SMART4CAR

Nowadays, in the automotive industry, consumers demand ever more for customized cars, that are suited to the aesthetic of their preferences. This growing trend has leveraged R&D around the design and production of polymeric parts with high decorative requirements.

Another major challenge in the automotive industry is the already established tendency in the market towards autonomous driving; this will undoubtedly impact the automotive sector. In order to turn this tendency into a reality, the car must be equipped with several sensor systems, which include high precision optical lenses with very strict requirements.

The SMART4CAR project foresees to respond to these challenging opportunities by developing new technological solutions for the use of the IMD technique in the overmolding of bi-material components and for the development of high-precision optical lenses. As so, these solutions are mainly focused on the following areas of research:

• IMD films with decorative and functional features in the overmolding process of bi-material components;
• High precision polymer optical lenses with different surface finishes.