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$80 million awarded for Advanced Robotics Manufacturing Institute in Pittsburgh

January 19, 2017

Pittsburgh will be home to the Advanced Robotics Manufacturing (ARM) Innovation Hub, the newest member of the Manufacturing USA network. The U.S. Department of Defense announced that American Robotics, Inc., an independent nonprofit spun out of Carnegie Mellon University will receive roughly $80 million in federal funding to launch the institute, matched with $173 million in support from the university and a consortium representing approximately 120 industry partners, 40 academic institutions and 60 non-profit and government entities.

The mission of ARM focuses on the creation and deployment of robotic technologies that integrate a variety of disciplines around manufacturing, including: sensor technologies, end-effector development, software and artificial intelligence, materials science, human and machine behavior modeling, and quality assurance. In order to achieve a high level of precision, the defense and manufacturing sectors are increasingly using robotics. At the same time, barriers exist for small and mid-size manufacturers to apply the technologies because of cost and complexity, DoD officials note.

Over the next 10 years, the Innovation Hub’s goals include increasing worker productivity by 30 percent, creating 510,000 new manufacturing jobs in the U.S., ensuring that 30 percent of SMEs adopt robotics technology, and providing the ecosystem where major industrial robotics manufacturers will emerge.

Across the Manufacturing USA institutes, the federal government’s $1 billion commitments have leveraged over $2 billion in non-federal investment. ARM is the eighth Defense Department-led institute within the 14-institute Manufacturing USA network. 

Pennsylvaniamfg usa, manufacturing, dept of defense