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France Relance Aims To Put LiFi and Other Technologies and Services Based on Nanosatellites Into Orbit
Photo credit to Chris Watt
Nanosatellites are at the heart of the last part of the France Relance plan dedicated to the space industry. Endowed with more than 10 million euros, this wave finances in particular the validation of three technological projects and the realisation of as many demonstrators of innovative services. The 22 selected companies and laboratories will complete the deployment of France Relaunch for the space sector, bringing its amount to 515 million euros.
Three innovative technologies will take off, before 2023, for their first launch into orbit. The first of these aims to apply in space a technology already used on earth: LiFi. This alternative to Wi-Fi, which uses light signals to transmit information, is intended to be "simple, fast and without electromagnetic waves", indicates the Ministry of the Economy. To carry out this mission, the LiFi equipment specialist Oledcomm, based in Vélizy-Villacoublay, is joining forces with the Franco-American start-up Loft Orbital – which raised 125 million euros in funds at the end of 2021.
Synchrocube, the second project seeks to “provide a complementary or alternative solution to the GNSS [positioning] system for ground time synchronisation functions when the GNSS signals are not usable”, relates Bercy. This alternative positioning system is developed by the Toulouse manufacturer of nanosatellites U-Space, in partnership with the designer of antennas Anywaves, the subcontractor Comat and the specialist in electronics Microtec. “This new innovative service concept based on a nanosatellite platform will make it possible to address markets such as energy, telecommunications, intelligent transport, finance”, anticipates the ministry.
Larger, the latest project aims to test eight nanosatellite technologies in orbit, the fruit of R&D projects led by Anywaves, Comat, CS Group, Hemeria, Mecano-ID, Steel and Syntony. Without giving details on the nature of these technologies, Bercy indicates that it is carrying out this project to “bring out a sector approach with a view to resilience in the face of competing ecosystems”.
Services in Nanosatellites
Further upstream, the other part of the nanosatellite component will support the production of innovative service demonstrators, based on satellites weighing less than 50 kilos. Selected after three months of maturation, these three projects will take off aboard one or two satellites, accompanied by "all the technological bricks on the ground necessary to prefigure the final commercial services in an operational environment", indicates the ministry. finances.
The first – led by the Ile-de-France engineer Sophie Engineering, the satellite vision specialist Magellium and Onera – aims to deploy a hyperspectral imaging system in orbit, in order to capture very high resolution images of the planet. A service that could be of interest for defence applications, but also the observation of vegetation , the assessment of damage following natural disasters, the study of coastal zones or the monitoring of crops.
The second project is based on unprecedented connectivity within a constellation to cover a large area of the globe in near real time. Led by the optical component specialist Safran subsidiary Reosc, the LeanSpace cloud service and the CNRS' Laboratory for Analysis and Architecture of Systems (LAAS), this service should enable "the automatic monitoring of sites, borders and extended areas up to several dozen times a day”. All this, with the ability to program alerts from any corner of the globe, adds Bercy.
Last but not least, the third project "aims to provide characterization of atmospheric aerosols necessary for estimating air quality on a local and global scale", describes the ministry. Led by the CNRS Atmospheric Optics Laboratory (LOA) spin-off, Grasp, the project will be hosted in orbit in a U-Space nugget satellite. The latter will take the opportunity to inaugurate its “satellite-as-a-service” offer, which aims to make nanosatellites available to solution providers.
In addition to these in-orbit tests, there is the funding of some twenty research projects, carried out by industrial or public laboratories, as well as the creation of a "nano forum" bringing together industrialists, academics and private users. In order to lay the first stones of the emerging sector of nanosatellites.
Loft Orbital
Loft Orbital leases space on satellites for any organization to collect information about the Earth, from space. Based in San-Francisco and Toulouse (Haute-Garonne), Loft Orbital offers turnkey services based on its satellites and billed for use. It has already seduced NASA, Darpa in the United States as well as the commercial operator Eutelsat and Onera in France.
Their mission is to be the fastest, simplest, and most reliable path to orbit for any payload. We fly customer payloads onboard regularly scheduled satellites missions, and we handle the entire mission as a service. With Loft, their customers can focus on what matters most to them: their payload and the data it collects.
Under the hood, they've developed the software and hardware products that make their satellite missions truly plug and play, eliminating years of painful design and engineering. With qualified, commodity satellite buses procured in advance and available off-the-shelf, they deliver payloads to orbit in months not years.
France Relance
In order to address the economic consequences of COVID-19, on 3 September 2020, the French government set out its “France Relance” recovery plan. This is a massive €100 billion investment plan representing the equivalent of one third of the annual state budget, with €40 billion provided by the European Union in order to support businesses, rethink production models, transform infrastructure and invest in training. France was the leading European country in terms of foreign direct investment attractiveness in 2019 and this plan will further bolster its competitiveness and help support its openness to foreign investors.
France has chosen to upgrade its production facilities, invest heavily in future technologies (including green technologies), reduce production taxes and increase support for research, training and development of skills and existing national expertise.
These choices should enable France to regain its economic sovereignty, not as a nationalistic withdrawal but as a regained capacity for independence to serve France and Europe. The France Relance plan has allocated €34 billion to this.
Reshoring industrial production:
To ensure its economic and technological independence, France is targeting five strategic sectors for its investments:
• health,
• inputs (items entering production processes) essential to industry,
• electronics,
• the agrifood industry,
• industrial 5G applications.
Certain production activities will be relocated to France, significantly reducing our companies’ carbon footprint.
Investing in future technologies:
With the Investments for the Future Programme (PIA), the State will support innovation and particularly investment in future technologies, including digital technologies, medical and health-industry research, carbon-free energies, responsible agriculture and food sovereignty, sustainable transport and mobility, and cultural and creative industries.
The goal is to make France the best country in Europe for research and entrepreneurship.
Lower production taxes:
Production taxes inhibit the competitiveness of French companies. In France, they accounted for 3.2% of GDP in 2018, compared to an average of 1.6% across the European Union.
To make France more attractive and encourage industrial firms to set up, these taxes will be reduced by €10 billion per year from 1 January 2021.
Li-Fi Conference 2022
The Li-Fi Conference 2022 Edition was a great success. Li Fi Tech News will very soon write articles on the topics treated at the Conference.
What is LiFi?
LiFi, also known as "Light Fidelity" is a wireless optical networking technology, which uses light-emitting diodes (LEDs) to transmit data. In 2011, professor Harald Haas made a LiFi demonstration at the TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) Global Talk on Visible Light Communication (VLC).
VLC uses light as a medium to deliver high-speed communication like Wi-Fi and complies with the IEEE standard IEEE 802.15.7. The IEEE 802.15.7 is a high-speed, bidirectional, and fully networked wireless communication technology-based standard similar to Wi-Fi's IEEE 802.11.
How does LiFi work?
LiFi is a high speed, bidirectional, and fully networked wireless communication of data using light. LiFi constitutes of several light bulbs that form a wireless network.
When an electrical current goes through to a LED light bulb, a stream of light (photons) emits from the lamp. LED bulbs are semiconductor devices, which means that the brightness of the light flowing through them can change at extremely high speeds. The signal is sent by modulating the light at different rates. The signal can then be received by a detector that interprets the changes in light intensity (the signal) as data. Also when the LED is ON, you transmit a digital 1, and when it is OFF, you transmit a 0.
LiFi Benefits
The primary benefits of LiFi are as follows:
• Security: Provides entirely secure access. Where there is no light there is no data.
• Safety: Does not produce electromagnetic radiation and does not interfere with existing electronic systems.
• Localisation: Allows localisation due to the small coverage area of LiFi access point - localisation can be used for very precise asset tracking.
• Data density: Provides ubiquitous high-speed wireless access that offers substantially greater data density (data rate per unit area) than RF through high bandwidth reuse.
Credit to Oledcomm
LiFi Applications
LiFi can be used for so many applications and the list is increasing every year. You can read our updated list of Li-Fi applications at the following link:
Credit to pureLiFi
LiFi Systems Reviews by LiFi Tech News
OLEDCOMM LIFIMAX KIT REVIEW - ONE YEAR IN
We reviewed the LiFiMax kit produced by the leading French LiFi company Oledcomm. We bought this LiFi kit system at the end of 2020. After over a year of use, we decided to write a review of this LiFi system. We looked briefly at the profile of Oledcomm, a brief history of the LiFiMax system, the Kit box contents, some testing and performance results of this LiFi system, the customer experience and our own verdict (the good and the bad points) of the LiFiMax kit.
You can read the review on this link:
https://www.lifitn.com/blog/lifimaxreview
SIGNIFY TRULIFI 6002.1 STARTER KIT SYSTEM REVIEW
We also reviewed the Trulifi 6002.1 starter kit produced by Signify, the world leader in lighting for professionals, consumers and lighting for the Internet of Things. We got this LiFi kit system with the help of PCDSI and Signify around August 2021. In a similar fashion done with our previous review of the LiFiMax kit a few months ago, we will look briefly at the profile of Signify, a brief history of the Trulifi 6002.1 kit, the Kit box contents, some testing and performance results of this LiFi system, the customer experience and our own verdict (the good points and the bad points) of the Trulifi 6002.1 kit.
You can read the review on this link:
https://www.lifitn.com/blog/trulifi6002review
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