AN Tánaiste Leo Varadkar will officially open the Future Mobility Campus Ireland (FMCI) in Shannon Free Zone on Friday.
Mr Varadkar will be given a tour of the facility and see some of the new products that are being developed.
The facility is for the development of things such as driverless cars, air taxis and drones to deliver life saving organs or drugs, as well as the air traffic technology to manage them – including ‘on the ground’ traffic, and other life-changing ‘the future is now’ technologies for use in Ireland and internationally.
Some of these will be on display at the official opening including a self-parking car and the latest Tesla which guests can test drive.
Funded by Enterprise Ireland and industry partners, the unique FMCI campus at Shannon has world class facilities for aerospace and automotive research and development, including a recently opened Advanced Air Mobility Hub.
The commercially-viable facility supports a range of parties and enterprises, from individual researchers to multi-national corporations, start-ups and Government entities.
On the Future Mobility website, it states, “The FMCI is being developed to create and deliver future mobility testbed facilities – in real world, ‘live’ settings – giving technology companies, software developers and researchers the opportunity to test and enhance their innovations.
“We’re talking about a shared, collaborative ecosystem that will bring expertise, minds, capability and advancements in future mobility – spanning Connected, Autonomous, Shared and Electric (CASE) vehicles.”
Owen Ryan has been a journalist with the Clare Champion since 2007, having previously worked with a number of other publications in Limerick, Cork and Galway. His first book will be published in December 2024.