TERRAMETA

TERRAMETA demonstrated an end-to-end Smart Factory and Physical AI use case exploring how RIS-assisted sub-THz and THz connectivity can enable fibre-like wireless performance for future smart manufacturing environments. The use case addresses scenarios in which increasingly mobile and software-defined industrial systems, including robots, digital twins and platforms such as the Omniverse, generate large volumes of real-time sensor data that need to be transmitted and processed with very high bandwidth and low latency.

The demonstrated system integrates a mobile industrial robot equipped with high-resolution RGB-D sensors, high-speed Ethernet interfaces, real-time baseband processing, D-band and THz RF front-ends, Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces (RIS), and commercial edge-computing infrastructure. Multi-Gbps 3D sensing data are transmitted wirelessly from the robot to an edge-processing system, supporting applications such as Simultaneous Localisation and Mapping (SLAM), real-time point-cloud visualisation, digital twins and edge-assisted Physical AI. The architecture also explores full-duplex communication and RIS-assisted propagation to address key challenges associated with THz communications, including path loss and blockage.

During the EuCNC demonstration, the application operated at approximately 4.24 Gbps and 30 frames per second, with a sub-millisecond average round-trip time, demonstrating the potential of the technology for demanding industrial applications. Further proof-of-concept activities include the integration of THz RF front-ends and transmissive THz RIS with Dell robots in Cork, Ireland.

Ultimately, the use case envisions smart factories in which THz RIS infrastructure provides high-speed wireless coverage across the factory floor, allowing mobile robots and other machines to exchange gigabits of sensor data without relying on fixed cabling. Its modular architecture could also be adapted to other industrial and advanced laboratory environments requiring ultra-high-bandwidth, low-latency wireless connectivity.