In this futuristic episode, Professor Manos Tentzeris and Samantha discussed what is needed to realize a smart city and how Prof. Tentzeris’ ATHENA research group is bringing it closer than ever before. Key technologies that are involved are low-cost and near-zero power additive manufactured sensors, inkjet printed antennas and energy harvesters, and machine learning. Then Tentzeris explained how 4D printing works and how it is becoming scalable with tile-by-tile structures. 4D printing is valuable for 5G networks, energy harvesting, smart cities, and smart agriculture. Furthermore, we discussed how to harness all the IoT data with machine learning, how to make the connection secure with hardware fingerprints, and removing the batteries by energy harvesting modules. Finally, Professor Tentzeris and Samantha talked about what the future will look like for augmented reality and soft robots and he gave interesting book recommendations.

Manos Tentzeris is Ken Byers Professor in flexible electronics in the school of electrical and computer engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology. He is the head of the ATHENA research group which develops novel technologies for electromagnetic, wireless, RF, mm-wave, and sub-THz applications by using inkjet-printed electronics, nano structures, and 3D printing to name a few.