NSF awards $6 million for UMaine-led effort to establish new lab to study AI in advanced manufacturing – UMaine News
A new lab to study how the latest artificial intelligence tools and techniques could bolster advanced manufacturing in northern New England will be launched with a $6 million award from the National Science Foundation to the University of Maine.
UMaine will collaborate with the University of New Hampshire, University of Vermont, Southern Maine Community College, Dartmouth College and Vermont Technical College to create the Northeast Integrated Intelligent Manufacturing Lab (NIIM), funded by a Research Infrastructure Improvement Track-2 Focused EPSCoR Collaboration award.
The lab, based at UMaine, will be used to investigate new technologies to increase advanced manufacturing efficiency, scalability, capability and safety by incorporating AI, robotics and 3D metal printing.
The research team behind the lab will explore the efficacy of various AI techniques for advanced manufacturing, including interpretable machine learning models, physics-guided and multitask learning, and unsupervised domain adaptation. In collaboration with industry partners, researchers plan to develop new AI models for advanced manufacturing that are more interpretable and adaptable, AI-guided design for additive metal manufacturing that reduces unnecessary trial-and-error, self-aware computer numerical control machines for subtractive manufacturing and industrial robots to support cellular manufacturing.
Through these studies, the lab and its scientists aim to help northern New England manufacturers evolve their businesses by providing research, education and workforce development. For example, researchers could devise learning techniques that factory workers could use to teach their robots new skills.
“This is an example of the interdisciplinary innovation and partnership that an R1 research university provides,” says UMaine President Joan Ferrini-Mundy. “UMaine has long led advanced manufacturing research and development that helps to impact economic development. This award builds on those efforts to support a manufacturing industry in transition for the future and continues UMaine’s nationally recognized…
