WMG is pleased to announce the appointment of Professor David Greenwood, as the new CEO of the WMG centre High Value Manufacturing (HVM) Catapult.

Professor Greenwood will replace Archie MacPherson, who has successfully led the WMG Catapult team since 2016.

WMG Executive Chair, Margot James, said: “We thank Archie for all that he has achieved in this period and wish him all the very best as he returns to a role in industry.”

The CEO role is part of Professor Greenwood’s remit as Director for Industrial Engagement at WMG.

He currently leads WMG’s Energy Research, and also holds advisory and board positions for the Advanced Propulsion Centre, Innovate UK (Faraday Challenge and IDP and the Faraday Institution, and is Head of the Advanced Propulsion Centre's Electrical Energy Storage Spoke. Professor Greenwood also provides academic leadership for the development of R&D activities within the National Automotive Innovation Centre at the University of Warwick.

Margot added: “Dave’s passion and unrivalled experience make him the ideal candidate to lead the HVM Catapult drive to de-risk innovation in UK manufacturing, enabling its productivity, growth and sustainability.”

Professor Greenwood added : “The focus of my career has been around bringing science and technology into industry, and I am delighted that these new roles will bring together the academic strengths of WMG with the transformative capability of the High Value Manufacturing Catapult to benefit Industry and the UK. I look forward to strengthening our existing partnerships and welcoming new ones.”

Professor Greenwood will officially start as CEO from 26^th October 2020.

WMG an academic department at the University of Warwick was on this day, the 1st of October, 1980 started by the late Professor Lord Bhattacharyya.

Professor Lord Bhattacharyya sadly passed away on the 1st March 2019. His long and highly accomplished career in engineering and manufacturing began with his studies in Mechanical Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology in Kharagpur, before he moved to the UK to further his studies. After working at the University of Birmingham he was persuaded by the then Vice Chancellor at Warwick, Lord Butterworth, to move to the University of Warwick where he started WMG.

Over the years he went on to become a Government adviser to Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat Industry Ministers and Prime Ministers.

Vice Chancellor of the University of Warwick, Professor Stuart Croft comments:

“I’m sure I speak for the whole Warwick community when I say how fantastic it is to see how Professor Lord Bhattacharyya’s vision for WMG has flourished to become not only an exceptional part of our University but also our whole region, by connecting engineering and manufacturing industries with academia. I look forward to seeing what is in store for WMG in the years ahead, as it continues to go from strength to strength.”

The new Executive Chair for WMG is Margot James, who was appointed in April 2020, comments on the achievements so far and plans for the future of WMG.

“We operate on a huge scale today but our mission and vision is the same it was on that first autumn morning. The challenges we are addressing now are different to those of 40 years ago; the need for a zero carbon industry is at the forefront of so much of our work. Our experience and expertise have never been more relevant and vital.

“Whether educating the next generation of engineers or developing the technologies that will change our world, the challenges we embrace today will shape the next chapter of the WMG story. We have the creativity, the insight, and most of all, the people to make the next 40 years of WMG even more exciting and impactful as we build a smarter, greener, cleaner and healthier world.”

Hot on the heels of being shortlisted for the RIBA West Midlands regional awards, the Prof. Lord Bhattacharyya building, home of the National Automotive Innovation Centre (NAIC), has now been shortlisted for a further three prestigious design awards.

The new shortlisted awards are AIA UK Excellence in Design Award, a Wood Award, and an FX International Interior Design Award.

Based at the University of Warwick, NAIC was officially open in February 2020 by HRH The Prince of Wales. The Centre is a partnership between WMG, University of Warwick, Jaguar Land Rover, and Tata Motors, and is the largest of its kind in Europe and is well timed, arriving when a global mobility revolution is underway, with a new age for transport mobility.

A beacon for automotive research it brings together the brightest minds from industry and academia, to develop future vehicles and mobility solutions. It is home to up to 1,000 staff working across design, engineering and research, as well as future engineers on degree programmes.

Designed by Cullinan Studios the brief for the Centre was for simplicity and strength of purpose, turning a complex assembly of spaces into an immediately legible building.

The Prof. Lord Bhattacharyya building, home of the National Automotive Innovation Centre, based at the University of Warwick, has been shortlisted in the RIBA West Midlands regional awards.

For 50 years the RIBA awards and prizes for buildings have championed and celebrated the best architecture in the UK and around the world, no matter the form, size or budget.

The National Automotive Innovation Centre is a partnership between WMG, University of Warwick, Jaguar Land Rover, and Tata Motors, and is the largest of its kind in Europe and is well timed, arriving when a global mobility revolution is underway, with a new age for transport mobility.

A beacon for automotive research it brings together the brightest minds from industry and academia, to develop future vehicles and mobility solutions. It is home to up to 1,000 staff working across design, engineering and research, as well as future engineers on degree programmes.

Designed by Cullinan Studios the brief for the Centre was for simplicity and strength of purpose, turning a complex assembly of spaces into an immediately legible building.

One of 11 building shortlisted in the West Midlands, see the full list https://www.ribaj.com/buildings/regional-awards-shortlist-2020-west-midlands

The National Automotive Innovation Centre is a £150m investment between WMG, Jaguar Land Rover, and Tata Motors with £29.5m funding from the UK government’s UK Research Partnership Investment Fund through Research England, which includes the development of an Advanced Propulsion Research Laboratory.

- One of Europe’s largest automotive research and development centres is tackling society’s greatest mobility challenges to shape the future of the automotive industry from the heart of the UK

- £150m national centre dedicated to advanced automotive research, design and development

- Jaguar Land Rover, Tata Motors and WMG, University of Warwick showcased sustainable future mobility projects, including their latest electrified and autonomous vehicles

- Jaguar Land Rover demonstrated its latest advanced autonomous research concept vehicle as the next stage of its Destination Zero mission: an ambition to make societies safer and healthier, and the environment cleaner.

HRH The Prince of Wales today officially opened one of Europe’s largest automotive research and development facilities, the National Automotive Innovation Centre (NAIC), at the University of Warwick, in Coventry. Advanced researchers, engineers and designers based at the Centre are tackling society’s largest mobility challenges and collectively shaping the future of the global automotive industry from the heart of the United Kingdom.

Bringing together the brightest minds from industry and academia, the NAIC is a beacon for future mobility and sustainability research and development. It will create future vehicles and personal mobility solutions as well as deliver the skills required to keep the UK globally competitive. The NAIC is at the centre of the Midlands ecosystem, which is a magnet for economic growth and delivering a Destination Zero future.

During today’s visit, Jaguar Land Rover, Tata Motors and WMG showcased sustainable future mobility projects, including their most recent electrified and autonomous vehicles.

Jaguar Land Rover demonstrated its latest advanced research vehicle as the next stage of its Destination Zero mission: an ambition to make societies safer and healthier, and the environment cleaner. Delivered through relentless innovation, the company’s focus is on achieving a future of zero emissions, zero accidents and zero congestion – across its facilities, and through its products and services.

Speaking at today’s opening event, Prof Sir Ralf Speth, CEO Jaguar Land Rover said: “At Jaguar and Land Rover, we believe in creating a better tomorrow for mobility. A future of zero emissions, zero congestion and zero accidents. We call it “Destination Zero and the National Automotive Innovation Centre will make sure we get there.”

“Here academics, manufacturers and suppliers will develop a smart, safe transport infrastructure that integrates autonomous vehicles and public transport; design zero emissions vehicles powered by smart-chargers and renewable energy and discover material and digital manufacturing innovations that will eliminate waste.”

“We are honoured that HRH The Prince of Wales has joined us today to open the National Automotive Innovation Centre.”

A collaborative hub

The 33,000m² centre is designed as an innovative, collaborative workspace for hundreds of academics, designers, researchers and engineers. It includes cutting-edge workshops, laboratories, virtual engineering suites and advanced powertrain facilities.

The concept for the NAIC was brought to life by the late Professor Lord Bhattacharyya, founder of WMG, and the building it is located in is named in his honour.

The University of Warwick’s Vice-Chancellor, Professor Stuart Croft said “I warmly welcome HRH The Prince of Wales to the University of Warwick campus to officially open the National Automotive Innovation Centre. Its location underscores Coventry, Warwickshire and the West Midlands’ leading roles in UK and international automotive innovation and research.”

“We have benefited from the dedication of many individuals and organisations from across industry and academia, as well as local and national government, have come together to help bring the vision of the late Professor Lord Bhattacharyya to fruition to create a centre dedicated to the development and research of the future of mobility.”

The partners working together in NAIC are engineering the future and helping supply the next generation of engineers, designers and researchers. At NAIC, students and apprentices work alongside experts and leaders in their fields. Through a range of education programmes, apprenticeships and lifelong learning, all three partners are developing curricula which support the emerging technologies and mobility solutions.

Professor David Mullins, Interim Head of WMG, commented: “The late Professor Lord Bhattacharyya’s vision was for future generations of designers, researchers and engineers to be inspired to innovate through collaborative research projects with manufacturers, suppliers and academia at the National Automotive Innovation Centre.”

“We are committed to delivering the skills required to keep the UK globally competitive and are developing curriculums, such as our digital degree apprentice programme, which enables emerging technology and mobility solutions.”

Sustainable future mobility

Jaguar Land Rover, Tata Motors and WMG are developing next generation future electrified and autonomous vehicles at the NAIC.

Today, they exhibited some of their latest projects including: Warwick’s Formula Student entry and the Warwick Moto concept which is led by WMG; Tata Motor’s latest affordable Nexon EV and autonomous Tata Hexa alongside Jaguar Land Rover’s latest prototype self-driving Jaguar I-PACE and ADAS Land Rover Discovery.

Guenter Butschek, CEO and MD of Tata Motors Ltd., said, “The National Automotive Innovation Centre brings together our UK-based engineering and design experts to one setting, providing greater synergy on ground-breaking design and technologies with a focus in Connected, Electric, Shared and Safe, that will help shape future mobility solutions in India.

The Centre has been carefully designed to support the future of automotive advancements. Its virtual engineering suite, powertrain facilities, laboratories and cutting-edge design workshop provide an inspiring, productive and collaborative environment for the future.

The opening of the National Automotive Innovation Centre, at the start of our 75th year, confirms Tata Motors' commitment to developing responsible and sustainable solutions to address the global challenges of the coming decades. The team is excited by HRH The Prince of Wales’ presence at the event and his great interest and understanding of the opportunities and challenges of our industry.”

Sustainable wellbeing

The building and all its facilities were designed from first principles to embrace sustainability and wellbeing.

NAIC’s construction has been recognised with the highest BREEAM Excellent rating and the building includes a rooftop photovoltaic array and regenerative electrical heating. Underneath one of the world’s largest glulam timber roofs, offices are flooded with natural light, and are arranged around a daylight filled atrium.

The £150m Centre is a partnership project by Jaguar Land Rover, WMG, Tata Motors and the University of Warwick with £15m funding from the UK Government’s Research Partnership Investment Fund, through Research England.

David Sweeney, from Research England said: “The National Automotive Innovation Centre will create breakthrough technologies with a whole system approach that crosses multiple disciplines. This model of interdisciplinary working exemplifies how our innovative higher education sector works with industry to foster collaborative and highly effective relationships, in regional centres of research excellence such as the West Midlands.”

“Research England is delighted to have the opportunity to support the NAIC via the Research Partnership Investment Fund.”

Autonomous pods born in Coventry are now able to swarm together in a world first, thanks to research by WMG at the University of Warwick in partnership with Aurrigo and Milton Keynes council.

With the concept of driverless pods now more realistic than futuristic, the vehicles are one step closer to being put to use, as they can now help each other to drive and navigate through pedestrian areas around people.

The concept of Swarming pods was well received by the public, with the ultimate idea of using an app to hail a pod, or a platoon of pods if travelling in a group, seen as the next evolution of personal and public transport.

The pods are designed for pedestrian areas and shared spaces, so public transport can be used on highways and the pods can be used as a “first and last mile service”.

Researchers at WMG integrated Swarm intelligence into the Pods by implementing swarming skills typically used by birds and insects.

The success of ‘swarming’ means that Pods can now schedule themselves to form a ‘platoon’, following each other when possible, to minimise the number of individual vehicle movements and the need for a supervisor per pod. In the future, it’s expected that a supervisor can watch several pods and report any unexpected behaviour.

The technology also enables the Pods, working within a fleet, to automatically optimise their behaviour to meet future passenger demand by distributing themselves within a city to the areas where they will most likely be requested.

Dr Roger Woodman, Associate Professor in human factors at WMG at the University of Warwick said:

“The SWARM algorithm has been tested and is proven to be effective and reliable. The ability to make pods ‘swarm’ together like a group of bees or birds, means they can coordinate with each other, bringing them one step closer to our streets.”

Simon Brewerton, Chief Technology Officer at Aurrigo, continued:

“The collaborative SWARM algorithms have been developed to enable our autonomous vehicles to optimise their own trip schedules, so they deliver the optimum efficiency from a fleet of vehicles.

“The swarming technology is very exciting and has the potential to operate large fleets of remotely supervised autonomous vehicles in a safe and scalable way. Interest in this will be huge.”

ENDS

30 JANUARY 2020

NOTES TO EDITORS

About WMG, University of Warwick

WMG is a world leading research and education group, transforming organisations and driving innovation through a unique combination of collaborative research and development, and pioneering education programmes.

As an international role model for successful partnerships between academia and the private and public sectors, WMG develops advancements nationally and globally, in applied science, technology and engineering, to deliver real impact to economic growth, society and the environment.

WMG’s education programmes focus on lifelong learning of the brightest talent, from the WMG Academies for Young Engineers, degree apprenticeships, undergraduate and postgraduate, through to professional programmes.

An academic department of the University of Warwick, and a centre for the HVM Catapult, WMG was founded by the late Professor Lord Kumar Bhattacharyya in 1980 to help reinvigorate UK manufacturing and improve competitiveness through innovation and skills development.

About Aurrigo

Aurrigo, which created ten new jobs over the last twelve months, has seen demand for its driverless pods soar following the successful completion of major trials in the UK and across the world proved that its technology can deliver safe and efficient ‘first and last mile’ transport solutions.

Sales have come from customers in Australia, Canada, Finland, Singapore and the US, with the latest deal seeing one of its ‘Pod Zeros’ heading to China, a potential landmark moment for the Coventry-based business.
This growth takes its annual sales up to £4.2m and, with a strong pipeline of future orders in place, the company is predicting a further £6m of contracts between now and the end of 2020.

High-res images available credit to WMG, University of Warwick at: https://warwick.ac.uk/services/communications/medialibrary/images/january2020/xt2a0013.jpg

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FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT:

Alice Scott
Media Relations Manager – Science
University of Warwick
Tel: +44 (0) 2476 574 255 or +44 (0) 7920 531 221
E-mail: alice.j.scott@warwick.ac.uk

Last week, WMG High Value Manufacturing Catapult hosted an Autonomous, Connected, Electric and Shared (ACES) networking dinner in partnership with NatWest and Lombard.

The event brought together CEOs, CTOs and senior executives from UK leaders in the sector, speakers included Jaguar Land Rover, Aston Martin, Rolls Royce, GiffGaff, WMG, You.Smart.Thing and FiveAI, to discuss how ACES technologies will radically change the way we travel.

There is a global call to both reduce emissions and also to ease congestion and increase the simplicity, safety and speed at which passengers are able to get from point A to B. There is no doubt that the future of transport will be ACES.

The UK has always been at the forefront of transport innovation and manufacturing, and needs to continue to bring manufacturers and governing bodies together to push forward the ACES transport agenda and ensure the UK remains competitive in a global market.

WMG, NatWest and Lombard will be releasing thought leadership pieces from expert industry leaders, sharing the challenges and opportunities for the UK transport sector.

Click here to read the Natwest article

For more information or to get involved please contact: wmgbusiness@warwick.ac.uk

Coventry City Council, working with the University of Warwick, has taken the unusual step of arranging with the University to have a road named after Professor Lord Bhattacharyya.

The road running past the Prof. Lord Bhattacharyya Building (the home of the National Automotive Innovation Centre) will now be known as Lord Bhattacharyya Way.

Councillor George Duggins, Leader of Coventry City Council said,

“We wanted to celebrate and honour a man who has done much for Coventry – helping to promote the skills of the city around the world.

“We are proud to be recognising a man who has done the same for business and employment and who not only has an amazing drive, commitment and passion for manufacturing – but also for seeing it succeed in our city.

“So, for a man who has put our city on the road to success, made sure we are heading in the right direction, and kept us streets ahead of the competition – we thought this would be the perfect honour.”

Professor Lord Bhattacharyya was pleased to welcome a delegation from Tata Sons to WMG recently.

The delegation led by Mr Chandrasekaran, Chairman of Tata Sons were given a tour of the National Automotive Innovation Centre (NAIC). The Centre, which is a long-term commitment between Jaguar Land Rover, Tata Motors European Technical Centre, WMG and the University of Warwick, is a unique resource and the first of its kind in Europe, providing an environment to foster collaboration, cohesion and sharing knowledge, combining automotive expertise nationally and internationally.

The visitors were also shown our state-of-the-art 3xD Simulator for Intelligent Vehicles where experts explained more about Midlands Future Mobility, a £25m project led by WMG which will see roads in Coventry and Birmingham become the UK testbed for developing the next generation connected and autonomous vehicles.

Finally, Mr Chandrasekaran and his colleagues were given a tour of our Energy Innovation Centre, which is going through significant expansion, and will see WMG to continue to provide a unique facility for industry and academia to develop innovative energy storage technology.

Mr Chandrasekaran and his colleagues was very interested to see for themselves some of the WMG projects and commented on the quality of research and innovative approach to R&D.

The National Automotive Innovation Centre, at the University of Warwick, saw a construction milestone hit, today, with the completion of the external grounds. WMG’s Professor Lord Bhattacharyya, Jaguar Land Rover’s Professor Dr Ralf Speth and TMETC’s John O’Connor, along with Leo Quinn, Balfour Beatty Group Chief Executive, and Rosie Drinkwater, University of Warwick marked the milestone with a specially engraved stone.

The Centre, which will open in Summer 2018, will become the driving force behind the future of the UK’s automotive sector. It will be the largest automotive R&D facility in Europe and is a long term commitment between Jaguar Land Rover, Tata Motors European Technical Centre, and WMG.