Tánaiste Leo Varadkar has officially opened Future Mobility Campus Ireland (FMCI), Ireland's first full-scale development centre and test-bed for mobility technologies, in Shannon, Co Clare.
The €5.5m commercial campus has been established for technology research and development, with a particular focus on aerospace and automotive technologies, and to stimulate international investment and job creation.
Projects involving unmanned drones, electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft (eVTOL), Advanced Air Mobility (AAM), autonomous driving, micro-mobility, smart cities, and V2X vehicle communication systems are being accommodated at the recently opened Advanced Air Mobility Hub.
"We want Ireland to be at the cutting-edge of new technologies, and that means we must continually invest in research, testing new ideas, seeing what works and how it can be improved," Varadkar said.
"Future mobility is a particularly important and interesting area, given our need to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels, while at the same time making our cities more liveable. This is a particular challenge given our population is rising.
In Association with
“I’m glad we’ve been able to provide over €5.5m to the development of this campus, including €185,000 in additional funding, announced just yesterday, under the Regional Enterprise Innovation Scoping Scheme."
The project is funded by the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment through Enterprise Ireland, with financial contributions from the local authorities of Clare County Council, Limerick City and County Council, the Western Development Commission and industry partners.
The facility supports a range of parties including large and small-scale enterprise, from individual researchers to multi-national corporations, start-ups and government entities.
Partners of the campus include Jaguar Land Rover, Shannon Group, Cisco, Valeo, Seagate, Red Hat, Taoglas, Mergon, Exida, Analog Devices, General Motors, Pipiper, Collins Aerospace and Avtrain.
"Our unique facility in Shannon is facilitating safe, cost-effective and sustainable transport of freight and people now and into the future," said Russell Vickers, CEO of Future Mobility Campus Ireland.
"What we and our clients do here contributes to socio-economic development and technological advancement that has extensive business, public service and societal applications”.
A European consortium coordinated by FMCI was last month approved and funded by the EU to develop a ‘Digital Sky Demonstrator’ for aerial Unmanned Traffic Management (UTM) systems in what Vickers said was a major vote of confidence in Ireland's resourcing of advanced air mobility development.
Last Thursday FMCI was awarded a priming grant as part of the Regional Enterprise Innovation Scoping Scheme (REISS), to prepare for development of a large-scale Advanced Air Mobility hub, which will enable large scale eVTOL services.
"This new state-of-the-art facility will provide a real boost to the Mid-West Region, delivering a key piece of infrastructure that will support Irish industry nationally in addressing the cutting-edge future mobility industry," said Leo Clancy, CEO of Enterprise Ireland.
"We are proud to have supported this project through €5.5m funding under our Regional Enterprise Development Fund (REDF) and the Regional Enterprise Transition Scheme (RETS), enabling enterprise to develop unique products and services to compete in international markets.”
Mary Considine, CEO of Shannon Group, said: “This incubation space, where future mobility technologies are being developed, is providing great opportunities for innovation in our region and nationally.
“Innovation is part of Shannon Group’s DNA, and we are also delighted to welcome the news this week that FMCI, partnering with Shannon Group, has been awarded funding under the REISS scheme to undertake a feasibility study on the continued development of the Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) research and innovation hub.
“Establishing a world-class, large-scale research and innovation hub for AAM on the Shannon Group campus will help foster a cluster of new industries within the region and beyond. We look forward to continuing to work with FMCI and seeing the opportunities these cutting-edge technologies can bring.”
Photo: Leo Varadkar.
