ISAC enables the creation of smart cities—urban spaces where infrastructure, mobility, and administration are digitally controlled through seamless real-time connectivity, artificial intelligence, and integrated sensor technology. Movements, traffic data, weather changes, and the condition of buildings can be recorded in real time without the need to install separate sensors or cameras everywhere.
But ISAC does not yet exist. And ISAC cannot be developed using conventional technology: current high-frequency measurement systems are technically incompatible, extremely expensive, or require extremely lengthy integration processes. A team of four graduates from TU Ilmenau has been working since 2019 on new high-frequency measurement technology for 6G and ISAC. Their goal is ambitious: they aim to turn their research findings into economically viable technical products; in short, they want to make ISAC technology practically usable in the first place.
The four scientists, aged between 28 and 35, have now come a long way toward achieving this goal: With support from the Ilmkubator startup service at TU Ilmenau, they were awarded an exist research transfer grant from the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy. The federal government’s excellence program is now supporting them in preparing their spin-off from TU Ilmenau—they call it “unparallabs: Unparalleled Software-Defined Instrumentation for 6G and Beyond.” This is a major achievement, as the requirements for such an exist grant for spin-off projects are very high: only about a quarter of applications are approved. And there’s more: While funding typically lasts 18 months, the unparallabs team has been receiving over 1.3 million euros in funding for 30 months since June 1.
Now, supported by strong partners from research and industry, the team can get to work developing software-defined instrumentation for the 6G standard—the key to making ISAC practically usable, as these software-based measurement systems significantly simplify both the development and testing of ISAC technologies. Instead of complex, expensive specialized hardware, they enable flexible and scalable testing—a crucial step toward bringing ISAC wireless technology to market. This would pave the way for powerful, flexible applications in the future 6G market.
In their LinkedIn profiles, the four young scientists share their excitement about what lies ahead: “exist gives us the opportunity to do exactly what is crucial in deep-tech development in the coming months and years: work with focus without compromising on scientific quality or technological depth. We are proud, grateful, and full of anticipation for everything that lies ahead.”
The odds are in the unparallabs team’s favor: According to the exist annual report, over 90 percent of funded startups survive the years following their founding.
Contact
Carsten Andrich
Project Manager
+49 3677 69-4269
carsten.andrich@tu-ilmenau.de
