The focus of the Space and Aviation challenge is to identify, develop and apply metamaterials solutions to a broad range of priorities within these areas. It brings together expertise from a diverse range of academics, industries and other stakeholders, from across all of the network’s SIGs and beyond. One of its key components is to work with stakeholders to identify potential application areas and to ensure that resulting metamaterial solutions overcome the barriers for use in the Space and Aviation sectors. Another is to directly make connections between researchers in academia and relevant stakeholders and support relevant research applications.
Space
Discussions around a Space challenge was initiated at the inaugural UK Metamaterials conference in 2022. This led to the formulation of the two themes which align to UK, European and other Space agency goals, such as supporting Space science and Earth observation, making access to Space sustainable, safe and easy and providing a resilient and fair-for-all communication infrastructure. The first of two themes in this challenge is Spacecraft Performance, which is further sub-divided into Communication, Propulsion, Power generation, Impact protection, Structural response and Thermal control. The second theme is Observation and Sensing, which includes all aspects of observation and sensing associated with space applications, including observation of the near and far space environment from space and the ground, observation of Earth from Space and spacecraft operational sensing.
Aviation
A key sector for metamaterials is Aviation, both civil and defence. The Aviation sector has been one of the key early adopters of metamaterials technology, which has broad potential across a number of areas, such as low observable aircraft, safety systems and sustainable air travel. Future events and interaction with key stakeholders will shape the key themes in this area.
Simon Pope
University of Sheffield
Mohit Awasthi
Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur India
Jean-Sebastien Bouillard
University of Hull
Gabrielis Cerniauskas
University of Edinburgh
Manoj Kumar Dhadwal
Technical University of Denmark
Viktor Doychinov
University of Bradford
Kd M Raziul Islam
Ulster university
Wai Kit Lam
University of Sheffield, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Hak Joo Lee
Center for Advanced Meta-Materials
Georges Limbert
University of Southampton
Iman Mohagheghian
University of Surrey
Miguel Navarro-Cía
University of Birmingham
Oliver Nelson-Dummett
University of Nottingham
Joseph Palmer
University of Sheffield AMRC
Mostafa Ranjbar
University of Strathclyde
Shwe Soe
University of the West of England
David Sory
Universirty of Oxford
Yi Zheng
City University of Hong Kong