NSF Engines Development Award: Advancing smart logistics (IL, IN, MO, WI)

Award ID: 2302950

This Regional Innovation Engines Development Award is focused on transforming the transportation logistics system through five core strengths: interdisciplinary applied research, business incubation and entrepreneurship, adaptive lifelong learning, cross-sectoral economic development, and deep community engagement. Together, they form the Smart Logistics Engine. The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted many chronic failure points in logistics systems stressed by multi-scalar economic, social, and natural crises. Solving these challenges at all scales and across the urban-to-rural spectrum is crucial to the future economic prosperity of the U.S. The Illinois-Indiana-Wisconsin-Missouri region is poised to lead in this sector because of its unique setting as a hub for all transportation modalities spanning river, air, road, and rail networks. This project is led by the Illinois Innovation Network, with Governors State University as the lead academic institution. Key partners across the state include Western Illinois, Southern Illinois University Carbondale, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, University of Illinois Chicago, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and Eastern Illinois University. In recent years, companies have been forced to reconfigure their supplier locations to build resiliency while simultaneously seeking to satisfy the demand for rapid delivery without product shortages. During this time, 68% of small businesses cited supply chain disruptions as having moderate to significant impacts on their business, and 87% of consumers were impacted by shortages and rationing. To solve these issues, this project will focus on three core activities: (1) automation of logistics for truck middle-mile freight systems, (2) autonomous drones and electric vehicles deployment, and (3) inland waterway freight delivery systems. The team will center its planning around translatable research demonstrating automation as a systemic enhancement and research incorporating drone and electric vehicle technologies across industry clusters. It will use intelligent logistics and design thinking to engage port managers, community leaders, and private sector partners to develop a regional, urban-to-rural waterborne commerce system and inclusive labor market. The project also will identify strategies for reskilling and upskilling individuals whose career paths are disrupted by automation while ensuring that workers in local and sub-regional economies can attain long-term participation in new industry clusters. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NSF Program Director: Hina Mehta