The SPRINTER project, which is supported by a €6 million investment from the European Commission, is developing cutting-edge optical and wireless technology that could replace today’s slow and power-hungry industrial networks with super-fast, laser-driven communications systems.
By using light instead of electricity, this new industrial internet offers instant, wired and wireless connections between machines, rooms or even buildings better meeting the fast, flexible demands of future smart factories.
At present, factories and industrial sites rely on a mixture of copper cables, unreliable Wi-Fi, and switching systems but for the real-time, AI-driven future factories and warehouses that will look to deploy automated robots, sensors, machine learning, and 5G-controlled systems, existing setups are proving too slow and power-hungry.
However, by relying on its expertise in high-speed networks, the SPRINTER team is redesigning the ‘nervous system’ of modern industry.
At the heart of the initiative are high-speed optical transceivers, or tiny devices that use laser light to fire data through fibre cables at up to 200 gigabits per second. These transceivers are designed to be cheap, reliable and ultra-efficient, offering industries a considerable improvement in performance.
“Industry 5.0 demands faster, smarter, and more robust networks,” said Efstathios Andrianopoulos, a researcher on the ICCS team that leads SPRINTER. “Our goal is to make Europe the world leader in industrial photonics — providing the tools to support the next generation of automation, robotics and intelligent systems.”
The project is creating a dependable wireless communication network that continues to operate seamlessly in harsh, dynamic and extremely complicated environments.
The new SPRINTER hybrid (photonic/wireless) transceivers are being developed to switch from light to mmWave radio signals in order to offer more flexibility and backup, ensuring immunity against any interference such as dust, smoke, or a passing bird blocks the beams of light.
“Factories are full of moving parts, dust, and interference — a nightmare for traditional Wi-Fi. That’s why we are developing hybrid “free-space optical and mmWave” transceivers that combine laser and radio technologies to maintain wireless connections, even in the noisiest settings.
“We are building a unified network platform that supports time-sensitive networking systems where delays of even milliseconds can mean the difference between smooth automation and a factory shutdown,” said Andrianopoulos.
SPRINTER is developing four advanced prototypes tailored to the demands of next-generation smart factories. As well as the ultra-fast 200 Gb/s optical transceivers for high-capacity core networks and hybrid free-space optical and mmWave transceivers, SPRINTER is developing wavelength-tuneable 10 Gb/s transceivers that can dynamically adapt to changing conditions in real-time.
To boost flexibility and efficiency, the project is also building a Reconfigurable Optical Add-Drop Multiplexer (ROADM) optimised for space-division multiplexing, enabling intelligent data routing across complex networks – almost like smart traffic lights for data – to vastly increase the reliability and robustness of existing infrastructure.
Funded through the EU’s Horizon Europe programme, SPRINTER brings together leading research centres and industry experts from across the continent, including specialists in photonics, telecommunications, and industrial automation.
Led by the Institute of Communication and Computer Systems (ICCS) in Athens, the SPRINTER project brings together 11 partners from across Europe and one from Israel, combining top research institutes with major industry players.
Key contributors include Fraunhofer (Germany), IMEC (Belgium), LioniX International (Netherlands), and Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (Spain), alongside global tech firms like Ericsson (Italy) and Mellanox Technologies (Israel).
SMEs such as PHIX, CUMUCORE, and FILL add specialised expertise in photonic packaging, 5G networking, and smart manufacturing. Swiss partner CSEM also supports the project, contributing expertise in microtechnology and system integration.
