News
Changing the paradigm of costing in the Automotive Industry
For a long time, Carbon fibre is something the automotive industry has attempted to use in the mass market & premium segments, due to structural properties & ability to reduce part count but it has only really been used in the ultra-premium segment of sports cars, due to high production costs.
With its beyond state-of-the-art fibre steering technology, known as Rapid Tow Shearing (RTS), iCOMAT can unlock the performance of composites by rapidly applying tapes in a defect-free manner.
iCOMAT has been shortlisted as a finalist for the 2021 JEC Group Composites Award in Aerospace!
Our entry is based on the FibreSteer Project funded by Innovate UK, alongside partners Airbus, BAE Systems, National Composites Centre, which aims to demonstrate the benefits of iCOMAT's RTS process for aerostructures. The project was also supported by an US consortium led by UDRI and IACMI Many thanks to our partners!!
A demonstrator wing panel was optimised to take advantage of fibre steering with RTS, unlocking significant weight and cost savings. By steering wide 100mm tapes, we reduced the demonstrator from 24 plies (QI baseline) to 8 plies (RTS design).
MASCoTS, an ATI funded project to drive development of composite tow shearing in UK aerospace industry
November 2020
iCOMAT joins forces with MSC Software, TWI and Daptablade to drive the development of design, manufacturing and testing capabilities for fibre-steering and the Rapid Tow Shearing (RTS) process.
MASCoTS is a 20-month, £1.4 million project co-funded by the Aerospace Technology Institute.
South West's Most Exciting Companies
July 2019
iCOMAT was introduced by an online magazine insider media as one of the most exciting companies in South West. Find the article in the following link.
Composites UK
October 2019
iCOMAT is shortlisted as a finalist of Start-Up Business of the Year, and invited to COMPOSITES INDUSTRY AWARDS DINNER 2019. The award will be presented at the annual awards dinner on 30th October at the National Motorcycle Museum in Birmingham, coinciding with the Advanced Engineering Show.
Enabling Innovation
Autumn 2019
iCOMAT has been nominated as a finalist of this year's Enabling Innovation at Advanced Engineering. The nomination was made with judges from Innovate UK/KTN, the Institute for Manufacturing, and Innovation DB, to hone down ten truly innovative technologies, from a huge pool of submissions from industry and research.
Aero Guru
July 2019
In July 2019, iCOMAT was invited to the 1st AERO GURU event organised by ATI (Aerospace Technology Institute) and created great engagements with other start-up companies working in the aerospace sector.
Registered
January 2019
In January 2019, iCOMAT was officially registered with Companies House.
Showcase
December 2018
In December 2018, iCOMAT was invited to SETsquared's Accelerating Growth Investment Showcase held in London, and attracted great attention from automotive and aerospace companies, angel investors and venture capital companies.
Innovate UK
August 2019
In 2018, iCOMAT won an InnovateUK’s Open Competition for Spin-Out Companies. Following three months of market research through InnovateUK’s ICURe programme, iCOMAT won a highly competitive follow-on fund to help take their cutting-edge composites manufacturing technology to market and develop the business model and team. The project has officially started in August 2018.
ICURe which stands for Innovation and Commercialisation of University Research is an Innovate UK programme of commercialisation support for teams of academic researchers wishing to explore the commercial potential of their research.
NEC Winners
November 2018
In November 2018, iCOMAT’s world-first composites manufacturing process that places carbon fibres tapes along curved paths without causing defects has won University of Bristol’s New Enterprise Competition (NEC) and £10,000 funding.
The NEC is a business start-up competition which allows students, staff and alumni to pitch for a share of over £40,000, including legal support and business acceleration services, to accelerate their vision for a commercial or social enterprise.