From evolution to revolution: automobility at the heart of University of Windsor

The automotive industry has changed a great deal since the University of Windsor (UWindsor) established Canada’s first university-level education in Automotive Engineering in 1998. The major focus of that program was the evolving mechanical and electrical aspects of vehicles including materials, manufacturing, design, and R&D with a concentration on developing highly qualified people (HQP) to meet industry’s advancing needs. The strong partnerships with industry fostered by the 1998 program established UWindsor as the leading automotive institution in Canada and led to initiatives such as the AUTO21 NCE (2001-2015) which produced more than 2500 HQP for the auto industry and new industry-academic partnerships that resulted in great innovations and products. However, that was then—and the shift from the evolutionary climate in the auto industry of 2000-2015 to today’s revolutionary environment is much more profound with an accelerated pace as OEMs position themselves to capture their share of an ever-expanding electric vehicle market. Now, more than 20 years later, the Canadian auto industry must contend with new competition from abroad and an emphasis on products centred around four key themes which collectively define a new idea called automobility and the concepts of the connected, autonomous, secure, and electric (CASE) vehicle development. In the view of the authors, it is essential that Canada’s research community collectively join in this response to support our automotive industry as they develop the products needed to bring affordable, sustainable, and safe electric mobility to the market. And hence the need for UWindsor’s new research program in Automobility-CASE. Automobility is the secure, zero-carbon movement of people, goods and services using advanced information technologies. The acronym, CASE, encompasses these goals. CASE has become widely used in the auto industry to unify the ideas of connected and autonomous vehicles that use secure information technologies to operate safely and are electrically powered. In consultation with our industry partners, the new program crosses discipline boundaries to include: power-train development including electric motors, controllers, batteries and fuel cells which incorporate sustainability, new materials and manufacturing technologies to ensure that Canadians and our natural resources play a key role in the future car; cybersecurity and real-time systems for safety critical tasks such as chassis control (steering, braking and suspension), powertrain control, battery operation and health monitoring; advanced modelling techniques including virtual reality to aid in ergonomic design of vehicle interior spaces and factory work-stations and to simulate solutions to safety issues, noise problems and the efficient use of space in future cars; new energy efficient occupant safety and comfort systems such as climate control, illumination and infotainment technologies; socio-economic and environmental aspects of Automobility-CASE such as climate change mitigation, total life cycle design, shared/community mobility, traffic and route planning and optimization, the economics and politics of energy use and the influence of trade and international borders. The role of research should be to improve the lives of Canadians and, in the context of the new paradigm of automobility, that means placing Canada at the forefront of developments in future mobility. Public sector investments in research must have multiple objectives that advance the state of knowledge, train new HQP, and drive growth in the domestic economy by developing new products and services which will lead to the creation of new jobs, wealth, and Canada’s global competitiveness. In light of these ideas, we believe that the auto industry has a central role to play in Automobility-CASE research. Industry input helps to leverage public investments but, more importantly, seeking industry input helps ensure that the educational programs and the research work is relevant to the needs of the economy. Industry provides a direct path from the university to the economy through knowledge deployment via the employment of HQP who graduate from the program and through the commercialization of the new knowledge they create in collaboration with industry. That large-scale, and sustained collaboration with industry is what makes programs such as the German Fraunhofer Institutes and the National Labs program in the United States so successful at propelling innovation in those countries. Canada would do well to adopt the best aspects of those models—and put them to work on problems faced by our country. Working together with our industry partners, the new Automobility-CASE program will continue the tradition of Canadian innovation that has made Canada an automaking nation for more than a century. Peter Frise is a professor of engineering at Windsor where he developed Canada’s first university program in automotive engineering in 1998 and the AUTO21 NCE in 2001. He has taught elsewhere in Canada and the U.S. and worked in the petroleum and heavy machinery industries prior to coming to academe. Bill Van Heyst is the dean of the faculty of engineering at the University of Windsor and is a professor in environmental engineering. He has spent over 25 years conducting research and analyzing trends in air quality, including the impact of the manufacturing and transport sectors, at two universities as well as a private environmental consulting firm. The Hill Times

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From evolution to revolution: automobility at the heart of University of Windsor

Automobility is the secure, zero-carbon movement of people, goods and services using advanced information technologies.

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