Planning Grant: Engineering Research Center for Microscale Autonomous Device Engineering (MADE)

University Of Chicago, Chicago IL

Investigators

Abstract

The Planning Grants for Engineering Research Centers (ERC) competition was run as a pilot solicitation within the ERC program. Planning grants are not required as part of the full ERC competition, but intended to build capacity among teams to plan for convergent, center-scale engineering research. Automation has reshaped the US economy, revolutionizing US manufacturing (production lines), management of capital (trading), transportation (self-driving and flying vehicles), and learning (information technologies). In a radical departure from macroscale automated systems, a new ERC will be proposed which aims to push the frontiers of intentional, yet complex, automated systems to the microscale, by developing and implementing active, self-regulating microparticles, membranes and assemblies that can react to external cues in real time. The prospect ERC aims to create systems that operate at length scales that are well below direct human intervention, performing tasks that, until now, have not been possible. This planning grant will be used to hold a variety of planning activities, including several meetings with different stakeholders for the proposed engineering technologies. The planned ERC will operate at the convergence of physics, chemistry and biology to develop new engineering principles for autonomous microscale assemblies that actively propel, self-assemble, reconfigure and respond (via the systems-level integration of structures and microcircuits that can sense, compute and actuate), enabling a second revolution in automation that will benefit humankind. The ERC will focus on 1) Adaptive microscale materials based on self-motile and addressable microparticles, 2) Active membranes consisting of microscale two-dimensional constructs that amplify signals, drive and regulate transport processes or harness mechanical energy to reshape and control interfaces, 3) Programmable polymeric and liquid crystal assemblies, gels and coatings that form, transform and disassemble in response to a range of chemical and physical cues, external fields, forces and biological stimuli. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.