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Consortium

Consortium

BESTMEMS is an international collaborative research project involving French and Taiwanese partners. The project includes labs and companies from both countries:

  • Laboratoire de Génie Electrique et Ferroélectricité de L'institut National des Sciences Appliquées (LGEF INSA Lyon / French principal investigator): French laboratory whose area of expertise include electroactive conversion materials and systems.
  • National Taiwan University (NTU), Department of Engineering Science and Ocean Engineering, Institute of Applied Mechanics, Department of Material Science and Engineering (Taiwanese principal investigator): Taiwanese labs specialized in microtransducer fabrication and modeling.
  • Laboratoire de Tribologie et Dynamique des Systèmes de l'Ecole Centrale de Lyon (LTDS ECL): French lab whose area of expertise covers dynamic mechanical and electromechanical systems as well as metamaterials.
  • National Tsing Hua University (NTHU), Department of Electrical Engineering: Taiwanese lab with research expertise in integrated systems.
  • SKF Aerospace: French company specialized in bearing
  • Smart system and Intelligent autoMotive TRANSducers (SIMTrans): Taiwanese start-up specialized in automotive equipments.

 

More particularly, BESTMEMS is the product of previous fruitful collaborations between involved partners. More particularly, the main origin of BESTMEMS lies in a PHC (Partenariat Hubert Curien) project between LGEF INSA and NTU (project PHC Orchid #26927PK – “Electroactive materials and techniques for energy harvesting from ambient sources”), from January 2012 to January 2014, that demonstrated as preliminary results the possibility of combining a small-scale transducer with a nonlinear electronic interface for energy conversion enhancement ([55]). However, this preliminary project opened new fields of investigations that will be in the core of BESTMEMS. In particular, NTU and LGEF INSA showed strong interests and motivations in applying such a system to an integrated self-powered device, with a global optimization yet new outcomes for each stage involved in the energy conversion process. In particular, the design of new microtransducers, new nonlinear integrated architectures, and broadband aspects were the first motive to continue the collaboration. During the PHC project, a visit of LGEF INSA to NTU in the framework of INTEL conference allowed having new insights in the design and integration of the electronic device during presentation from LGEF INSA, NTU and NTHU and during discussions between the three partners. Later, the nonlinear mechanical aspect has evolved, and previous long-term collaborations between LGEF INSA and Prof. Manuel Collet (formerly in FEMTO-ST, now in LTDS ECL) have pointed out that LTDS ECL would be a precious partner thanks to their knowledge in mechanics. Once this academic consortium consolidated, a strong will in terms of industrial applicability has emerged from each partner. Hence, the inclusion of SIMTRANS, created by a former NTU Ph.D. student, has been welcomed with unanimity in the consortium. On the French side, SKF is a long-term industrial partner of LGEF. Both worked on industrial projects in a successful manner. Hence, BESTMEMS naturally included SKF as a French industrial partner.

Work Package and involvement of partners