The Mechanical Engineering and Machatronics Centre was born out of a collaboration between KUL, UGent, Sirris and Howest.
The centre focuses on three components:
1. Innovation centre 4.0 where new technologies for mechatronics and the manufacturing sector are researched, developed and demonstrated.
2. Technology lab around Virtual & Augmented Reality, one of the basic technologies supporting various aspects of Industry 4.0. Here, technological evolutions are monitored, applicability in the mechatronics and manufacturing sector is examined and sample industrial applications are developed.
3. Two application labs around Smart and Flexible Manufacturing and Assembly and Smart Production Control where mainly translation research is done and equipment and knowledge is widely distributed to companies to evaluate the feasibility of new technologies for their application.
A key success condition for this project is continuous, open cooperation between the partners, companies and research centres. Therefore, an Open Innovation Platform was established in parallel with the centre, where companies, knowledge centres and governments permanently update the centre's evolution, detect and monitor new technological trends.