Fabricated unitary universal device and its power-divider layer. Credit: UTS<\/p>\n
Australian and US researchers have designed an analogue computer circuit which uses radio and microwave signals to do massive calculations while using less energy than conventional digital electronics.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnlike quantum systems<\/a>, which face major challenges in scalability and stability, our analogue computing platform is feasible today and capable of delivering real-world applications much sooner,\u201d says Dr Rasool Keshavarz from the Radio Frequency and Communication Technologies (RFCT) Lab at Australia\u2019s University of Technology Sydney (UTS).<\/p>\n \u201cThis breakthrough paves the way for next-generation analogue radio frequency and microwave processors with applications in radar, advanced communications, sensors and space technologies that require real-time operations.\u201d<\/p>\n The new findings are published in a paper<\/a> in Nature Communications.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve bridged physics and electronics to design the first programmable microwave-integrated circuit that can execute matrix transformations, a type of mathematical operation fundamental to modern technologies,\u201d adds Mohammad-Ali Miri, an associate professor at Rochester Institute of Technology, USA.<\/p>\n A matrix is a grid of numbers. Matrix transformations<\/a> are a kind of mathematical function that changes one set of data, or matrix, into another.<\/p>\n