Smart Mobility Center Will Be Based At University Of Warwick
It was recently announced that a Smart City Mobility Centre will be based at the University of Warwick’s Wellesbourne campus, with driverless capable vehicle evaluation taking place on the Coventry and Warwickshire campus. Workers at the center will develop electric vehicle technology with modular architectures and incorporate driverless capabilities. Researchers at the center and Jaguar Land Rover engineers will collaborate on the projects to create new transportation technologies. Peter Dunn, Director of Press and Media Relations at the University of Warwick, answered some questions for CleanTechnica.
1. How did the partnership with Jaguar Land Rover come about, and what presence will it have within the mobility center? Will it have its own team of researchers and engineers?
WMG at the University of Warwick has had a long and deep relationship with Jaguar Land Rover. In particular, WMG and Jaguar Land Rover researchers have worked, and are working together on a wide range of automotive related technologies. That relationship will now extend to, and continue in, the new Centre.
2. How many staff will there be from the university or outside of Jaguar Land Rover?
This is yet to be decided, but it will be bringing current expertise together in one centre staff from both partners will work collaboratively together
3. Will all the employees within the center be housed under one roof in within a single central administration for greater collaboration?
Staff from the two partners will work together at the centre but as the original press release says: “Jaguar Land Rover engineers and WMG researchers will work together at Wellesbourne to design and engineer connected, driverless capable, prototype electric modular architectures. These will be tested in real world conditions alongside a specially designed 5G communications network on the University of Warwick’s main campus.”
4. What are some of the first projects they will work on?
Due to Commercial confidentiality we can’t give any more detail at the moment other than what is given in the press release.
5. How will the inventions and innovations they create make their way into practical application for every day people in terms of transportation?
The research partnerships between WMG and Jaguar Land Rover have all been designed to do every thing and delivered real practical automotive technology applications. This new Centre will continue to deliver in that way.
6. Is there a general expectation that one day all mechanized transport in the UK will be fully electric?
I think that is a question for politicians and policy makers but do see.
7. Does the driverless capable reference in the press release also include vehicles like shuttles, or perhaps even buses?
We can only say as much as is in the press release which said: Partners will be working on a range of prototype electric modular architectures.
8. Will students be involved in work at the center in research projects, or internships?
Research students work on a range of current WMG / Jaguar Land Rover research programmes and undergraduate degree apprenticeships see some the technologies being researched. This will probably also be a feature of this research as it develops.
Image Credit: Ben Firshman, Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0
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