There’s no doubt the robots are coming. In fact, for many businesses, communities and even homes, they’re already here in a variety of forms – and it’s a good thing.
For U.S. manufacturers, industrial robotics has become a key, strategic component that helps them design and produce products more efficiently and more safely than ever. More importantly, the integration of collaborative robotics – where machines work with people in a variety of production processes – is actually helping humans do their job better and faster. But integrating these automated machines into existing work environments and enabling them to collaborate operationally with people presents some unique challenges.
Enter the Advanced Robotics for Manufacturing (ARM) Institute.
Last year, the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) provided $80 million in federal funding to launch the ARM Institute to stimulate robotics technology development in manufacturing environments.
ARM, a Manufacturing USA® institute, is dedicated to advancing the manufacturing renaissance by creating an ecosystem that drives innovation through robotics while working to accelerate the growth of U.S.-based manufacturing.
In Jan. 2017, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) – the Troy-based educational institution – became a founding member of ARM upon its creation. A key player in the robotics industry, RPI co-leads the Mid-Atlantic Regional Robotics Innovation Collaborative (RRIC) with FuzeHub, the New York Manufacturing Extension Partnership center funded by Empire State Development’s Division of Science, Technology and Innovation (NYSTAR).
Together, RPI and FuzeHub represent the instrumental role New York State is playing in this important national effort. Through their work, they help small and medium-sized businesses foster the adoption of robotics and address shortcomings in cost and access. The collaboration also helps manufacturers obtain local help and resources, including funding, solution databases and workforce development offerings.
Beyond infrastructure and networking support – New York is also taking real-time steps to impact businesses through active projects supported by ARM. In establishing the ARM Institute, the team from New York identified a critical, unmet manufacturing challenge: precision assembly of large composite structures.
“These structures are long, wide and flexible, but need to be assembled into even larger structures with very high precision,” explained Glenn Saunders, senior research engineer at RPI, who is working on the project. “The traditional methods used to execute this assembly in the past are too slow, labor intensive and imprecise to be economically viable.”
