Expertise in High-Frequency Communications

For more than fifteen years, José Luis González Jiménez has been working at CEA-Leti on the design of integrated circuits for radio communications, particularly in the field of radio frequency (RF) technologies. His career began with studies in telecommunications, specializing in electronic circuits. He joined CEA-Leti in 2011 after completing a PhD at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia, where he focused on signal integrity challenges in complex electronic systems.

Today, his research focuses on very high-frequency communications, particularly millimeter-wave and sub-terahertz technologies, mainly in the D-band (around 150 GHz). These technologies are now at the heart of the challenges associated with ultra-high-speed wireless communications.

The work presented in the paper "A 58 Gb/s D-band NLOS link enabled by active RIS" builds on the European projects COREnext¹, TERRAMETA², and the “France 2030 PEPR" Future Networks³ French national program. It also represents a significant continuation of an industrial collaboration with Intel. The objective is to develop 6G technologies based on CMOS radio architectures and terahertz intelligent surfaces for ultra-high-speed wireless communications.

The award received at the European Microwave Week represents an important recognition for José Luis:

"Events like EuMW are a major showcase for CEA-Leti. They provide an opportunity to meet researchers and industrial partners while highlighting our research."                                                                                         

Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces to Overcome Obstacles

Launched in 2023, the TERRAMETA project aims to address the needs of smart factories, where robots and humans operate side by side. How can their behavior be predicted to help prevent accidents?

"The main requirement is to provide an ultra-high-speed communication system capable of collecting information from the three-dimensional environment surrounding robots, while transmitting and processing this data with extremely low latency," explains José Luis.

Processing and communication times must remain below one millisecond to enable the central system to make rapid decisions.

Experiments conducted with Dell highlighted the limitations of conventional wireless technologies such as Wi-Fi. The solution developed by José Luis relies on multi-channel radio links combined with a base station provided by Intracom Telecom. It also integrates intelligent metasurfaces capable of reflecting and redirecting signals according to the surrounding environment.

These surfaces act as electronically controlled reconfigurable mirrors, allowing the reflection angle to be adjusted dynamically to bypass obstacles and optimize signal propagation in complex, constantly changing environments.

One of the project's major achievements is the demonstration of active metasurfaces that not only reflect electromagnetic waves but also amplify the signal, significantly extending communication range. Initial testing was carried out at CEA-Leti, including measurements in an anechoic chamber, before integrated demonstrations combining the radio system, intelligent surface, and processing server.

Toward Adaptive Networks for the Factories of the Future

José Luis's work opens the door to intelligent, reconfigurable communication networks designed for highly dynamic environments and to deploy physical IA systems with distributed computing capabilities. These systems could automatically adapt to changing conditions, external constraints, and unexpected situations.

Intelligent metasurfaces could significantly improve the performance of the next generation of smart factories, where the enormous volume of data to be exchanged at the factory management level requires both extremely high communication bandwidth and ultra-low latency.

Through this research, José Luis perfectly illustrates CEA-Leti's ambition: transforming cutting-edge technological advances into practical solutions for the communication systems of tomorrow.​

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² Funded by the EU Horizon Europe Framework Programme (TERRAMETA)
³ Funded by the France 2030 Future Networks program​