Electronic Smart Systems

- Overview 

The Electronic Smart Systems (ESS) technology field focuses on the challenges posed by the ongoing digitalization of society due to the deep penetration of embedded sensing, motion, and communication electronics in our environment.

Things become smart and connected, sensor systems and smart things provide the sensing and interacting edges that are bringing the entire world online. Embedded electronics become more pervasive and provide an opportunity for a disruptive wave of innovation of our daily living.   

Smart systems are a key factor in the development of many new intelligent and autonomous systems. Smart systems incorporate functions of sensing, actuation, and control in order to describe and analyze a situation, and make decisions based on the available data in a predictive or adaptive manner, thereby performing smart actions. In most cases the “smartness” of the system can be attributed to autonomous operation based on closed loop control, energy efficiency, and networking capabilities. 

A lot of smart systems evolved from microsystems. They combine technologies and components from microsystems technology (miniaturized electric, mechanical, optical, and fluidic devices) with other disciplines like biology, chemistry, nanoscience, or cognitive sciences. 

- Heterogeneous Components and Subsystems

Electronic smart systems identify a broad class of intelligent and miniaturized devices that are usually energy-autonomous and ubiquitously connected. In order to support these functions like sensing, actuation, and control, electronic smart systems must include sophisticated and heterogeneous components and subsystems, such as digital signal processing devices, analog devices for RF and wireless communication, discrete elements, application-specific sensors and actuators, energy sources, and energy storage devices. 

These systems take advantage of the progress achieved in miniaturization of electronic systems, and are highly energy-efficient and increasingly often energy-autonomous, and can communicate with their environment. 

Thanks to their heterogeneous nature, smart embedded and cyber-physical applications are able to deliver a wide range of services, and their application may lead to provide solutions to address the grand social, economic, and environmental challenges such as environmental and pollution control, energy efficiency at various scales, aging populations and demographic change, risk of industrial decline, security from micro- to macro-level, safety in transportation, increased needs for the mobility of people and goods, health and lifestyle improvements, just to name the most relevant.

- The Objectives of ESS Technologies

The goals is to develop and validate a new generation of cost-effective Electronic Smart System (ESS) technologies integrating hardware technologies across multiple fields. 

This massive integration of electronics everywhere introduces challenges like: integration, miniaturization, building practice, new sensors, low energy consumption, electromagnetic interference (EMI), architectures for high performance computing, resource efficient communication and affordable components. 

ESSs are capable of independently sensing a complex environment, analyzing it based on knowledge, and making appropriate decisions and predictions. This makes them particularly valuable for a wide variety of application areas.

[More to come ...]