2024
NWO funding
Nandini Bhattacharya | November 26
The semiconductor industry needs faster and more accurate machines. The CHiPS project will create advanced sensors to solve vibration issues in semiconductor manufacturing. Our goal is to design highly sensitive sensors that can measure tiny movements with extreme precision. These sensors will be small, the size of a coffee cup, and much more sensitive than current technology.
NWO funding
Sikke Klein, Jurriaan Peeters, Rene Pecnik | November 14
NWO is funding two projects to explore ways to make the power demand of industry more flexible, allowing it to better align with future energy supplies. One of these projects, “DEFLAME,” aims to make the Dutch process industry—particularly the chemical and food industries—more resilient and climate-neutral by electrifying industrial heat using flexible solutions.
Vidi Grant
Sabina Caneva | October 24
Caneva receives 850.000 euros for her research on developing a new biophysical platform to image and control the dynamics and mechanics of biomolecular processes at the single-molecule level. Combining ultra-flat, biocompatible 2D material surfaces with DNA nanotechnology, they will use fluorescence microscopy techniques to study how molecules move, interact and function. They will use the fundamental knowledge gained to develop new biosensors capable of detecting circulating tumour DNA.
EU funding
Vera Popovich, Carey Walters | October 23
The MOWSES initiative aims to revolutionize the use of green steel in critical infrastructure by ensuring the safe application of welded scrap-based steel in sectors like energy and beyond. With €4.5M funded by the EU's Twin Green and Digital Transition program, the project will focus on reducing CO2 emissions in steel production by up to 50%. Popovich focuses on thermomechanical welding simulations and mechanical response of green steels, while Walters will work on the prediction of failure in the heat-affected zones of welded structures.
ERC Starting Grant
Cosimo Della Santina | September 5
Cosimo Della Santina has received an ERC Starting Grant to advance the intelligence of soft robots. His research will focus on having robots interacting with their environment via multiple complex large-area contacts, similar to how an elephant wraps its trunk around a branch.
NWO Open Competition Domain Science-M Programme
Brian Tighe | July 29
If you twist a rubber cylinder, it gets longer. But a cylinder made from cartilage gets shorter, instead. Where does this difference come from, and what functions can it serve? Researchers from TU Delft will determine how the structure of a material controls this strange effect.
Veni grant
Shibo Zou | July 19
Soft robotics holds the promise to handle delicate objects with human-like dexterity and care in real-world environments, from greenhouses to operating theatres. Sensory feedback is crucial to achieve high autonomy. Zou aims to unravel the underlying mechanical design principles that can amplify the actuation pressure variation in fluidic sensing and translate these principles into multifunctional soft robotic devices for real-world applications.
Stevin Prize
David Abbink | June 21
David Abbink receives this year's NWO Stevin Prize. The Stevin Prize is one of the most prestigious Dutch prizes in science. They are awarded annually to four scientists 'for their outstanding, pioneering and inspiring work', NWO said. Abbink will receive 1.5 million euros to be spent on scientific research and knowledge exploitation. He receives the Stevin Prize in particular for the societal impact of his research.
NWO Grant Open Technology Programme
Ajay Seth | April 30
Surgeons and therapists urgently need new tools that provide detailed insight into the forces and movements acting on damaged tissue or repaired joints. The research aims to develop biomechanical models and algorithms coupled with advanced interactive control techniques. The resulting Biomechanically Aware Real-Time Robotics will provide essential insights into tissue loading and joint movement.
Rubicon grant
Koen Muller | April 26
Koen Muller is building a unique measurement setup with which he wants to collect data on snowstorms to gain more insight into the interaction of snowflake aggregation and atmospheric turbulence. If successful, he will hold a unique dataset that will help improve weather prediction and climate models. Muller recently received a Rubicon grant from NWO. This will allow him to conduct research in Switzerland for another two years.
NWO Grant in collaboration with National Research Foundation of Ukraine (NRFU)
Tim Horeman & Gerwin Smit | March 20
Main applicants: dr. ir. ing. T. Horeman-Franse (TU Delft) & S.P. Kolisnyk MD PhD (VNMU, Vinnytsіa)
This study evaluates prosthetic hand usage and satisfaction in Ukraine. Results will inform enhanced prosthetic hand design and prosthetic rehabilitation decision-making. The study will explore the acceptance of prosthetic and robotic technology in Ukraine.
2023
ERC Consolidator Grant
Farbod Alijani | November 23
Farbod Alijani, Associate Professor at the department of Precision and Microsystems Engineering, received an ERC Consolidator Grant. His ultimate goal is to improve the mechanical performance of 2D material sensors and use them for rapid screening tests in drug development and personalized medicine.
Horizon Europe grant
J.W. van Wingerden | October 16
Jan-Willem van Wingerden, professor at the department Delft Center for Systems and Control (DCSC), along with his team and partners, devised ways of optimising the energy yield of entire wind farms using flow control. The logical progression for wind turbines that collectively reach their targets is to also hold those targets to a critical light. This is how the SUDOCO project application came about, which received the highest possible score and was awarded a grant from the European Commission.
European Systems & Control PhD Award
Mohammad Khosravi | June 16
The European Systems & Control PhD Award acknowledges excellence in the field of Systems and Control by recognizing the most outstanding PhD thesis and research conducted in Europe during the preceding year. This prestigious award is sponsored jointly by the European Control Association (EUCA) and the European Embedded Control Institute (EECI).
ERC Starting Grant
Bilge Atasoy | Sep 5
Bilge Atasoy, associate professor at the Department of Maritime & Transport Technology, has been awarded an ERC Starting Grant to develop adaptive transport systems. She will work on a holistic adaptive modelling framework that considers the interactions between supply and demand to make transport more efficient, sustainable and user-centric.
Veni Grant
Aimée Sakes, Sid Kumar, Cosimo Della Santina and Mathias Peirlinck | Aug 3
Seventeen researchers from TU Delft, including 4 from the 3mE Faculty, namelyAimée Sakes, Sid Kumar, Cosimo Della Santina and Mathias Peirlinck, received a Veni grant. The funds will be used for a variety of research projects, from giving robots the intelligence to handle deformable objects to a catheter that ensures safer minimal invasive heart surgery.
Research along Routes by Consortia (NWA-ORC)
Mathias Peirlinck | July 10
A soft implantable robotic heart for people with severe heart failure. To develop this further, the Holland Hybrid Heart consortium has received 10 million euros from NWO. The soft robot heart can be implanted in the chest of patients with severe heart failure and takes over the function of the real heart. From TU Delft, assistant professor Mathias Peirlinck is involved.
PlantXR receives 15 million euros from NWO
Luca Laurenti and Manuel Mazo Jr. | July 6
PlantXR, a CropXR research programme into 'smart breeding' of extra resilient crops receives 15 million euros from NWO. This marks the start of the new Dutch institute CropXR, which integrates plant biology, computational modelling, and artificial intelligence into 'smart breeding methods'.
Luca Laurenti and Manuel Mazo from 3mE, together with Marcel Reinders, Christoph Lofi and Geert-Jan Houben from EWI, aim to derive the specific genes responsible for enhancing a crop variety resilience from collected experimental data models. Together, Mazo and Laurenti will develop new systems biology tools to analyse biological systems modelled through a combination of both mechanistic and data-driven techniques.
National Growth Fund
June 30
TU Delft, together with partners, is involved in 10 of the 18 proposals honored by the National Growth Fund program. The government announced this on Friday, June 30. Researchers from 3mE are involved in 3 of these projects: Maritime Master Plan 2.0, Material Independence & Circular Batteries and Growing with Green Steel.
Vidi Grant
Wouter Westerveld, Remco Hartkamp and Carlas Smith | June 29
Eight researchers from TU Delft, including three from the 3mE Faculty, namely Wouter Westerveld, Remco Hartkamp and Carlas Smith, received a Vidi grant for their research proposals.
Open Technology Programma
Robert Babuska | June 29
Advanced robots are remarkable successful in conducting a specific task, yet only when operating in static and predictable environments. Unfortunately, the operability of existing robotics stalls catastrophically when significant or unpredictable events occur, as it breaks their closed world assumption. Babuska and colleagues propose the OpenBots project to turn robots from automated systems operating in a closed-world into autonomous systems that operate in the real, open world.
Early Academic Career Award in Robotics and Automation
Cosimo Della Santina | June 1
Cosimo Della Santina received an Early Academic Career Award in Robotics and Automation during the annual IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation in London for his fundamental contributions to modeling, design, and control of soft and elastic robots.
Young Researcher Award
Othon Moultos | May 25
Othon Moultos received a Young Researcher Award during the annual 16th International Conference on Properties and Phase Equilibria for Product and Process Design (PPEPPD2023) in Tarragona. This award is given to researchers younger than 40 years old who have initiated high impact contribution to Properties and Phase Equilibria for Product and Process Design.