The ARM (Advanced Robotics for Manufacturing) Institute, a US national consortium of 270+ member organizations focused on advancing the state of U.S. manufacturing and empower worker, recently announced the selection of eight new robotics technology projects. A total of $7.5M will be contributed across these eight projects. ARM plans to award $2.9M in project funding, and the participating organizations plan to contribute $4.6M in cost share. To date, ARM has invested in over 70 robotics technology and workforce development projects.

The ARM Institute, in partnership with its member organizations, identifies areas of need in manufacturing, which are used as strategic focus areas in its project calls. These focus areas have become increasingly important as the nation looks to strengthen supply chains and domestic manufacturing in the wake of COVID-19. Many of the selected projects have the potential to help the manufacturing ecosystem generally, while also equipping the nation to better respond to future crises.

Brief descriptions of the eight selected project are listed below.

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Autonomous Material Handling Robotic System for Medical Devices and Consumer Goods Logistic and E-commerce Applications

Lead: Johnson & Johnson

Partners: IAM Robotics, Carnegie Mellon University

Description: This robotic solution focuses on increasing flexibility in e-commerce to better respond to sudden supply chain disruption demands, which existed before the COVID-19 pandemic and were further exacerbated by the crisis. The project team will work to develop a fully autonomous collaborative robot that can travel to stocked items and pick things from within storage containers.

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“Bot Couture”: Robotic Clothing Manufacturing

Lead: Siemens Technology

Partners: Sewbo, Henderson Sewing, ISAIC, Bluewater Defense

Description: Most apparel manufacturing is done abroad, which leads to lengthy supply chains. This supply chain issue poses a significant risk, as seen when the U.S. struggled to scale up production of PPE. This project team will leverage results from a previously funded ARM project to expand upon it by delivering a modular work-cell that can be configured to perform end to end automated assembly of PPEs, such as isolation gowns.

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Augmented Reality (AR) Based Human-Robot Interaction

Lead: Boeing Research & Technology

Partners: Siemens, Southwest Research Institute, rpGatta, FANUC America

Description: This project focuses on a user-friendly AR interface that will allow human operators with limited education on robotics programming to program and operate robotic processes for parts maintenance. The team is working to empower workers by supporting the worker transition from menial tasks to robotic operation with limited training needed to make the change. This will build upon an existing talented workforce base while implementing automation to improve accuracy and lower costs.

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Automated Induction Welding of Large Thermoplastic Composite Structures

Lead: Raytheon Technologies Research Center

Partners: GrayMatter Robotics, University of South Carolina

Description: Lightweight carbon fiber reinforced thermoplastic composites (CF-TPCs) have been widely recognized as the materials capable of meeting the future aerospace market rate demands with potential recyclability. This project team seeks to develop an automated welding solution that will decrease the time spent on the welding process and expand the application from small and simple parts to large and complex parts.

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Automated Bottom Hemming Through Robotic Garment Manipulation

Lead: Siemens Technology

Partners: University of Southern California, Henderson Sewing, Black Swan Textiles, United Sewing Automation

Description: This project team will focus on developing robotic capabilities to perform bottom hemming, the process of performing a circular stitch at the bottom of the T-shirt. This project will also build upon a previously funded ARM project, ultimately resulting in the use of a bimanual robot to pick up a garment from a stack, dynamically readjust its shape, and then insert it into an automatic bottom hemmer. In addition to the technology capabilities, the project team will focus on workforce development aspects to enable operators to easily operate and maintain the system.

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Reducing Composite Ply Layup Time on Complex Tools Though Use of Robotic Cells

Lead: University of Southern California

Partners: Lockheed Martin, Southwest Research Institute

Description: Current composite layup processes are manual, costly, time-consuming, and suffer from inconsistencies. This project team is working to develop a hybrid cell that will facilitate better human-robotic collaboration in the composite layup process. This is expected to reduce touch labor during the layup process, reduce debulking steps, and increase throughput.

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Robotic Assistant for Repurposable Fabric Fusing Operations

Lead: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Partners: Interface Technologies, Hickey Freeman

Description: The U.S. continues to lose apparel manufacturing to international suppliers who offer lower wage costs; however, the apparel industry is ripe for automation. Current processes see human workers touching each piece of fabric and manually picking and placing. This project team is working to develop and an end effector that can pick and place fabric and interlining piece parts and fabric bolts onto the fusing machine conveyor. The team plans to develop open source software modules that can program robots from multiple vendors and leverage collaborative robots that can be easily positioned.

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Interoperability and Orchestration of Autonomous Mobile Robots (IO-AMRs)

Lead: Siemens Technology

Partners: FedEx, Yaskawa Motoman, Waypoint Robotics, University of Memphis

Description: Current practice sees each AMR vendor using their custom Fleet Management software platform, making it difficult for end-users to operate a fleet of mixed AMR brands efficiently. This project aims to enable AMR cross vendor communication and management, lowering the barriers for the further adoption of AMRs. The outputs from this project are expected to result in lower training time for operators and increased productivity.

Editors Note: The Advanced Robotics for Manufacturing (ARM) was a 2020 RBR50 Robotics Innovation Award winners (HERE). This announcement was republished (with edits) with the permission of the ARM Institute. The original can be found HERE.

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