Defence News
Cosworth acquires IP for lightweight heavy fuel engines
Cosworth has entered into an agreement with Advanced Engine Technology Ltd. (AET) of Ottawa, Canada, to acquire AET's intellectual property portfolio in the domain of lightweight 2-stroke diesel engines.
The intellectual property covered by this agreement has been used under licence by Cosworth since 2006 in the design of its unique compact heavy fuel engines for military applications such as unmanned aerial vehicles and portable generator sets.
Unlike heavy fuel engines offered by other suppliers, Cosworth's heavy fuel engines use true compression ignition which delivers unbeatable fuel efficiency, the ability to run on a wide range of heavy fuels such as diesel, JP5 and JP8 with varying cetane and octane ratings, and low maintenance.
The superiority of Cosworth's approach, based on the patented technology developed originally by AET and improved subsequently by Cosworth, has been recognised by key early adopters including the U.S. Navy and Rolls-Royce Distributed Generation Systems.
"Today's acquisition of key patents and knowhow is a significant step as it demonstrates Cosworth's confidence in the market opportunity for lightweight heavy fuel engines in the military domain. It also underscores our belief that compression ignition is the right technical approach." said Rik Temmink, Cosworth's Chief Marketing Officer.
"The combination of Cosworth's 50 years of experience designing and manufacturing high-performance engines, a 5-year head start in developing compression ignition engines, and our ownership of the patents to the underlying technology put Cosworth in a unique position to capitalise on exciting market opportunities in unmanned vehicles, portable power generators and other applications that require compact, powerful and efficient engines running on heavy fuel."
