Selected sponsored research & development.

Serving as a medic in the military involves inherent dangers. Continuous exposure to hazardous conditions increases the likelihood of first responders themselves becoming casualties (Knisely et al., 2023). Medics operate in intense, high-stress environments, often amidst gunfire, striving to provide life-saving aid to injured soldiers amidst the chaos of combat. Therefore, the development of low-cost robotic platforms to provide care autonomously holds the potential to save lives and offer assistance in situations deemed too perilous for human intervention. Soon, the integration of human medics with robotic counterparts, a concept known as manned-unmanned teaming, is anticipated to significantly enhance combat casualty care.

In this Phase I SBIR, ALT LLC will develop modular additively manufactured high-dexterity end effectors suitable for performing or assisting in complex medical procedures on various robotic platforms. We will conduct physics simulations of the hardware to evaluate the potential of our technology to accomplish several critical medical tasks. Control can be achieved through teleoperation or autonomous artificial intelligence sequences. This effort will involve simulating medical procedures in software to assess the end effector's grip and ability to manipulate various necessary tools.

The DOD requires surgical and procedural training models with a high degree of realism and functionality — incorporating synthetic skin, muscle, vessels, adipose, and connective tissue. 3D printing of synthetic tissues enables models to be fabricated and customized to specific scenarios, including unique anatomy, bone fractures, and medical conditions, at lower cost than conventional methods.

Incorporating self-healing functionality enhances simulations of fluid resuscitation whether from puncturing, cutting, or organ removal. Autonomous healing with high repeatability and low toxicity provides significant functionality for 3D-printed surgical trainers, improving medical training readiness while reducing cost and liability.

Every two seconds someone in the U.S. needs blood, with more than 38,000 donations required daily. This project develops advanced methods to temporarily reprogram hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) to enable ex vivo production of blood in clinically relevant quantities — targeting the 2.5×10¹² red blood cells contained in a standard unit of blood.

A transfection-free method is used that can be translated into clinical use. If successful, this work will create a viable alternative to allogenic blood transfusion, impacting the $20 billion global blood transfusion market and the $53 billion EPO market, while improving safety and availability of blood for transfusions.

Despite advances in prosthetic technology, studies show a high percentage of users abandon their prosthetics. This project develops a preliminary prototype of a soft, self-healing bionic arm aimed at reducing abandonment and evaluating the feasibility of a low-cost (~$1K), modular, highly realistic below-elbow forearm and hand biomimetic prosthetic.

A biomimetic approach and novel low-cost multi-material additive manufacturing process is used to directly print embedded touch sensors and tissue simulants, integrating actuators and wireless control electronics. Self-healing tissue simulants repair and extend product lifetime, while embedded tactile sensors provide feedback to support functional capacity — including grip force, grasp speed, durability, and reduced mental fatigue.

The program objective is to develop low-cost large-format additively manufactured multi-layer Printed Circuit Boards (PCBs), with a target application of micropatterned detectors suitable for particle detection supporting the primary mission of the DOE Nuclear Physics program. The effort focuses on a process that fabricates cascaded Gas Electron Multiplier (GEM) detectors via a low-cost automated additive manufacturing (AM) approach, supporting DOE needs for cathode pad chambers, cathode strip chambers, and time projection chamber cathode boards.

ALT LLC is developing a low-cost AM tool to achieve automated assembly of multi-layer PCBs — including conductive trace deposition, dielectric deposition, laser and thermal sintering, and extrusion of support materials — yielding large-format detectors (2–3×), reduced cost (estimated 10×), fast turnaround (1–2 days), and self-aligned layers without additional registration. The platform also targets flexible electronics, embedded electronics in 3D-printed objects, and medical devices, with applications across DOE facilities including CEBAF, RHIC, and FRIB.

Despite the large number of medical simulators currently available, there is a distinct need for low-cost anatomical training models with integrated sensors capable of recording location and pressure measurements to evaluate a user's performance during training.

In this Phase II SBIR, ALT LLC integrated sensor technology into synthetic anatomical training models, extending prior work on heterogeneously integrated sensors to enable objective assessment of surgical cuts, manipulation, and suturing — from pressure sensor arrays that detect normal forces to instrumentation measuring tissue approximation, occlusion, and energy application.

The DOD and commercial markets have a distinct need for low-cost, anatomically accurate, complex synthetic human tissue to improve training and surgical precision. In this project ALT LLC developed a novel multi-material print-head for a 3D printer capable of depositing a wide range of materials such that bone, skin, blood vessels, adipose tissue, and muscle material properties are tightly matched with live human tissue.

Advanced Diagnostic Technologies (ADxT) developed a novel, low-cost 3D printer for synthetic tissue deposition. The tool serves a wide range of applications including surgery simulation, endoscopic and intravascular procedures, clinical task training, basic medical skills development, and medical device design verification.

Despite the large number of procedural simulation models available, there is a definite need for low-cost anatomical training models with integrated sensors capable of recording the location and pressure of a user's cuts and sutures during training.

In this work ALT LLC incorporated force sensors heterogeneously with synthetic tissue using a multi-material 3D printing platform — enabling low-cost sensing integrated with a simulator to accurately track student performance without requiring an instructor to watch.

Surgical training requires an understanding of the human body's complex 3-dimensional anatomical structures and the spatial relationships of nerves, blood vessels, and other vital structures. Mastering these spatial skills requires a lengthy training period and much practice — typically in the operating room under the supervision of a senior surgeon at great financial cost and potential risk to patients.

3D printing of an anatomically accurate surgical training model requires the simultaneous high-resolution deposition of multiple materials that match physiological geometry and mechanical properties. This Phase II SBIR addresses the need for low-cost, high-fidelity synthetic physical tissue models for surgical training, anatomy education, trauma medicine, and many other purposes.

Multi-material additive manufacturing (AM) constructs three-dimensional objects layer-by-layer using a range of materials including metals, ceramics, and polymers — yet several hurdles prevent its wider adoption.

In this Phase I SBIR for DARPA, ALT LLC developed a smart multi-material AM sensor suite aimed at overcoming the key barriers to broader adoption of multi-material additive manufacturing.

NASA has a serious unmet need for miniature biologic sensors capable of on-orbit sample analysis and in-situ, real-time analysis of astronaut health. ALT LLC proposed an alternative way to monitor crew health through continuous monitoring of blood analytes, with information transmitted back to ground control in real time — bypassing the need to preserve biological specimens.

This novel multivariate system measures the optical rotation of laser-polarized light reflected from human skin, along with scattering and absorption characteristics directly related to the concentration of certain blood analytes that reliably indicate an individual's health state.