Funding news

DARC Lab receives funding from L3-Harris for work on UAV swarms

DARC Lab and L3-Harris will be collaborating to conduct research on optimized distribution of UAV swarms for applications in emergency response missions.

DARC Lab receives new U.S. Airforce STTR Phase II award for autonomous aerial-based chemical sensing

Focus of the project is to develop aerial robotic systems for autonomous chemical sensing. Nevada NanoTech Systems, Inc. is the industry partner.

DARC Lab receives U.S. Airforce STTR Phase I award for aerial-based chemical sensing

Focus of the project is to develop aerial robotic systems for autonomous chemical sensing.

Leang and colleagues receive $2M NSF EFRI Award

Congratulations to Profs. Jake Abbott, Yong Lin Kong, Kam Leang and Ken Monson on their new $2M NSF EFRI Award, project in collaboration with R. Rajamani of Univ. of Minnesota and O. Pak of Santa Clara Univ. Project tile: “EFRI C3 SoRo: Magneto-electroactive Soft, Continuum, Compliant, Configurable […]

Leang and colleagues receive $450K NSF grant for IPMC-based sensors

Collaborative Research: Microengineered electroactive polymer strain sensors towards soft self-powered wearable cyber-physical systems Investigators: M. Aureli (PI, UNR); co-PIs: K. K. Leang (Utah) and Yiliang Liao (UNR) Project period: 9/1/2018 – 8/31/2021 Goal and Objectives: This project aims at establishing a new class of electroactive materials with superior multiphysics […]

Kingstedt, Leang, and McCarter Receive $195K RIF Award for New Ultra-high Speed 1 Million Frames per Second Camera

Mechanical Engineering assistant professor, Owen Kingstedt (principle investigator – PI), Mechanical Engineering associate professor Kam Leang (co-PI), and Mining Engineering McKinnon Endowed Chair Professor Kim McCarter (co-PI) have been awarded a Research Instrumentation Fund (RIF) grant from the Utah Office of the Vice President for Research. The […]

DARC Lab receives U.S ARMY STTR Phase II contract for autonomous chemical sensing UAV

DARC Lab and Nevada NanoTech Systems receive U.S ARMY STTR Phase II contract for autonomous chemical sensing UAV.  The two-year $1M project is entitled, “Autonomous Broad Spectrum Environmental Sentinels”.  The goal of the proposed program is the development of a hover-capable, flying robot with integrated chemical sensing, […]

Matthew Givens receives UU’s UROP grant to work on ground effects for micro UAVs

Congratulations to DARC Lab undergraduate researcher Matthew Givens who recently received funding from the University of Utah’s Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP) to work on project entitled, “Sensorless Obstacle Detection using Ground Effects for Micro Unmanned Aerial Vehicles”.  The UROP will provide Matthew with $1200 to support his work […]

Leang and collaborators receive new $3.8M NSF funding to work on electroactive polymer materials for soft robotics

Kam Leang in collaboration with UNLV-lead team and other researchers receive new $3.8M NSF funding to work on electroactive polymer materials for soft robotics. More details can be found here.

Leang receives new NSF grant to work on temporal-spatial control of dual-stage nanopositioning systems

Prof. Leang and collaborators from industry (Molecular Vista, Inc. (MVI)) and Villanova University (Prof. Garrett Clayton) received a new NSF grant ($305,912) from Sensors, Dynamics, & Control program to study new design and control system approaches for the development of advanced nanopositioning systems for nanoscale science and engineering applications.  More […]

New SBIR Phase I grant from Dept. of Energy — DARC Lab and MVI collaboration

The DARC Lab and Molecular Vista, Inc., recently received a new SBIR Phase I grant from the Dept. of Energy.  The project title is, “Video-rate atomic force microscope for functional gas and liquid environments”.  The focus on the project is to develop a high-speed atomic force microscope […]

Electro Scientific Industries (ESI) donates nanopositioning systems to DARC Lab

Electro Scientific Industries (ESI), based out of Portland, OR, recently donated two precision nanopositioning stages to the DARC Lab to support collaborative research work.  The work will focus on designing high-performance digital control systems for nanopositioning.  A big thanks to M. Peeples at ESI for supporting the […]

Molecular Vista, Inc. donates NEW AFM system to DARC Lab

Molecular Vista, Inc. (MVI), based out of San Jose, CA, donates a new atomic force microscope system (VistaScope) valued at $200,000 to DARC Lab.  MVI designs, develops, and provides tools that allow its customers to probe and understand matter at the molecular level through quantitative visualization.   […]

New NSF Grant: PFI:BIC: Enhanced Situational Awareness Using Unmanned Autonomous Systems for Disaster Remediation (Project period: 08.01.14 – 07.31.17)

Kam Leang and collaborators from the University of Nevada, Reno (UNR), University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV), Drone America LLC, SpecTIR, and the Washoe county public safety sector receive funding from the National Science Foundation, Division of Industrial Innovation and Partnerships, Partnerships for Innovation (PFI) Program, to […]

New NSF Grant: Collaborative Research: High-speed AFM Imaging of Dynamics on Biopolymers Through Non-raster Scanning (Project period: 08.15.14 – 08.14.17)

Kam Leang and collaborators ( Drs. Andersson and Moore from Boston University (lead)) receive new National Science Foundation grant entitled, “Collaborative Research: High-speed AFM Imaging of Dynamics on Biopolymers Through Non-raster Scanning”.  The three-year project starts August 15, 2014 The focus of the project is to develop […]

easyLab and Nevada NanoTech receive U.S. ARMY funding to develop flying robotic sensor

With a new contract from the U.S. Army, the University of Nevada, Reno easyLab is partnering with NevadaNano to develop a robotic flying vehicle that can be used for environmental health and safety monitoring of large areas. The project combines the autonomous systems expertise of Dr. Leang […]