Sponsors & Partnerships

UTRGV’s manufacturing excellence has been built upon our nationally recognized programs devoted to manufacturing engineering research and education. UTRGV has been successful in external funding with the following large grants awarded to support manufacturing research (a total of $17 million currently funded projects)

DoD-IDREAM4D

Additive Manufacturing and Smart Manufacturing for the Defense: DoD I-DREAM4D, ($4 million, ONR, 2019, idream4d.org ). Through this program, we build a strong national reputation in research, education, and exposure of defense manufacturing, focusing on Additive, Convergent and Transformative Manufacturing, AI and IoT for Defense Systems. We developed a strong partnership with Army, Navy and Defense Labs and defense contractors (CRADA with ARL, ABS, and Honeywell). As the lead institution, this fund also supports collaborative research with other institutions including UT Austin, UTSA, Virginia Tech and VSU as subrecipients.

DoE-CA2REERS

Additive Manufacturing for Renewable Energy ($4 million CA2REERS DOE/NNSA, 2021). Through this project, we lead on a consortium effort to develop renewable energy technologies leveraging Additive Manufacturing, AI, and ML. We collaborate with ORNL and LANL and two institutions (University of Arizona, UTSA)

NIST

AI for Rapid Qualification of Metal AM, (NIST, $1 million, 2021). This project brings a team effort to develop rapid qualification of metal AM for Navy and Marine structures. In-situ metrology, AI, Simulation and Machine Learning based method are being explored by a team of researchers from UTRGV, UT Austin, Virginia Tech, and Penn State University.

Department of Commerce EDA

Industry 4.0 for Manufacturing Reshoring (Department of Commerce EDA). This grant lays down a foundation of partnership with FUMEC (United Sate Mexico Foundation of Science) to bring Industry 4.0 to manufacturers at the US-Mexico Border region.

MECIS

 

CREST Center for Multidisciplinary Research Excellence in Cyber-Physical Infrastructure Systems (MECIS) (NSF, $5 million, 2021). The center supports the new NSF project focusing on 1) future transportation infrastructure which will be transformed by autonomous vehicles and unmanned aerial vehicles; 2) designs and embeds sensors in cyber-physical infrastructure systems to perform automated tasks and monitor infrastructure health through Additive Manufacturing, and 3) big data management and decision making in the design and operation of unmanned aerial vehicles and infrastructure.