On January 13th, the Department of Defense awarded the 14th Manufacturing USA Institute — the Advanced Robotics Manufacturing (ARM) Innovation Hub — to American Robotics, a nonprofit venture led by Carnegie Mellon University with more than 200 partners in industry, government and the nonprofit sector nationwide. Headquartered in Pittsburgh, the winning consortium — comprising state and local governments, industry, universities, community colleges, and non-profit organizations from across the country — contributed $173 million, to be combined with $80 million in DoD funding.
ARM is the fourth Manufacturing Innovation Institute in the tristate Northeast region. New York is home to three: AIM Photonics (American Institute for Manufacturing Integrated Photonics) in Rochester, RAPID (Rapid Advancement in Process Intensification Deployment Institute) in New York City and REMADE (Reducing Embodied and Decreasing Emissions) also in Rochester. The Manufacturing USA network has 14 institutes around the US focusing on a technology area critical to future competitiveness — such as additive manufacturing, integrated photonics, or smart sensors. The federal government has committed over $1 billion, matched by over $2 billion in non-federal investment, across the Manufacturing USA network.
“It is a great honor to announce that a Pennsylvania organization has received the prestigious designation as a Manufacturing USA institute,” said Governor Tom Wolf at the time of the announcement. “The manufacturing industry has long been the foundation of the commonwealth’s economy, and with the assistance of outstanding partners like American Robotics and Carnegie Mellon University, we look forward to ensuring that manufacturing in the United States continues on a track of revitalization and technological advancement.”
As part of the public-private effort that brings together industry, academia, and government to co-invest in the development of world-leading manufacturing technologies and capabilities, American Robotics will lead the institute focused on robots used in manufacturing environments. Though robotics are currently being used in manufacturing environments, they are often expensive, serve only a single purpose, are difficult to reprogram, and require isolation from humans due to safety concerns. The ARM Institute’s mission is to create and deploy robotic technology that will empower American workers to compete with low-wage workers abroad; create and sustain new jobs to secure national prosperity; lower the technical, operational, and economic barriers for small-, medium, and large-sized enterprises to adopt robotic technologies; and assert US leadership in advanced manufacturing.
