University of Huddersfield to lead multi-million pound metrology initiative

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The University of Huddersfield is to lead a new £30m research centre to help put the UK at the forefront of metrology and measurement technology.

One of six new research hubs created by funding from Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and a number of industrial partners The Future Metrology Hub will be based in the University’s Centre for Precision Technologies, and will help address major challenges facing UK manufacturing.

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The University of Huddersfield's Future Metrology hub will begin operating in 2017

The Huddersfield-led Hub will be headed by Prof Jane Jiang, whose distinctions include the award earlier this year of the Renishaw/Royal Academy Chair in Precision Metrology.

“Our vision is to develop new technologies and universal methods that will integrate measurement science with design and production processes to improve control, quality and productivity. These will become part of the critical infrastructure for a new generation of digital, high value manufacturing, the so called 4th industrial revolution, or Industry 4.0.” said Prof Jiang.

The term ‘Industry 4.0’ has been coined to describe the digitisation and automation of manufacturing, using the power of modern computers and technology such as networks of sensors and the massive amounts of data they can collect. These technologies are acknowledged by government as being critical to the future success and economic prosperity of manufacturing in the UK, in the face of low-cost overseas competition.

“We’ve built a really strong consortium of researchers, technology developers, service providers and manufacturing end-users to deliver our Hub vision.” said Simon McKenna, who is the Hub’s director of operations. “Having this extended team in place will ensure outputs from the research programme are fully exploited to deliver real and lasting impact for the UK economy.”

The Hub, which will come into existence in early 2017, builds directly upon the existing EPSRC Centre for Innovative Manufacturing in Advanced Metrology, also hosted at Huddersfield. This Centre has developed award-winning new technologies over the past five years for in-process measurement and control. The Future Metrology Hub will enable this existing research to be taken to the next level to support a UK manufacturing transformation.