MESEMA, a technology oriented research program, builds upon the success of previous EU projects with devotion to accomplish the objectives of the aeronautics priority through designing, producing and testing “innovative transducer systems based on active materials”. Four fixed and rotary-wing aircraft companies accompanied by Sees and university research institutes will take part in and benefit from the developments of primarily magneto elastic transducers for high-torque actuation, vibration and noise reduction, electrical energy generation and structural health monitoring. Structural dynamics, energy conversion in active materials and control systems represent the scientific fundamentals of the project.

The scientific and technological objectives are the results of a spontaneous evolution of the activities developed during the last six years by the group, which promoted the two successful European research programs named “M.A.D.A.Vi.C.” and “M.E.S.A.”. The follow-up of these first six years of research activities consisted in proposing for the next future to carry out a more complex project where the base research activities (enlarged to many active material types) still have a fundamental role and the main targets are represented by the design and development of five systems aimed at: reducing internal noise in helicopters and turbofan aircraft; examining the health status of aircraft structural components by measuring their dynamic structural responses; replacing the helicopter rotor blade pitch angle actuation systems with an innovative one based on active material members and a reduced number of components; transforming mechanical energy related to vibration fields within aircraft into electrical energy thanks to the inverse magnetostriction effect.