MEMS technology for aerospace applications activities in Canada, Europe, US, Japan and elsewhere

• Until now, the level of activities in this field in Canada have been neither well organized nor focused as compared to those in Europe and the US. Based on our participation as Members of the NEXUS and their Aerospace USC (User-Supplier Club)’, we think that the European long-term industrial R&D are better coordinated and planned.
• Recently, the Aerospace USC of the NEXUS has prepared the “Technology RoadMap”, and also based on their benchmark missions to the US, Japan, Taiwan, etc. have prepared up-to-date reports on the level of activities related to MEMS technology developments in those respective countries. The relevant links to these documents are provided on our web-site.
• Also, in September 2000, the DARPA in the US together with the NEXUS organized a workshop formulating collaboration strategies in this field. One of the recommendations has been to formulate and establish the “North-American Aerospace User-Supplier-Club (USC)” together with the NEXUS for future collaboration and to undertake projects/activities related to MEMS technology for various applications. Additionally, during the same period, there were “Joint Japan - Austria Workshop on MEMS” and “Japan-Europe Panel on MEMS”.

Canadian Activities

• In Canada, Canadian universities have been involved in MEMS/micromachining since the '80s. There have been many workshops hosted by several universities and CMC (Canadian Microelectronics Corp.), with the thread among them all being the CMC. The last open workshop was held on August 1999 and the next one in Ottawa will be on August 17, 2001.
• None of these meetings were specifically concerned or applicable to the aerospace sector. Contrary, it is interesting to note that the European Aerospace Industry through their USC’ is deeply involved both in the planning and implementation of their related long-term R&D programs.
• During this workshop on April 12, Dan Gale of CMC and Ken Westra of the U. of A. provided more in-depth overview of the capabilities in our Canadian universities.
• The CMC’s mandate, funded by NSERC (since 1984), is to support universities--MEMS/micromachining the CMC has briefed several Canadian companies about developments in this field over several years.
• Our Canadian Industry has now been increasingly involved in planning various MEMS related activities, indicating wider industry interests; usually communications, microfludics and service interests have been represented with cyclic involvement however, very little involvement from the Canadian aerospace industry. Dan Gale have been part of the Canadian delegation participating in the World Micromachine Summits since 1995 - first one, Kyoto. However, it has been very evident that our real strength is in the universities.
• Over the last two years, the Centre for Large Space Structures and Systems (CLS3) Inc. of Montreal, Quebec have undertaken several major projects towards research and development of MEMS based multi-cellular ultrasonic and optical devices for aircraft applications. These include, CLS3 as the initiator and prime partner in the two related projects with 8 partners from 6 European countries under the EU 5th Framework Programme and the EURIMIUS-EUREKA programme. CLS3 is also preparing as a Canadian Partner in the IMS-led consortium of partners from the US, Europe and Japan towards research and development of optical characterization methods for MEMS manufacturing.