We are delighted to have completed our first commission for Cranfield University. The newly opened AIRC will enable Cranfield to build on its existing centres of excellence, enabling and encouraging collaboration between industry and academia in facilities comparable with the leading aerospace centres across Europe and the World.

Researchers from both the university and business partners, including Airbus and Rolls-Royce, will work under the one roof. Research at the centre will look at the most effective ways of integrating the aircraft and its subsystems as well as developing the use of automation.

The building includes a visualisation area, air-traffic management simulation and large aircraft flight simulator used to test new ideas and their impact on aircraft. Feedback screens are linked to the visualisation lab and the pod meeting area.

The AIRC now houses a 1500m² open lab to be used for testing intelligent robots in the structural assembly of aircraft parts, including 18m x 6m sliding doors to allow a demonstrator aircraft, such as the University’s 19-seater Jetstream 31, to enter the facility. Also closed labs for research requiring a controlled environment such as testing UAVs, structures, assembly and intelligent automation.

An area for a FANUC CR-35iA robot – which can operate in an uncaged, open space, and determine the proximity of a person or object so it will stop if touched, and even a full-size aircraft wing!