March 14, 2024 – PITTSBURGH, PA – The ARM (Advanced Robotics for Manufacturing) Institute is pleased to announce that three ARM Institute consortium member projects were selected from over 100 proposals submitted to the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) Manufacturing Technology (ManTech) Organic Industrial Base (OIB) Modernization Challenge held earlier this year.
The ARM Institute is the nation’s leading robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) manufacturing innovation institute, sponsored by the Department of Defense and part of the Manufacturing USA© network.
The OSD ManTech Program hosted representatives from five Department of Defense Manufacturing Innovation Institutes (MIIs) and their consortium member companies for an Organic Industrial Base Modernization Challenge pitch event in Chicago on February 7, 2023. Following an October workshop to identify crucial technological needs, OSD ManTech initiated the OIB Modernization project call through the MIIs, set to offer up to $2.5 million in OSD-sponsored government funding to five MII-member winners. This resulted in 104 proposal submissions from member companies. Nine projects delivered their proposals to a panel of OIB experts, industry leadership and the OSD ManTech Director, Tracy Frost, based on their projected positive impact across the 47 DoD-owned OIB sites.
“The ARM Institute and our Consortium Members truly appreciate the opportunity to both learn about OIB’s challenges and actively respond to solving them”, stated Ira Moskowitz, ARM Institute Chief Executive Officer. “Continued interaction between the ManTech MIIs and the Department of Defense will increase availability of innovative solutions to meet the needs of our warfighter and the supporting manufacturing community.”
Added Chuck Brandt, ARM Institute Chief Technology Officer, “Winning three of the five selected projects is a testament to the fact that ARM Institute Consortium Members continue to propose and develop innovative solutions to support our nation’s defense manufacturing needs.”
The selected projects are briefly outlined below:
Robotic Non-Contact 3D Inspection Replacing Hard Gaging
Organization: ARIS Technology
ARIS Technology will replace manual hard gauging with Robotically Automated Non-Contact 3D Scanning, qualifying parts with data instead of manual testing. The team will demonstrate a fully integrated robotic 3D scanning system at the Iowa Army Plant.
Extended Reality and AI-Assisted Paint Masking
Organization: GridRaster Inc.
GridRaster will refine and deploy their extended reality tools to enable optimized paint masking work on a large Army vehicle in the operational environment at Letterkenny Army Depot. This effort is anticipated to lower masking errors and reduce masking time, both by more than 50%.
Maskless Robotic Painting with Realtime Control
Organizations: Figure Engineering, Siemens, Lockheed Martin
The team, led by Figure Engineering, and including Siemens and Lockheed Martin, will leverage artificial intelligence and machine learning to optimize Figure Engineering’s Signac collaborative robotic marking system to eliminate manual masking and stenciling on defense assets, demonstrating this capability at Warner Robins ALC.