Abstract

Project's activities deal with studies, testing and assessment of materials, systems, technologies and design methodologies to manufacture composite material components incorporating wireless communication systems able to operate in radiofrequency unfriendly environments (oil, water). Research challenges are 3: (1) integrations of receivers into composite materials with fully integrated autonomous devices and embedded antennas, (2) efficient and effective transmission of information between controller and receivers in hostile environments and (3) integrated design capabilities/tools able to approach contemporary physical, structural, electromagnetic and technological aspects. A virtual laboratory computer platform will be developed for the integrated product/process design, where the whole design process can be implemented through CAD modeling tools, CAE tools and methods for control and calculation of component's performances, also considering the effects of the building processes (process simulation) necessary to product it. Electromagnetic and composite structural numerical simulations are performed through ANSYS platform. Moreover complete system prototypes are built to demonstrate research results, to validate integrated design platform approach and to compare numerical models and experimental results.