Advanced Robotics Manufacturing Innovation Hub awarded $250 million

American Robotics—a non-profit venture led by Carnegie Mellon and featuring more than 220 partners in industry, academia, government and the nonprofit sector nationwide—will receive more than $250 million to launch an Advanced Robotics Manufacturing(ARM) Innovation Hub institute in Pittsburgh, PA, USA.

After awarding the public-private Manufacturing USA institute to American Robotics, the Department of Defense (DOD) will contribute $80 million to the institute, while partner organizations will contribute $173 million. The ARM institute joins the Manufacturing USA institute network, a program with industry, academia, and government participants who co-invest in the development of cutting edge manufacturing technologies and capabilities. Each institute focuses on a specific technology area.

The ARM Institute features such industrial partners as ABB Inc., Amazon Robotics LLC, BMW Manufacturing, CapSen Robotics, DENSO Manufacturing Tennessee, Inc., FANUC America Corporation, FedEx Ground, Lockheed Martin Corporation, John Deere, National Instruments Corp., NVIDIA Corporation, Raytheon, Rethink Robotics, Robert Bosch LLC, Rockwell Automation Inc., Siemens Corporation, Yaskawa America Inc. (Motoman Robotics Division), and many others.

This award, according to Carnegie Mellon, puts Pittsburgh and CMU at the center of a new wave of manufacturing, leveraging artificial intelligence, autonomy, 3D printing and other emerging technologies to make industrial robotics more affordable for businesses of all sizes, adaptable for many uses, and able to achieve more.

"This new institute will provide significant benefits to the region and the nation, while creating enormous opportunities for CMU scholars and researchers, and new momentum for the university," said Carnegie Mellon President Subra Suresh, who spoke at Friday's announcement at the Pentagon. "The institute, in return, will benefit from CMU's expertise in technology, as well as its strengths in policy, ethics and human interfaces that will ensure that new technologies work to benefit humankind."

Industries that will be served, according to the ARM Institute, include aerospace, automotive, electronics, textiles, and fulfillment and logistics. Technologies that will be developed include collaborative robots, robot control, learning, adaption and repurposing, dexterous manipulation, autonomous navigation and mobility, perception and sensing, testing, verification, and validation.

Pictured:3D-vision-guided robotics: 3D vision enables random robotic bin picking

View the CMU press release.
View the DOD press release.
View more information on the ARM Institute.

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