4D Animate Platform/Power Technologies (4DAPT)

Tender description

The France-UK University Research Initiative (FUURI) program, created in 2022 by the FR-UK Defence Research Group (AFDRG), supports interdisciplinary research involving French and British universities to accelerate progress in innovative new fields of potential interest to the French Ministry of Defence and the UK Ministry of Defence. Within the framework of FUURI, the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl) and Agence de l'innovation de défense (AID) have agreed to support innovative binational projects demonstrating strong synergy between teams in each country and a real integration of joint work. The first FUURI project will focus on accelerating the state of the art in 4D printing (4DAPT: 4D Animate Platform/Power Technologies). 4D printing involves the 3D printing of responsive or animate materials. These materials change their function or geometry and adapt in response to a stimulus such as light, heat or electricity. 4D printing has potential to disrupt the way that military platforms are manufactured providing advances in areas such as: reconfigurable structures that self-heal or change shape in response to load; Self-assembling and self-disassembling structures; Robotics; Power and Energy.