For years, Bill King, professor and Ralph A. Andersen Endowed Chair in the Departments of Mechanical Science and Engineering, Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Materials Science and Engineering, has believed that there are exceptional opportunities for The Grainger College of Engineering faculty in the field of manufacturing.
King – himself a researcher focused on manufacturing and advanced materials, heat transfer, and micro/nanotechnology – has turned his own academic focus into several entities that make real-world impact on the industry. He was the founding Chief Technology Officer at the Manufacturing USA Institute now known as MxD, which has partnered with more than 600 companies and impacted more than 250,000 workers across the United States. He was also co-Founder and Chief Scientist at Fast Radius, which was designated a Lighthouse Factory by the World Economic Forum, announcing it as one of the world’s best digital factories.
While making his own impact on the manufacturing field from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, King has also taken initiative at Grainger Engineering to make the most of the opportunity and resources available. The manufacturing collective within Grainger Engineering, he believed, could become much more important than the individual parts if organized properly.
Now, as Director of the new Illinois Manufacturing Institute (IMI), King will mold his and others’ understanding of the impressive manufacturing expertise at Grainger Engineering to focus it in a way that makes a true impact on the field.
IMI is designed to harness the collective ingenuity and expertise of more than 50 faculty throughout Grainger Engineering and the hundreds of highly capable students working with these professors to cast a structural umbrella over their activities. And it will be dedicated to pushing the envelope in the industry to create the next generation of manufacturing infrastructure.
“IMI will bring Grainger’s manufacturing capabilities together to better collaborate and present ourselves to the world,” King said. “Throughout this state, region and country, Illinois faculty have an impressive array of talents and ideas to bring to the world. IMI will make sure potential industry and academic connections more easily develop relationships with our experts in everything from additive manufacturing to the use of AI, vision systems, real-time perception for robotics, and development of new manufacturing processes.”
One of his own recently funded projects that King believes illustrates a close connection to the purpose of IMI earned $21 million from ARPA-H to develop a radically new platform to manufacture tumor models and dramatically expand their availability for both medical research and personalized medicine.
Rohit Bhargava, Grainger Distinguished Chair in the Department of Bioengineering and Director of the Cancer Center at Illinois, will serve as co-PI for the work.
King said that the effort “will create a fundamentally new manufacturing technology that uses artificial intelligence, robotics, and vision systems to monitor and control the growth of tumor models.”
He led the formation of the University of Illinois System’s Quad Cities Manufacturing Institute (QCMI). This entity aims to foster collaboration between the U.S. Army Rock Island Arsenal, businesses in the Quad Cities region, and participating universities and community colleges – that includes Western Illinois University and Iowa State University – to focus on research and development, as well as workforce development, in advanced manufacturing and materials.
Additionally, King pointed to several projects that embody the depth and breadth of excellence in manufacturing research found that are part of Grainger’s impressive manufacturing related research portfolio:
Center for Autonomous Construction and Manufacturing at Scale
Co-directed by founding director Bob Norris and Ramavarapu S. Sreenivas of Industrial and Enterprise Systems Engineering, the Center for Autonomous Construction and Manufacturing at Scale is devoted to helping industry create real-world, multi-disciplinary solutions from research to commercialization. The group uses multi-disciplinary approaches and state-of-the-art technologies in systems engineering, machine learning, vision systems, mechatronics, controls, expert systems, dynamic modeling, industrial engineering, and sensor fusion.
When it was first introduced earlier this year, Norris explained that “this new center will provide leadership in translational research related to autonomous construction systems; support the growth of entrepreneurial ecosystems, programs and expertise; provide a community hub for emerging technologies; and help strengthen Illinois’ reputation as a technologically advanced and high-tech hub within the US.”
Center for Networked Intelligent Components and Environments
Led by director Placid Ferreira, of the Mechanical Science & Engineering department, C-NICE is a collaboration between the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Foxconn Interconnect Technologies (FIT), an innovative market leader of connectivity technologies within the data center, mobile, computing, and IoT environments.
Collaborative teams made up of researchers from FIT and the University of Illinois work together on a broad array of projects, selected and funded on an annual basis, as part of C-NICE. Projects include ones designed to advance aspects of FIT’s businesses for the computing, communication, and sensing infrastructure that constitute the backbone of the Internet of Things-enabled systems and environments. Other projects include precision components, such as electronic and optoelectronic connectors, antennas, sensors and parts used in digital cameras. Additional forward-looking projects will explore advances for next-generation communications infrastructure, consumer electronics, and mobile devices for the intelligent, safe environments of the future.
Center for Regenerative Energy-Efficient Manufacturing of Thermoset Polymeric Materials
Led by Nancy R. Sottos, Materials Science & Engineering department head and Swanlund Endowed Chair and Center for Advanced Study Professor, REMAT works to advance the science of thermochemical reaction-diffusion processes in additive and morphogenic manufacturing and accelerate a transformative, circular strategy for thermoset polymeric and composite materials with programmed end-of-life.
Housed within the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science, REMAT is also a multi-institutional entity that includes Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, SNL-NM, Stanford University and the University of Utah.
Illinois Cryogenic Engineering (ICE) Materials Center
The ICE Materials Center consolidates the efforts of eleven research teams from diverse disciplines, including Materials Science and Engineering, Physics, Aerospace Engineering, Mechanical Science and Engineering, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Civil & Environmental Engineering, and Applied Research. This effort is being led by several faculty members, including:
- Jean Charles Stinville, Cecilia Leal, and Marie Agathe (MatSE)
- Eric Thorsland (Physics)
- John Lambros, Ioannis Chasiotis, and Jeff Baur (AeroE)
- Huseyin Sehitoglu (MechSE)
- Kiruba Haran (ECE)
- Nishant Garg (CEE)
- David Ehrhardt (AeroE)
The ICE Materials Center has understood that materials for cryogenic environments are emerging as key enablers and will be transformational for a broad number of industries. With technological shifts happening in the transportation, energy, and defense sectors, there is an exponentially growing demand for high-performance structural materials capable of operation under cryogenic operating environments.
Illinois Grainger Engineering Affiliations
Bill King is an Illinois Grainger Engineering professor of mechanical science and engineering in the Department of Mechanical Science and Engineering, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Department of Materials Science and Engineering. He is also co-director of the Illinois Advanced Manufacturing Institute. King is affiliated with the Carle Illinois College of Medicine, Materials Research Lab, Holonyak Micro and Nanotechnology Lab, Information Trust Institute, and Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology. He holds the Ralph A. Andersen Endowed Chair appointment.