Chennai; October 20, 2016: Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras), Chennai signed a Letter of Intent (LoI) with Fraunhofer Institute IWU Germany on October 19, 2016, to establish an Applied Centre for Advanced Automotive Research (CAAR).
The
LoI was signed by Prof. Bhaskar Ramamurthi, Director, IIT Madras and
Dr.-Ing. Dirk Landgrebe, Chair of Forming and Joining at TU Chemnitz and
Head of Fraunhofer Institute for Machine Tools and Forming Technology
IWU in Chemnitz, Germany. Mr. Achim Fabig, Consul General of Germany,
Ms. Anandi Iyer, Director, Fraunhofer Office India and Prof. Krishnan
Balasubramanian, Dean, ICSR, IIT Madras were also present at the event.
CAAR
is envisaged to be a Centre of Excellence focusing on providing
research solutions to the automotive industries through focused R&D
in association with the talent and capabilities at IIT Madras and the
experience and delivery mechanisms developed at the Fraunhofer
Institutes in Germany. Some of the areas of interest for CAAR will
include frontiers in Light-weighting, Advanced Manufacturing, Emission,
NVH, Engineering Design and Novel Materials of interest to the
automotive sector. CAAR will be developed in collaboration with
Government of India organizations such as the Department of Heavy
Industries as well as Industry partners including OEMs, Tier I and Tier
II companies as well as associations representing automobiles as well as
manufacturing sectors.
Speaking
about CAAR, Prof. Krishnan Balasubramanian, Dean, ICSR, IIT Madras
said, "This is a partnership, where we are engaging with Fraunhofer,
Germany, Government of India and industries. We want CAAR to be a
delivery centre that delivers R&D solutions of excellent level and
that too in a timely fashion. We also intend to reach out to the
industry to understand their requirements better and CAAR's objective
would be to provide solutions to the problems faced by them."
Speaking
on the collaboration Ms. Anandi Iyer, Director Fraunhofer Office India
says “Fraunhofer has been active in India for 7 years and has an
impressive collaboration with Indian Industry as well as Government.
This collaboration of complementary strengths will further strengthen
our engagement with India”
Prof.
Dr.-Ing. Dirk Landgrebe, Executive Director, Fraunhofer IWU said “The
Fraunhofer Institute for Machine Tools and Forming is at the forefront
of the development of cutting edge applied research in the entire range
of production technologies. We are excited about this collaboration and
look forward to expanding our already extensive engagement with India.
The
LoI signing ceremony was followed by a meeting with the representatives
from the industry and the government, where vision of CAAR, industry
expectations and the Government's perspective were discussed.
In
addition, there was a talk on "Vehicle Light-Weighting" delivered by
Dr.-Ing. Dirk Landgrebe at IIT Madras Campus. The talk focused on
light-weighting in car manufacturing to achieve significant weight
reductions and consequently fuel savings.
About IITM (www.iitm.ac.in)
IIT
Madras was established in 1959 by the Government of India as an
institute of national importance. The activities of the Institute in
various fields of Technology and Science are carried out in 16 academic
departments and several advanced interdisciplinary Research Academic
Centres. There are over 100 well-equipped laboratories in the Institute
for teaching and research. The Institute offers
undergraduate
and postgraduate programmes leading to the B.Tech. M.Sc. M.B.A. M.Tech.
M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in a variety of specialisations. IITM is
recognized world-wide for its intellectual leadership and ongoing
innovation across every major discipline of engineering and pure
science. IITM is a residential institute with more than 550 faculty and
9000 students. Students from 18 countries are enrolled here. The campus
is self-contained and is located on a beautiful wooded area of about 250
hectares. It is home to approximately 300 species of trees and plants.
IITM fosters an active entrepreneurial culture with strong curricular
support and through the IITM Incubation Cell.
The
IITM has been ranked as No.1 Engineering Institution in the Country by
the National Institutional Ranking Framework, MHRD, Govt. of India -
About Fraunhofer
The
Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft is the leading organization for applied
research in Europe. Its research activities are conducted by 67
institutes and research units at locations throughout Germany. The
Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft employs a staff of 24,000, who work with an
annual research budget totaling more than 2.1 billion euros. Of this
sum, more than 1.8 billion euros is generated through contract research.
More than 70 percent of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft’s contract research
revenue is derived from contracts with industry and from publicly
financed research projects. International collaborations with excellent
research partners and innovative companies around the world ensure
direct access to regions of the greatest importance to present and
future scientific progress and economic development.