Analogue computing at microwave frequencies: EEE academic wins prestigious ERC grant award

Professor Bruno Clerckx has been awarded one of Europe’s most competitive research grants to pioneer new analogue computing and telecommunications architectures.

The ERC Advanced Grants competition, part of the EU’s Horizon Europe programme, gives senior researchers the opportunity to pursue ambitious, curiosity-driven projects that could lead to major scientific breakthroughs.

Professor Clerckx is the only Imperial awardee in this funding round, one of 319 awards from a record number of 3,329 applications, for his project: Communications and Computing with Microwave Networks. The award is for €2.5 million over a period of five years.

“We are tremendously proud that Bruno's pioneering research has been recognised with this prestigious award, the first Advanced Grant our department has received. It will give him the freedom and resource to accelerate work that is both ambitious in scope and significant in impact.” Professor Tim Green Head of Department

Computing constraints – the return of analogue

Digital circuits underpin almost every modern system – from smartphones to data centres. Their advantages are well established: precision, versatility, robustness. But they carry a cost. High power consumption and limited speed are fundamental constraints of digital processors, and as the demands on computing infrastructure grow, those constraints matter more.

Analogue computing is experiencing a revival. Its appeal lies in its ability to perform energy-efficient and massively parallelised computations: properties that digital architectures struggle to match.

Harnessing microwaves

Bruno’s project aims to establish the foundations of a new type of analogue computing architecture based on microwave networks – performing computing, communication, and signal processing tasks at microwave frequencies that are faster, and more computationally-, hardware-, and energy-efficient than their digital equivalents.

Bruno explains: "This is done by harnessing the way microwave signals flow through interconnected physical components to perform calculation instantly without crunching numbers in a traditional digital sense. In the long term, this is envisioned to have major applications for telecommunication infrastructures – mobile, cellular, satellite, etc – but also for sensing and AI, where processing of information needs to be made faster and more computational and energy efficient."

An exciting future

Bruno thanked the Department for its support: "In particular Professor Tim Green and Professor Eric Yeatman, the whole Communications and Signal Processing Group, and my entire team of PhD students and Postdocs for their dedication, creativity, and collective effort across the years, with a special thanks to Dr Matteo Nerini for the incredible brainstorming sessions."

"This achievement reflects the contributions of many talented colleagues and collaborators over many years and goes to all of you. This ERC Advanced Grant is a testament to the world-leading research excellence in communications and signal processing at Imperial, and will be a major accelerator of discoveries, innovations, and new collaborations."

"In addition to opening the door to a new scientific field, this ERC is also the unique opportunity to nurture early-career researchers who will become the next generation of scientific leaders. I look forward to the exciting opportunities and advances that lie ahead over the next five years."

The full list of ERC Advanced Grant winners