radically new thermal-aware design approach for next

generation energy-efficient datacenters, integrating cooling infrastructure definition with holistic power, performance, thermal and reliability modeling
Inclusion of research ideas in the new BrainServe datacenter building plan Preliminary Green IT planning with Credit Suisse IT requirement and simulation assessment on task scheduling and power-cooling management into the largest datacenter design in Swiss Romande for banking ecosystem. Experimental setup definition & construction for evaluation of energy recovery limits using chip-level two-phase cooling and innovative foam-based heat sinks
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Strategic action 4
Continuation of the running Nano-Tera international collaboration program
Giovanni De Micheli, EPFL
Collaboration with China now finishing (the 1-year projects resulting from the 2011 joint call are terminating). This international collaboration has been a clear success. Exchange program:
NT would provide funding for inviting prominent foreign actors from academia/industry. Invited scientists expected to visit members of the NT community & give several talks in NT institutions. Applications reviewed by the NT Excom with the help of an external panel. Limitations on the originating countries of invited scientists: avoid duplication of existing funding mechanisms (e.g. the EU). Priority focus on North America and Far East.
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Strategic action 5
NT-VentureProgram Promotion of young postdoctoral researchers within the Industry
Alex Dommann, CSEM

Promoting research achievements resulting from NT projects toward the industry is one of the important missions of the NT program. As already identified in several NCCRs (QP and MICS for example), young researchers who received their PhD in NT projects and are ready to industrially exploit their ideas are an efficient vector for such a strategic action. NT could setup a fund to support the creation of start ups, typically by providing short term funding (typically 6 months) for NT PostDocs during the start up creation phase.

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Summary
18 new large projects have recently started, 4 of which extend research done in Phase 1 4 new small projects, 5 strategic actions, and several education and dissemination event complete the picture The technology and knowledge being developed is broad This is a tremendous opportunity for strengthening the economy and employment through technology transfer

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Mark your calendars!

Nano-Tera Annual Meeting 2014:

May 20, 2014 Swiss Convention Center, EPFL

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Thanks for your attention !

www.nano-tera.ch

www.nano-tera.ch

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