Tyndall National Institute has been named a key research partner in two of the six pioneering projects awarded funding under Call 7 of the Disruptive Technologies Innovation Fund (DTIF).
The €36.9m investment was announced by Peter Burke, enterprise minister ,and James Lawless, higher education minister. It supports transformative innovation across healthcare, ICT, and advanced manufacturing.
Develop ablation, shape-sensing, and tissue-sensing technologies
Tyndall will contribute its expertise in sensing and medtech innovation to the €11.1m SensABLATE project, which aims to develop ablation, shape-sensing, and tissue-sensing technologies. These innovations aim to enable the removal or destruction of unwanted tissue in the body, such as tumours or areas causing irregular heartbeats, without the need for major surgery.
L-R: Professor Holger Claussen and John Morrissey.
John Morrissey, executive director of MCCI (hosted at Tyndall) and Tyndall’s project lead for SensABLATE, said: "This exciting DTIF partnership, led by Endowave Ltd, will create a “smart ablation catheter” medical device by combining four independent technologies into a single, truly disruptive system that will enhance surgical treatments and outcomes.
"MCCI’s innovation in magnetic sensor microchip technology will be elevated to new levels of IP excellence when integrated with Quadrant Scientific’s expertise in developing a unique shape-sensing navigation system, alongside AI-augmented fluorescence microscopy tissue analysis from ATU. These technologies will enable a smart sensing microwave ablation catheter, developed by Endowave, who are focused on medical applications in the USA and beyond."
The project is a collaboration between Endowave Ltd, Quadrant Scientific Ltd, Atlantic Technological University, and Tyndall, and aligns with Ireland’s Health & Wellbeing research priorities.
NAIRA: €2.5m to build greener networks with native AI
Tyndall is also a key partner in NAIRA (Native AI for energy efficient and sustainable Radio Access networks), a €2.5m project that will address the critical challenge of reducing energy consumption in mobile networks. The project will develop native artificial intelligence solutions to optimise Radio Access Network (RAN) performance, making mobile infrastructure more sustainable and efficient.
Holger Claussen, head of the Wireless Communications Laboratory at Tyndall and project lead for NAIRA, said: "Improving energy efficiency in Wireless Networks is critical to enable to continue scaling the network capacity to match future demand. This is particularly challenging in networks with components from different vendors.
"In this project we will create an AI based end-to-end network coordination that can automatically learn the capabilities of different network equipment and can optimise the network for energy efficient operation based on real-time measurements. The resulting capabilities will have the potential to completely revolutionise Open RAN, enabling it to scale to meet the 6G requirements in an energy efficient and sustainable manner."
NAIRA brings together a consortium of Trinity College Dublin, Software Radio Systems Ltd, Intel Research and Development Ltd Ireland, Red Hat Ltd, Dell Technologies, and Tyndall. It aligns with Ireland’s ICT research priorities and supports national climate and sustainability goals.
These two projects exemplify Tyndall’s commitment to advancing disruptive technologies that address real-world challenges, from improving patient care to enabling more sustainable digital infrastructure.
Minister Burke noted: "This investment is a clear signal of the government’s continued support for bold, forward-thinking research and innovation."
Minister Lawless also highlighted that the investment is, "playing a pivotal role in advancing the knowledge economy by fostering transformative collaborations between academia and industry".
Through its involvement in SensABLATE and NAIRA, Tyndall continues to shape Ireland’s innovation landscape, delivering research excellence and technologies with global impact.