5G, 6G, RFID & Telecoms

Investment and development in haptics is accelerating, and the supply chain providing the actuators, drivers and software behind these key components is evolving at a faster pace every year. IDTechEx's latest report on haptics, "Haptics 2021-2031: Technologies, Market & Players", predicts that the industry will be worth nearly $5bn in 2025.

Phone systems change every ten years. 5G communications is now rolling out worldwide. It is time to plan 6G communications for 2030! Although little is decided - not even the frequency - much can be said about the extremely ambitious 6G objectives and challenges. This article gives the IDTechEx appraisal of 6G communications 2021-2041.

Thursday 25 February 2021 - Solar cars and boats are now mainstream, some never plugging in. The technology of the most advanced ones is being licensed to others, a robot shuttle being next up.

Printed/flexible sensors offer multiple benefits relative to their more established rigid counterparts, including lower weight, flexibility/conformality, and potentially lower manufacturing costs since printing facilitates high-throughput continuous production methods. In this article IDTechEx identifies top five innovative printed/flexible sensor technologies along with their associated applications.

Given the exciting properties, graphene has always been linked as a revolutionary material for the electronics industry. CVD graphene is cited as the ideal solution in providing a perfect single layer produced in a low cost continuous R2R process, but the manufacturing and commercial reality have proved very different. After a long period of research, and with players regularly exiting and entering the field, we are only now starting to see this technology mature and the dawn of the commercial reality.

The WHO said in 2019 that over 70% of the world's population have access to clean water. Clean water is required by all and is a product that has a direct impact on the consumer. Many companies must meet targets and goals set by their country or industry body with water cleanliness and pollution monitoring. However, unlike the oil and gas industry, the water industry is behind with its uptake of digitization and in the monitoring of networks in many countries across the globe.

With sensors, the systems and software are a bigger business than the sensors themselves. For example, your body has primitive sensors such as eyes and fingers, but it processes the data in combination, so the whole is greater than the parts. Call it "sensor fusion", something increasingly seen in the automotive, healthcare, and robotic industries.

Wednesday 3 February 2021 - 5G communications has come to a phone near you and 6G communications received strong investment in 2020 as we move to its standards, specification and substantial rollout in 2030. However, this time will be different because the objective is far more heroic.

In 2017, after four years of setbacks and crashes, Alphabet shut its project flying solar-powered fixed-wing drones in the upper atmosphere to beam the internet to those cut-off. They have now ended their upper-atmosphere balloon version as well.

Multiple drivers are emerging for graphene as the value-added material of choice. One market driver that is perhaps surprising but will have a major impact over the next decade is sustainability.