Cooperative Agreement DEEE0009264

Rstream Recycling LLC received a $275,000 Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation under the NSF Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships program (CFDA 47.084) to develop an autonomous waste sorting platform. The platform aims to improve landfill diversion and recycling rates for non-industrial waste streams at high-traffic venues like stadiums, universities, airports, and theme parks. Currently, waste sorting at these facilities is done manually or through expensive robotic...

The National Science Foundation awarded a $100,000 CAREER grant to Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) under the Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) to conduct research on leveraging the collective power of robotic grasping algorithms through meta-learning and active perception. The project aims to develop ensemble learning methods and active vision strategies to improve the reliability of robots in manipulating objects in cluttered and unstructured settings. The research outcomes will be used...

This $454,020 Project Grant awarded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) will support collaborative research at the University of Michigan to develop soft materials with embedded sensors, circuits, and actuators enabling a new class of intelligent soft robots. The goal is to create a soft robotic manipulator that can autonomously recognize and sort objects by their physical characteristics using only these advanced material components, without requiring...

The National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded a $174,229 Project Grant under the Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) program to Michigan Technological University. The grant, awarded on October 1, 2023, with a completion date of September 30, 2025, is focused on developing a self-learning neuromorphic robot system that can operate efficiently in resource-constrained environments. The key objectives of this research project are to: 1) create a neuromorphic robot that utilizes...

This $275,008 Project Grant awarded by the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) aims to create an AI-powered framework that helps designers automatically evaluate the environmental impact of their designs and optimize them for sustainability. The key innovations include: Developing novel graph attention network (GAT) algorithms to extract lifecycle inventory (LCI) data by analyzing similarities with existing designs, addressing the issue of LCI data scarcity....

The National Science Foundation (NSF) Division of Civil, Mechanical, and Manufacturing Innovation awarded a $200,000 Project Grant to Montclair State University under the Engineering federal grant program (CFDA 47.041). The grant will support fundamental research to develop an emotion-based robotic behavior optimization system that can enable comfortable and friendly human-robot collaboration in manufacturing settings. The key products and services to be delivered under this award include:...

This Cooperative Agreement award from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) under the Measurement and Engineering Research and Standards program (CFDA 11.609) provides $198,000.00 to Carnegie Mellon University to develop methods for the validation and deployment of AI-powered robots in manufacturing applications. The key products and services to be delivered include: Development of an AI robotic information system with a generative simulation framework to automatically...

This Cooperative Agreement award from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), under the Measurement and Engineering Research and Standards (CFDA 11.609) Federal Grant Program, provides $251,139.07 to Prospicience, LLC to conduct research to help the NIST Measurement Science for Manufacturing Robotics (MSMR) program develop a better understanding of machine learning (ML) tools and techniques for more efficient and effective robot programming. The key activities to be...

The National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded a $300,000 Early-concept Grant for Exploratory Research (EAGER) under the Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) to The Pennsylvania State University, doing business as Penn State, to conduct research on expanding the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in manufacturing. The project focuses on developing deep clustering and generative modeling techniques to identify geometric similarities between new part designs and existing designs to improve...

This $6 million project grant from the Department of Commerce Economic Development Administration's Economic Adjustment Assistance program will strengthen the robotics and autonomy cluster in Southwestern Pennsylvania through five projects led by Catalyst Connection. The projects include expanding workforce training programs in robotics and artificial intelligence careers to grow the region's existing portfolio. An SME robotics adoption project will support technology adoption by small- and...