UTC and Cetim are reach­ing a major new mile­stone in their strate­gic part­ner­ship by launch­ing the joint lab­o­ra­to­ry CREM – Cetim, Rober­val for Electromobility.

What does UTC expect from a laboratory like this?

For UTC, CREM is first and fore­most a strate­gic lever to strength­en the con­tin­u­um between aca­d­e­m­ic research, exper­i­men­ta­tion, and indus­tri­al trans­fer. Elec­tro­mo­bil­i­ty today pos­es com­plex chal­lenges, that can­not be addressed by a sin­gle dis­ci­pline: we must inte­grate mechan­ics, ther­mo­dy­nam­ics, elec­tro­mag­net­ism, vibro-acoustics, mod­el­ling, test­ing, and sys­tem inte­gra­tion. The goal is there­fore to make CREM a place where the sci­en­tif­ic exper­tise of UTC’s Rober­val Lab­o­ra­to­ry can direct­ly address the needs of indus­try. It is also a mat­ter of edu­ca­tion. By work­ing on real-world indus­tri­al chal­lenges, CREM will help train engi­neers, doc­tor­al stu­dents, and researchers capa­ble of tack­ling electro­mechan­i­cal sys­tems in all their com­plex­i­ty.

What do you think of the partnership with the CETIM in this context?

The part­ner­ship with CETIM is par­tic­u­lar­ly rel­e­vant because it is based on a long-stand­ing and high­ly for­ma­tive com­ple­men­tar­i­ty. UTC brings its sci­en­tif­ic exper­tise, exper­i­men­tal plat­forms, mod­el­ling capa­bil­i­ties, and inter­dis­ci­pli­nary cul­ture. CETIM, for its part, brings its close ties to indus­try, its in-depth under­stand­ing of the needs of mechan­i­cal engi­neer­ing com­pa­nies, its tech­no­log­i­cal resources, and its exper­tise in tech­nol­o­gy trans­fer to indus­try. CREM is built pre­cise­ly on this syn­er­gy: start­ing with con­crete indus­tri­al prob­lems, address­ing them with a high degree of sci­en­tif­ic rig­or, and then trans­lat­ing them into meth­ods, tools, or demon­stra­tors that com­pa­nies can use. This is what gives the joint lab­o­ra­to­ry its full value.

What joint projects have already been carried out?

CREM isn’t start­ing from scratch. It builds on a long his­to­ry of coop­er­a­tion between UTC and CETIM. The two part­ners have already worked togeth­er with­in the frame­work of Latim, and lat­er through the Insti­tute of Mecha­tron­ics, which com­bined train­ing, research, and tech­nol­o­gy trans­fer. Joint ini­tia­tives have also been car­ried out in the fields of elec­tri­cal engi­neer­ing, hydraulics, mecha­tron­ics, vibro-acoustics and pow­er sys­tems. More recent­ly, sev­er­al demon­stra­tors and tech­nol­o­gy projects have illus­trat­ed this abil­i­ty to bring togeth­er lab­o­ra­to­ries, plat­forms, and indus­tri­al part­ners. Notable exam­ples include work relat­ed to the Hydraulics and Mecha­tron­ics Chair, as well as demon­stra­tion projects such as the devel­op­ment of a hydrauli­cal­ly pow­ered drone and elec­tro-hydraulic systems.

KD