McMaster, Ford and NSERC join forces to develop hybrid powertrains
By Design Engineering Staff
General Automotive development McMaster University R&D ResearchJointly funded initiative to be located within McMaster’s 80,000 sq. ft. automotive research facility.
Hamilton, ON— Canada is boosting its commitment to developing new powertrain systems for hybrid vehicles with a new research initiative to be based at McMaster Innovation Park.
McMaster University, Ford Motor Company and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) are providing $2.5 million in funding to establish the NSERC/Ford/McMaster Industrial Research Chair in Hybrid/Electric Vehicle (HEV) Powertrain Diagnostics. The funding will be distributed over five years.
Saeid Habibi, a leading innovator of intelligent control-failure-prediction systems for the automotive and aerospace industries, has been named the inaugural chair holder. Habibi is a professor of mechanical engineering at McMaster and department chair. He is also a lead researcher in the $26-million Green Auto Powertrain initiative announced by the Province of Ontario in 2008.
The new chair will also establish a research centre for mechatronics and hybrid technologies, in which Ford also participates.
The centre will be located in the new 80,000 sq. ft. McMaster Automotive Resource Centre (MARC) at McMaster Innovation Park. The research will focus on developing performance and reliability testing systems to be used in designing advanced hybrid powertrain systems as well as in-vehicle monitoring and fault-detection systems.
The funds for the industrial research chair will support a research group consisting of two postdoctoral fellows, nine graduate students, and one part-time technician over the five-year term.
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