JOIN USFrench aerospace major — EADS, has inked an agreement with Indo-French Centre for Promotion of Advanced Research to launch aerospace research programmes in India backed by substantial funding.
The development follows recent visit of Indian Institute of Science (IISc) aerospace department head Prof Debasish Ghose to Tolouse, France to firm up the collaboration between IISc and EADS/Airbus.
With IISc and National Aerospace Laboratories proposing research projects for funding by EADS/Airbus, direct beneficiaries would be research scholars and students of both institutions. While American company, Boeing, and Canadian company, Pratt & Whitney are already funding aerospace research at IISc, now EADS/Airbus follows suit. The funding will focus on research in areas of avionics, composite materials, high performance computing, nanotechnology and applied mathematics.
Propulsion specialist Prof B N Raghunandan said “Airbus was taking interest in IISc. IISc has been getting projects in the area of aircraft structures. So future initiatives could be in the same area or in guidance and control.”
According to Prof Sitharam Bhat “IISc has been working on composites for 30 years. IISc’s aerospace department was earliest to begin work on composites in India.” Likewise, nanotechnology has Centre for Nano Electronics researching in the area at IISc . NAL, which is also strong in composites and applied mathematics, used to run the Centre for Mathematical Modelling & Computer Simulation.
Bangalore is central to EADS’ aerospace research as it has already established a cell — Innovation Works India. EADS spokesperson told Deccan Herald that Innovation Works India has been set up along with Airbus Engineering Centre India in Bangalore, to focus on aero-thermal processing, optimisation, high-performance computing, distributed and cloud computing, and image processing.