Alcan Systems
 | This article contains promotional content. (March 2019) |
 | |
| Company type | GmbH |
|---|---|
| Industry | Telecommunications |
| Founded | 2016 |
| Founder | |
| Headquarters | Darmstadt, Germany |
| Website | www.alcansystems.com |
ALCAN Systems GmbH is a telecommunications company based in Darmstadt, Germany.[1] The company is develops antenna systems for fixed, mobile, cellular and satellite-communication.[2]
ALCAN’s technology is based on liquid crystal (LC) based phased-arrays that are capable of operating in the millimeter and microwave bands of the RF spectrum.[2]
History
[edit]ALCAN (Adaptive Liquid Crystal Antenna) Systems’ technology is based on original research initiated at the Institute for Microwave Engineering and Photonics (IMP) at Technische Universität Darmstadt. Professor Rolf Jakoby, director of the IMP[3] and later co-founder of ALCAN Systems, started his research on liquid crystals in radio-frequency applications in 1999.[4] He is considered the father of LC RF applications.[citation needed]
Onur H. Karabey joined Jakoby’s research team as a research assistant and started working on his PhD thesis in 2009. Dr. Karabey completed his research in 2012 and published his results under the title “Electronic Beam Steering and Polarization Agile Planar Antennas in Liquid Crystal Technology” in 2014.[5]
In 2014, ALCAN began as a research project at TU Darmstadt and seed funding of €650,000 for the project was provided by EXIST of the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy.[6]
In 2016, the project team spun out of the university and became an independent company. ALCAN Systems was founded by Onur H. Karabey, A. Burak Olcen, Esat M. Sibay, and Rolf Jakoby.[1]
At the end of 2016, ALCAN raised €7.5 million in a Series A funding round. The investment was made by a consortium consisting of Merck, SES, and SPC.[7][8][9]
In 2023, ALCAN Systems GmbH was liquidated.
Patented technology
[edit]ALCAN’s beam steering capability uses a liquid crystal layer inside a phased-array antenna. The liquid crystal is controlled by an electric field that changes the direction of the received or transmitted beam without the antenna physically turning.[10]
The antennae will consist of separate receiving and transmitting apertures operating at Ku or Ka band. The switching time of the antenna between two satellites will be under 50 ms, which will enable the antennae to meet the requirements of MEO and LEO constellation satellites.[2] In 2018, ALCAN successfully field tested the world’s first liquid crystal-based phased array antenna for satellite communication.[11]
Partnerships
[edit]Partnership with SES
[edit]In April 2018, ALCAN was announced as a technical partner of SES Networks. ALCAN will develop an antenna for SES’s new O3b mPOWER satellites.[12]
Business model
[edit]ALCAN’s business model is to develop antennae based on requirements provided by satellite operators and service providers. ALCAN is targeting a price range of under $1,000 for the consumer segment and under $10,000 for the enterprise segment. These targets can be achieved by using existing LCD production lines to produce the required liquid crystal phase shifter panels that go into the antenna.
Furthermore, ALCAN plans to produce smaller consumer antennas for the land mobile, maritime and home broadband markets that will develop due to the start of LEO/MEO satellites and the 5G rollout.[2]
References
[edit]- ^ a b "ALCAN SYSTEMS GMBH, DARMSTADT". NORTH DATA. Archived from the original on 2023-04-18. Retrieved 2019-01-24.
- ^ a b c d Gottlieb, Alan (September 2018). "On the Road to Low Cost, Mass Produced Phased Array Antennas". Gottlieb's Satellite Mobility World. Archived from the original on 2020-10-01. Retrieved 2019-01-24.
- ^ "Rolf Jakoby". TU Darmstadt. Archived from the original on 2018-07-16. Retrieved 2019-01-23.
- ^ Jakoby, Rolf. "Publikationen Fachgebiet Mikrowellentechnik". TU Darmstadt. Archived from the original on 2020-09-23. Retrieved 2019-01-24.
- ^ Karabey, Onur (2014). Electronic Beam Steering and Polarization Agile Planar Antennas in Liquid Crystal Technology. Springer. ISBN 978-3-319-01424-1.
- ^ "Startups mit EXIST-Forschungstransfer". TU Darmstadt. Archived from the original on 2020-09-23. Retrieved 2019-01-23.
- ^ Preu, Achim (2018). "Unternehmen im Gespräch: Alcan Systems GmbH in Darmstadt". Echo. Archived from the original on 2020-09-21. Retrieved 2019-01-24.
- ^ "Smart Antennas from Alcan Systems to Empower SES Network's O3b mPOWER". Satnews. Archived from the original on 2018-05-09. Retrieved 2019-01-23.
- ^ "ALCAN, a German Smart Antenna Start-up, Raises EUR 7.5 million to Manufacture Flat Panel Phased Array Antennas". M-Ventures. 18 August 2017. Archived from the original on 10 May 2018. Retrieved 23 January 2019.
- ^ Goelden; Gaebler; Goebel; Manabe; Mueller; Jakoby (18 June 2009). "Tunable liquid crystal phase shifter for microwave frequencies". Electronics Letters. 45 (13): 686. doi:10.1049/el.2009.1168.[dead link]
- ^ "ALCAN successfully completes world's first liquid crystal based phased array antenna field test for satellite communication". ALCAN Systems. 16 October 2018. Archived from the original on 23 June 2020. Retrieved 24 January 2019.
- ^ "SES Networks Announces Partnerships for Groundbreaking O3b mPOWER Customer Edge Terminals". SES. 8 March 2018. Archived from the original on 11 April 2019. Retrieved 23 January 2019.