Transformation Optics - from Cloaking to Satellite Antennaes

Interdisciplinary research carried out by Dr Valiente Kroon, colleague Prof Yang Hao (School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science) and their joint PhD student Tim McManus led to the design and manufacture of a radically new commercial satellite communications antenna. The research has had two kinds of impact:

  1. Improved performance and new research programmes at QinetiQ, and
  2. Contributing to innovation and entrepreneurial activity at Isotropic Systems Ltd (ISL) through the design of a revolutionary new satellite antenna.

At QinetiQ this led to new internal research programmes, which since 2016 have attracted investment of circa £8 million, helped protect five high quality jobs, and enhanced QinetiQ’s reputation and visibility in this area leading to increased revenues of circa £2 million.

The new satellite antenna was brought to market by ISL, resulting in ISL raising USD 14 million in a Series A funding round led by Boeing, and matched funding totalling USD 45 million from various sources including BEIS. To date ISL have invested £10 million in the UK towards research and development for the antenna technology and have opened two offices in the United States.

transformation optics
An example of Valiente Kroon and McManus’ results on transformation optics for arbitrary surfaces.
As waves pass over the curved surface from right to left (top row) and from top right to bottom left (bottom row), the curved surface without cloaking (left column) disturbs the wave. With cloaking (right column) the wave is undisturbed. This demonstrates a curved surface reproducing the scattering behaviour of a flat surface.