The Intelligent Mobility Engineering Centre (IMEC) teaching facility has been designed to be an inspirational and interactive learning environment. The Centre includes teaching rooms, study areas, simulation suite, laboratories and workshops.
IMEC is a dedicated facility located adjacent to the Multi User Environment for Autonomous Vehicle Innovation (MUEAVI) instrumented transport corridor, and complements the activities associated with MUEAVI. IMEC's building interfaces both physically and operationally with the MUEAVI control tower, inclusive of the control viewing room. All of the data from MUEAVI is relayed to IMEC in near real-time from the communication network running alongside both sides of the road.
Within IMEC, there are vehicle workshops, vehicle electrification, autonomous vehicles, simulation and simulators, mechatronics and control systems laboratories.
Summary of applications
Current projects using IMEC include:
- CogShift – EPSRC,
- HumanDrive – Innovate UK,
- Alloyed – Innovate UK,
- CORAM – Innovate UK.
Using the facility
IMEC supports taught master's students on courses including Automotive Mechatronics, Automotive Engineering, Advanced Motorsport Engineering and Advanced Motorsport Mechatronics. The Centre also supports our MSc covering the engineering of driverless road vehicles. Our students receive teaching in IMEC's teaching rooms and use the laboratories and workshops for group design and individual research projects.
The simulator suite is used to support the understanding and development of driving skills and the use of simulation to advance vehicle development. IMEC is also for short course provision and for hosting events such as exhibitions of research work.
Our current clients include Nissan, Oxbotica, Jaguar Land Rover, Honda and Westfield. These companies use IMEC, as well as MUEAVI, to support their research activities. IMEC is funded by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) and SEMLEP.
IMEC is co-funded by SEMLEP (South East Midlands Local Enterprise Partnership), HEFCE (Higher Education Funding Council for England) and Cranfield University. MUEAVI is co-funded by SEMLEP from the Government’s Local Growth Fund (LGF) and Cranfield University.
