We now have flying boats, unmanned aircrafts, and supersonic nozzles for dental hygiene. The Aero-Nautical-Space group was created in 2021 to meet the modern requirements of this interdisciplinary industry, which is rapidly evolving and having positive impacts on health, energy, and the environment.
The transition to digital, smart and autonomous technologies requires new skills and approaches, even for classical research fields such as fluid dynamics, aerodynamics and hydrodynamics. The group objective is to bring innovation into these traditional disciplines. It has, for example, created smart, digital and pixelated wind facilities. This technology enabled NASA to test the first helicopter on Mars, Ingenuity, and has led giant aircraft manufacturer Boeing to propose the creation in Switzerland of a Testing and Development Centre for Autonomous Aerial Mobility.
By combining basic and applied research, the group has set for itself the following key objectives:
Its internationally renowned activities are used as a springboard for students and researchers within the group to export their know-how to institutions in other countries and continents.
The group places particular emphasis on inclusion, diversity and equity, through decades of experience in Africa, America and Europe.
The group multidisciplinary approach enables the design and engineering of complete systems, ranging from medical drones to respiratory flowmeters, in a variety of research areas such as health, mobility, the environment and sustainable development.
One key activity is the use and development of state-of-the-art techniques and instruments for the measurement of liquid or gaseous flows, within and around living and industrial systems, and in the natural environment.