MRI: Track 1 Acquisition of Multi-Material 3D Printer for Additively Manufactured Electronics to Enable Interdisciplinary Research and Education

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This Major Research Instrumentation (MRI) award supports the acquisition of an additive manufacturing based multi-material, 3D printer at North Dakota State University (NDSU). This instrument enables the creation of additively manufactured electronics that can bring numerous innovative solutions to the electronics industry and create virtually endless opportunities in terms of applications. 3D printing is at the forefront of new product design and technical innovation. It can produce complex, highly integrated geometries as well as perform material and design optimization, which opens new opportunities for high performance products. The printer’s additive manufacturing capability will enable significant advancements in research and educational at NDSU and the state of North Dakota. This includes a range of research and educational projects as well as training of future scientists and engineers at the graduate and undergraduate levels. The training opportunities will further be extended for underrepresented groups through the existing programs and collaborations, such as the Nurturing American Tribal Undergraduate Research and Education summer camp and engineering summer programs organized by NDSU College of Engineering and Society of Women Engineers for high school students. The acquisition of the printer will also enable research and training opportunities for students at a collaborative primarily undergraduate institution, Mayville State University. The DragonFly IV, 3D printer provides a hybrid printing system by using simultaneous deposition of dielectric and conductive inks to enable the production of additively manufactured electronic circuits such as multi-layer PCBs, radio frequency antennas, embedded semiconductors, sensors, and other components for various applications. Acquisition of this printer will impact a range of major projects including 1) radio frequency based sensors and antennas for Internet of Things, 2) multi-factorial arbitrarily shaped electromagnetic device design such as metamaterial antennas and reconfigurable intelligent surfaces, 3) component prototyping for bioinstrumentation design, 4) cell quality sensing platform development for engineered living systems, 5) tumor penetrating polymer nanoparticles design and testing, 6) field-deployable polymer based sensors using the integration of 3D printed electronic circuits and stimuli responsive polymer scaffolds, and 7) crop production optimization in controlled environment agriculture. The wide variety of these projects indicate the ability of DragonFly IV in enabling interdisciplinary collaborative research across the NDSU campus and beyond.This project is jointly funded by the Major Instrumentation Research Program (MRI) and the division of Civil, Mechanical and Manufacturing Innovation (CMMI).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.