The Department for Nanostructured Materials, K7, at the Jožef Stefan Institute (JSI) has successfully secured funding under the RSF IND Programme (Pillar IV – Innovation) for the project iRAPTOR: Omni-Directional Magnetic Field-Controlled 3D Printing Device. The one-year project, led by Dr. Muhammad Shahid Arshad, is supported with funding of €50,000 and focuses on advancing functional additive manufacturing of magnetic materials.
The iRAPTOR project aims to develop a novel fused-deposition modeling (FDM) print head equipped with a compact, water-cooled, omnidirectional electromagnet system and integrated Hall-probe sensing. This enables precise, real-time control and verification of magnetic field orientation during printing, allowing voxel-level alignment of anisotropic hard-magnetic particles. The result is polymer-bonded magnets with significantly enhanced remanence and tailored multipolar magnetization patterns.
The technology will be validated on motor-relevant components, including BLDC motor parts, in collaboration with industrial partner Kolektor Mobility and research partner CIM-UPC (Spain). Beyond technical validation, the project also supports intellectual property protection and commercialization activities, strengthening our department’s role in innovation, sustainable manufacturing, and advanced magnetic materials.