Expertise

FMCI is a not-for-profit company (SME) that was funded in call 3 of the Regional Enterprise Development Fund (REDF) in 2020. Future Mobility Campus Ireland (FMCI) was established in 2019 to create a research and development facility for mobility in Ireland. Initially focused on automotive technologies, FMCI identified the market gap for an aerial test facility and identified the establishment of a Vertiport and drone testing facility as a key expansion phase to the testbed. FMCI is the first of its kind in Ireland, working with SMEs, MNCs, HEIs as well as local government agencies to put Ireland at the forefront of evolving technological advancements. FMCI Automotive Partners include Enterprise Ireland; IDA Ireland, Clare County Council, Limerick City & County Council, Lero, Jaguar Land Rover, CISCO, GM, Seagate, Red Hat, Valeo, Exida, Shannon Airport Group, Mergon, Pipiper, Analog Devices & Taoglas.

FMCI is primarily, an automotive test facility located in real-world settings, providing customers with the ability to test, validate and demonstrate their technology. Customers have access to a road network that is retrofitted with interconnected state of the art sensing and telecommunication technologies or a “Smart City Infrastructure,” which is fully accessible and controlled via a dedicated control centre. FMCI facilities also include a fleet of test “mule” vehicles, workshop and laboratory space, a state-of-the-are data centre focused large volumes of automotive data (often referred to as ‘big data’) as well as the processing requirement of such data in addition to traditional office space.

Building on its original foundation, FMCI has added V2X OBUs and RSUs over the past 12 months as well as having developed a smart junction with controllable traffic light for various research projects. FMCI has also built a digital twin of the smart city road network in CARLA and has added a driving simulator on-site as part of this digital twin infrastructure. Over the past 12 months FMCI has also worked with Tier 1 automotive companies as well as Higher Education Institutes (HEIs), working on developing a dedicated vehicle for the collection of automotive datasets. This vehicle focuses on collection datasets which are currently not provided by automotive datasets such as NUscenes or WoodScape.

Although FMCI also offers an aerial testbed for R&D activities related to drone technologies although not relevant here, drone can play a crucial role in automotive collision monitoring as well as last-mile-delivery.

Participation in EU Projects and International Activities

In terms of National and European Projects and proposals we have been very busy over the past months with 4 x Horizon Europe proposals having been submitted across thematic areas such as Smart Cities, Connected & Autonomous Vehicles, ICT, Battery Technology (digital passports for batteries) as well as digital sky demonstrators. Currently FMCI is coordinating a European Funding project entitled ‘ÉALU-AER’ which focuses on unmanned airspace as well as a major partner in some nationally funded projects in relation to mobility datasets. It would be great if we could work on potentially collaborating in some way whether it be via European Funding or otherwise.