ANN ARBOR, Mich., 4 Oct. 2005. Solidica, Inc., announced today the receipt of a multi-year contract with the National Center for Manufacturing Sciences (NCMS) to install prototype next generation embedded sensor technology into the U.S. Marine Corps Light Armored Vehicle platform.
As part of a broad Sense and Respond initiative within the Department of Defense, Solidica was chosen for the program due to their unique ability to embed a wide variety of radio frequency sensors directly within metal.
The innovation being leveraged in this program is a combination of solid state welding, novel electronics, energy harvesting, and cutting edge radio frequency technology.
"Solidica's cold additive manufacturing technology, ultrasonic consolidation, is ideally suited to expand the horizons of sensor design and packaging in ways that were previously impossible," said Dr. Dawn White, Solidica's CEO.
Recently approved by the Pentagon through the Commercial Technologies for Maintenance Activities program within NCMS, the project will seek to combine several advanced automotive diagnostic technologies to provide critical platform data in real time.
Beyond the immediate market represented by the military through this project, Solidica adds that their ability to embed RF sensors directly in metal is gaining interest from industries as wide ranging as medical and consumer electronics.
"There is clearly an emerging market for RF-capable sensors that are lightweight, rugged, and energetically self sufficient. We believe our technology has inherently unique capabilities that will provide us a significant competitive advantage," said Ken Johnson, vice president of business development at Solidica.
This news comes following the recent announcements by Solidica of related contract awards from the Department of Energy and the Army Research Laboratories and continues the expansion for the company into markets well beyond their rapid prototyping and tooling base.
Headquartered in Ann Arbor, Mich., Solidica is a rapidly growing technology company that provides advanced materials and solid-state fabrication solutions. Their proprietary ultrasonic consolidation technology combines the ability to quickly "grow" dense metal parts, novel material, and injection tools with the option of embedding fibers, electronics, armor and sensors. The company leverages its expanding internal research and product development resources to provide customers with innovative solutions in industries such as aerospace, automotive, medical, rapid prototyping/tooling, electronics, and military. For more information, see www.solidica.com.
NCMS President Rich Pearson said "We are pleased to award this project to Solidica and are looking forward to exploring the use of their exciting technology for these critical military applications."
The National Center for Manufacturing Sciences (NCMS) is the largest cross-industry collaborative research and development consortium in North America, and is the only consortial effort in the U.S. devoted exclusively to manufacturing technologies, processes and practices. NCMS has nearly 20 years of experience in the formation and management of complex, multi-partner collaborative R&D programs, and is backed by corporate members representing virtually every manufacturing sector. For more information, see www.ncms.org.
