OTHER ELECTRONICS & NANOTECHNOLOGY
INDUSTRY UPDATE
May 2016
McIlvaine Company
TABLE OF
CONTENTS
Texas A&M
Spending for New Research Campus
Albertan
Science Lab Opens in India
The Texas A&M University System is developing a new research
and development campus near its flagship College Station campus to focus on
evolving technologies like driverless cars, robotics and materials to fix the
country's eroding infrastructure and train people how to use them.
A&M System Chancellor John Sharp said the $150 million initial
investment will construct seven buildings and testing sites and upgrade what is
now its Riverside Campus at the old World War II-era Bryan Air Base. In its new
incarnation, he expects as many of 10,000 students could be studying and earning
degrees there.
The project includes a $12 million transportation center for
research, design and testing of automated vehicles, which A&M officials said was
only one part of the overall project.
The largest piece would a $73 million Center for
Infrastructure Renewal, focusing on development of new methods and better
materials to address concerns about the nation's failing infrastructure. Another
$12 million center will be devoted to robotics, connected vehicle technologies
and cyber security.
Sharp said the new campus would be a "magnet for technology
companies locating their research facilities" to the area."
"It will bridge the 'valley of death' between product
development and the marketplace," M. Katherine Banks, vice chancellor and dean
of engineering, said.
In the area of automated vehicles, Christopher Poe, assistant
director for connected and automated transportation strategy at the A&M-based
Texas Transportation Institute, said the institute already is working with
several manufacturers of trucks and components like steering and braking systems
and how automated vehicle technology can connect with vehicles. Connected
vehicles can talk with one another and use information, for example, to warn
drivers of things like road and weather conditions and construction zones.
"We think those two paths are going to merge," he said of
driverless and connected vehicles.
Some vehicles already are under construction and the new
center would help in that kind of research once they are delivered later this
year, Poe said.
Testing of eight driverless cars began last summer in Austin,
home to the rival University of Texas, in a Google-sponsored project.
The new A&M campus will be renamed the RELLIS campus, which
the A&M System said was an acronym for the Texas Aggies "core values" of
respect, excellence, leadership, loyalty, integrity and selfless service.
"It is a big idea and it is important that the Texas A&M
University system nurture big ideas," Sharp said.
Ingenuity Lab is proud to announce the opening of the
Ingenuity Lab Research Hub at Mahatma Gandhi University in Kottayam, Kerala
India, to implement applied research and enable the translation of new 22nd
century technologies. This new facility is the result of collaboration between
the International and Inter University Centre for Nanoscience Nanotechnology
(IIUCNN) and Ingenuity Lab to leverage what each participant does best.
Ingenuity Lab, led by Dr. Carlo Montemagno, brings the best
minds together to address global challenges and was in 2014 voted the Best
Nanotechnology Research Organization in 2014 by The New Economy. IIUCNN is led
by Professor Sabu Thomas, whose vision it is to perform and coordinate academic
and research activities in the frontier areas of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology
by incorporating physical, chemical, biological and environmental aspects.
The two institutions are world-renowned for their work, and
the new partnership should cover areas as diverse as catalysis, macromolecules,
environmental chemistry, biological processes and health and wellness.
"The initial focus," according to Ingenuity Lab's Director Dr.
Carlo Montemagno, "Will be on inexpensive point of care healthcare technologies
and water availability for both agriculture and personal consumption." However,
in the future, he says, "We plan to expand the scope to include food safety and
energy systems."
Ingenuity Lab's role is to focus on producing, adapting and
supplying new materials to Ingenuity Lab India to focus on final device
development and field-testing. The India team members know what system
characteristics work best in developing economies, and will establish the
figures of merit to make an appropriate solution. Alberta team members will then
use this information to exercise its skills in advance materials and systems
design to be crafted into its final form and field-tested.
The collaboration is somewhat unique in that it includes the
bilateral exchange of students and researchers to facilitate the commercial
translation of new and game changing technologies.
Dr. Babu Sebastian, Honorable Vice Chancellor of Mahatma
Gandhi University, will declare the opening of the new facility in the presence
of Dr. Montemagno, who will explain the vision of this research hub in
association with his plenary lecture of ICM 2016.
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