Cooperative Agreement 2534344

The National Science Foundation Division of Civil, Mechanical, and Manufacturing Innovation awarded a $2 million cooperative agreement to Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station on September 1, 2026, to establish and operate the Autonomous Robotic Metallurgist Materials Innovation Platform (ARM-MIP) at Texas A&M University, an open-access national user facility for alloy discovery and development. The award funds a six-year period of performance through August 31, 2032.

ARM-MIP designs, fabricates, tests, and analyzes new alloys by integrating robotics, artificial intelligence, physics-based simulation, and automated experimentation into a single autonomous laboratory. The facility accelerates alloy development from concept to deployment, compressing timelines that traditionally exceed a decade. Scientists and engineers from universities, national laboratories, and industry use ARM-MIP as hands-on users to run discovery campaigns; automation handles sample fabrication, characterization, and routine computation while researchers focus on hypothesis generation and metallurgical decision-making. Remote access modes—including AI-guided campaign design and digital-twin-supported experiment planning—extend capabilities to researchers at non-R1 and EPSCOR institutions. Industry engages through fee-for-service, collaborative, and consortium-based arrangements. Training is delivered through on-site instruction, the Computational Materials Science Summer School (CMS3), and dedicated modules in AI-enabled discovery workflows. ARM-MIP builds a national community of practitioners across academia, industry, and national laboratories who share tools, samples, data, and knowledge.