(GA) FET Flagship project will create intelligent, autonomous electronic personal companions that will assist us from infancy to old age. The devices will be private and secure systems featuring sensing, computation, and communication beyond human capabilities. Three families of life-enhancing demonstrators will offer instant availability of relevant information, interconnectivity between devices fitted with all sorts of sensors, and intentional and intuitive usability: Physical GAs to monitor the physical and physiological status of individuals in health care, rehabilitation, and sports, focusing on prevention and early diagnosis; Environmental GAs to observe ambient conditions for environmental threats and inter-communicate; and Emotional GAs to sense the body’s reactions to one’s state of mind, correlated with environment and context, to support patients and enhance the performance of healthy people.
GA will explore and develop “zero-power” technologies that push the scientific and technological limits of energy per processed bit of information, and will harvest their own energy. GA will develop an ultra-low energy technology innovation chain: from materials and devices, to heterogeneous system integration, to software and communication techniques, enabling the reduction of energy consumption by up to 1000x. Zero-power technologies will become a key innovation platform for the industry, large component manufacturers, system integrators, service providers and SMEs. GA will act as a generator of start-up companies and new services for health, the environment, an ageing society, intelligent transportation, energy and human interaction.
The autonomous devices and key enabling technologies (KETs) forming the core of the GA project are expected to enable new services in several domains, impacting the society and the quality of life:
- Health and an ageing society, including sectors ranging from sports and well-being, to acute situation monitoring, rehabilitation, and elderly monitoring.
- Intelligent transportation including electric and conventional auto, marine and rail, and intelligent infrastructures as well as node-to-node interactions.
- Safety and security: future GAs could employ security chips as electronic (travel) documents, ensuring that data cannot be manipulated and that privacy is fully guaranteed.
- Education is expected to undergo dramatic paradigm changes, both in terms of the format and the delivery (remote delivery of knowledge and facilitated lifelong education).
In conclusion, we will present a research project addressing the grand scientific and system engineering challenges, in a time frame of 10 years to transform this vision into a reality with a strong impact on society.