CU-ICAR: Clemson University International Center for Automotive Research

Education

CU-ICAR is home to the nation’s only graduate Department of Automotive Engineering. Here, nearly 200 Clemson students are pursuing Master of Science and/or PhD degrees in Automotive Engineering. Thanks to the work of our world-class faculty, our students learn in an innovative research-and-educational program that focuses on the vehicle and its infrastructure from a systems-integration perspective. Our entire program is devoted to the discipline of automotive engineering.

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Research

Breakthrough applied research conducted in world-class labs

CU-ICAR’s research portfolio is driven, as is our philosophy, by industry needs. We continuously analyze the market and survey industry partners, industry leaders and automotive companies to determine their technology and R&D focus. Based on that knowledge, today the research clusters and “technology identity” of CU-ICAR are centered in the following seven areas:

• 
  Advanced
  Powertrains
  
• 
  Vehicular
  Electronics
  
• 
  Manufacturing
  & Materials
  
• 
  Vehicle-to-vehicle
  Infrastructure
  
• 
  Vehicle
  Performance
  
• 
  Human
  Factors/HMI
  
• 
  Systems
  Integration
  

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Economic Development

Award winning 250 acre technology
research campus

Clemson provides the “Partnership Office” on the campus focused solely on connecting all the exceptional elements so as to ensure unparalleled economic development benefits. The Partnership Office team consists of business development, real estate, marketing, and partnership management functions all dedicated to a) making connections between automotive companies within the CU-ICAR and or State automotive ecosystem and also b) programmatically linking automotive companies to Clemson University’s faculty and research expertise.

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Magnet Venue

Hot spot for regional, national
and global automotive
and manufacturing events

CU-ICAR continues to be the magnet venue for industry gatherings in the Southeast. Beyond housing 17 resident partners, multiple research laboratories and Clemson University’s automotive engineering program, the CU-ICAR campus also lends itself to accommodating regional and global conferences and events. Over 1600 people attended CU-ICAR hosted events in 2012.

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Creating the future

Deep Orange is a vehicle prototype program that immerses graduate automotive engineering students into the world of an OEM. Working collaboratively, students, multi-disciplinary faculty, and participating industry partners produce a new vehicle prototype each year. Each project integrates breakthrough product innovations and new processes – providing the automotive engineering students with hands-on experience in vehicle design, engineering, prototyping and production from the time they enter into the academic program until graduation.

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