ARM to award $5.7 million in project funding

Jonathan Fuller | January 29, 2019

Advanced Robotics for Manufacturing (ARM) has announced the selection of 11 projects from its second formal project technology call, which took place in May 2018.

Pending negotiation, ARM will award around $5.7 million in funding across the 11 projects, with each contributing a similar amount as cost share, for a total investment of $11.4 million. After negotiations are finalized, the new projects will bring ARM’s total project count to 29.

(Read more about ARM on Engineering360.)

The May 2018 project call focused on eight topic areas identified as critical to the organization’s goal of advancing the state of robotic automation in manufacturing: identifying and packing objects, unloading and unpacking objects, transport and delivery through a complex/crowded floor, inspection of non-standard materials, tracking and traceability of components, surface treatments, manipulating compliant materials and software interoperability.

The 11 newly announced project selections include:

Advanced Control for Robotic Surface Treatment, led by United Technologies Research Center (UTRC), which aims to develop a robust and precise robotic surface rolling cell and demonstrate deep rolling capability to improve fatigue of aerospace-grade turbine blades.
Automatic Onsite Polishing of Large, Complex Surfaces by Real-time Planning and Control, led by Carnegie Mellon University, working toward the advancement and integration of robot hardware and software to allow automatic onsite polishing.
Automation of Manufacturing Defect Correction Using Robots, led by Siemens which will create an end-to-end finishing solution using a robot-based scanning and inspection system to identify imperfections and robot-based manufacturing defects correction.
Collaborative Robotic Sanding of Aircraft Panels, led by Spirit AeroSystems, to develop a collaborative robotics system to aid skilled workers in sanding composite aircraft panels.
Functional Interoperable Compiler, led by Siemens, centering on the creation of a high-level, standardized declarative language for robot programming.
Human-Robot Teaming for Composite Ply Lay-up and Conforming, led by Boeing, combining control technologies and task planning to allow a human-robot team to better manipulate large composite sheets.
Precise Packing with Intelligence, led by UTRC, which aims to develop a hybrid cell using collaborative robots to reduce manual labor in inspection and packaging of aircraft engine parts, in turn improving operator accuracy and reducing operator risk.
Large Metallic Sanding and Finishing, led by Wichita State University, seeking to advance the technology used to sand large metallic panels that are often round and cylindrical in shape.
Robot Raconteur: An Interoperable Middleware for Robotics, led by Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, attempting to improve integration of robots, sensors, peripherals and simulation software from multiple vendors and platforms.
Robotic Assembly of Garments, led by Siemens, addresses the gap in robotic handling of flexible materials.
Seamless Multi-Robot, Multi-Mac Interoperability, led by Siemens, focuses on the development of a gateway for plug-and-play communication and interoperability between OPC Unified Architecture, MTConnect and Direct Digital Synthesis (DDS)-based devices.