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

工程研究中心规划奖助金(ERC)竞赛是作为ERC计划的试点征集活动进行的。计划拨款不是ERC全面竞赛的一部分，而是旨在建立团队之间的能力，以规划汇聚的、中心规模的工程研究。自动化重塑了美国经济，彻底改变了美国制造业(生产线)、资本管理(贸易)、交通(自动驾驶和飞行车辆)和学习(信息技术)。与宏观自动化系统截然不同的是，将提出一种新的ERC，旨在通过开发和实施能够对外部提示做出实时反应的主动、自我调节的微粒、膜和组件，将有意而复杂的自动化系统的前沿推向微观规模。Prospects ERC的目标是创建在远低于直接人类干预的范围内运行的系统，执行到目前为止还不可能完成的任务。这笔规划赠款将用于举办各种规划活动，包括与不同利益攸关方就拟议的工程技术举行几次会议。计划中的ERC将在物理、化学和生物的融合下运行，为自主微型组件开发新的工程原理，这些组件积极推动、自组装、重新配置和响应(通过系统级集成的结构和可以感知、计算和执行的微电路)，实现自动化的第二次革命，将造福人类。ERC将专注于1)基于自我运动和可寻址的微粒的自适应微尺度材料，2)由放大信号、驱动和调节运输过程或利用机械能重塑和控制界面的微尺度二维结构组成的活性膜，3)可编程聚合物和液晶组件、凝胶和涂层，它们根据一系列化学和物理提示、外场、力和生物刺激而形成、转化和分解。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，认为值得支持。

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.