TransMIT GmbH works at the interface between the central Hessian universities (Justus-Liebig-University Giessen, University of Applied Sciences Giessen-Friedberg, Philipps-University Marburg are among its associates) and commercial partners. It has already been very successful in converting scientific results into intellectual property amenable to development and commercial exploitation, including patenting, licensing and small company founding.
TransMIT was founded in 1996 and is a totally self-financed company for technology transfer. TransMIT was two times ranked no. 1 among 21 comparable institutions in Germany, like Fraunhofer Gesellschaft e.V. etc., in its function as IP evaluation and IP marketing agency.
The IP business unit identifies and evaluates product ideas and research results on behalf of customers and offers them internationally for licensing or purchase. The managed portfolio covers all fields of technology at German universities. This portfolio is supplemented by services for the complete innovation management from the idea to the marketable product and performed in the Managed Innovation Services (MIS) business unit.
The main activity of TransMIT, however, is to foster technology transfer in an operational way, by hosting about 160 TransMIT Centres, as commercially driven research units to industry. Besides the about 180 employees, another more than 160 professors are working within these TransMIT Centres. These Centres are business units of TransMIT.
Within the last years TransMIT took part in several EU-funded projects within the FP6/7. The most prominent are “Pulmotension”, “eurIPFnet”, “LEOSWEEP” and actually within H2020 “KETBio” where TransMIT GmbH works as service provider for evaluating, protecting and marketing research results.
TransMIT-Project Division for Ion Sources for Material Processing (IQM)
TransMIT Project Division for Ion Sources for Material Processing (IQM) frontier topic is the development of Radio-Frequency Ion Thrusters matching the specific needs of the European scientific projects, for example, TransMIT GmbH has designed, constructed and tested an engineering model of Radio Frequency Mini Ion Engine RIT3.5 for specially fulfilling the propulsion requirements of ESA Next-Generation Gravity Mission (NGGM). A detailed characterization test campaign confirmed the compliance of the thruster to the mission profile.
TransMIT IQM has been also specifically active in the design of particle sources for technological purposes; this has also included works on reactive gases and a wide span of energies from low to high. The use of reactive gases/non-conventional propellants has extended also to modeling and testing of GIEs with atmospheric propellants.
TransMIT relevant papers to airbreathing technology
- G. Cifali, T. Misuri, P. Rossetti, M. Andrenucci, D. Valentian, D. Feili and B. Lotz, “Experimental Characterization of HET and RIT with Atmospheric Propellants”. Presented at the 32nd International Electric Propulsion Conference, Wiesbaden, Germany, IEPC-2011-224, 2011.
- D. Feili, B. Lotz, B. Meyer, H. Loeb, C. Collingwood, M. Smirnova, S. Khartov, D. Di Cara, A. Bulit, “Testing and Comprehensive Modeling of a GIE Utilizing Atmospheric Propellants”. Presented at the 33rd International Electric Propulsion Conference, Washington, D.C., USA October 6 – 10, IEPC-2013-345, 2013.
- P. Smirnov, O. Smirnova, M. Smirnova, J. Schein, S. Khartov, “Experimental Study Of Radio-Frequency Cathode-Neutralizer”. Space Propulsion 2018, Seville (Spain), 14-18 May 2018. SP2018-00239, 2018.
