Engineering news
Jaguar Land Rover has said it is to recruit 150 new engineers for its new research centre at Warwick University, construction of which is due to begin next month and end in 2016.
The National Automotive Innovation Campus (NAIC) has been jointly funded by Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) for £50 million and the government.
The 30,000m2 building will have areas dedicated to powertrain research, combustion engine design, hybrid and chassis research and design research, as well as an area accessible to the public and students.
JLR currently employs 200 engineers at Warwick University and conducts most of its advanced research there. The company said the number of its employees on campus will grow to 500 when the NAIC opens. Of the extra 300, 150 will be new researchers to be recruited during the next two years.
Tony Harper, head of research at Jaguar Land Rover, said: “The research centre is not about new equipment, its about integrating the systems of the future better - we currently don't have a single facility where we have design and hybrids and advanced chassis all together.
Harper said the research centre will allow engineers to accelerate research by improving the facilities which the company uses to carry out systems integration and optimisation. He said:“To take an extreme example in the field of intelligent connected cars - in one room we would have an engine in a rig connected by ethernet to a computer connected to the internet to receive topology data. The computer feeds the engine the topology data and the engineers are able to test how the engine will run on this data to optimise performance.
“The research done at the NAIC will be technology that is three to six years ahead of production.”
Dr Wolfgang Epple, director of research and technology, said the company was opening the research centre to involve the supply chain more in R&D, to improve access to academics and graduates and to encourage the professional development of its current employees. He said: “The ethos of the building is openness. We see ourselves doing collaborative research with other companies more in the future.”
During the next year JLR plans to spend a massive £2.75bn in R&D for manufacturing – the most any British engineering company in the UK will spend and far outstripping any automotive company in the UK. The company generates £11bn in export revenues and accounts for a fifth of all of the UK's exports to China.