Bite-sized Presentations with Huge Impact: You’ll learn about the latest advancements in robotics, AI, manufacturing, and workforce development through punchy, five-minute presentations at the 2025 Annual Member Meeting!
The Five-Minute Pitches at our Annual Member Meeting are by far one of the most popular portions of our event! In these sessions, Members have the opportunity to give strictly timed presentations where they can introduce their organization, showcase a capability, or ask the membership for help in a certain area. Members are careful not to exceed their five-minutes as we play music and cut mics right at the five-minute mark to keep everyone on schedule.
Through these sessions, our consortium, government partners, and all attendees get to learn about new partners they can work with, innovative robotics and AI technologies they can leverage, ground-breaking workforce development programgs they can use to empower their workforce, areas they can help their fellow members, and so much more. We host open networking following the pitches to allow attendees to connect directly to continue the conversations.
Previously, these pitches were assigned on a first come, first served basis and filled within a week of us opening registration for our Annual Member Meeting. This year, we took a different approach and had Members submit brief abstracts. From there, we selected the presentations that we felt would be most impactful for our audience. You may also notice the running theme of AI in manufacturing throughout many of our presentations – you can expect that theme to carry through to other parts of our event as well!
“One of my favorite things about this meeting is the Five Minute Pitches. I take copious notes on that and usually go home with a book full of notes about all these new members that are new to me that we should be working with and that will have the opportunity to collaborate with on project proposals and other projects.” – Curtis Richardson, Technical Fellow at Spirit Aerosystems
Learn more about the Five-Minute Pitch Presentations that you’ll hear at our 2025 Annual Member Meeting below!
The ARM Institute Annual Member Meeting is our cornerstone event, convening representatives from across our 450+ member organizations for 2.5 days of networking, collaboration, knowledge-sharing, and technology demonstrations. The 2025 Member Meeting will take place Sept. 3-5 in Pittsburgh, PA. This event is free to attend, but open only to ARM Members. Learn more here, register in the ARM Member Community, or email [email protected] with questions.
Meet our Five-Minute Pitch Presenters
Cognitive Autonomous Software
Presenting Member Organization: AIVOT Robotics, Inc.
Description: AIVOT builds intelligent vision and language-based robotic systems using the latest AI advancements to navigate autonomously with mobile bases and perform dexterous tasks with dual arms in dynamic environments. The robots learn skills by observing human demonstrations. They understand voice instructions and reply in spoken language. AIVOT’s software can be deployed on any commercial hardware, like robotic arms, quadruped robots, and unmanned vehicles. AIVOT’s technology can help layperson operators deploy automation and experiment with different strategies for various manufacturing tasks rapidly.
Industry 4.0 Inspection: AI, Robotics-Ready Automation, and Multispectral Imaging for Asset Analysis
Presenting Member Organization: Analatom Incorporated
Description: Analatom’s Automated Inspection using Deep Learning (AIDL) is an AI-powered platform designed for seamless integration with robotic systems, enabling next-generation inspection of high-value assets across aerospace, manufacturing, energy, and beyond. By leveraging shortwave infrared (SWIR) imaging, AIDL uncovers subsurface anomalies invisible to the human eye, enhancing reliability while reducing inspection time and cost. Our platform combines advanced computer vision with cloud-based analytics to deliver fast, traceable results and streamlined reporting. Additional integrations with robotic systems and edge tools offer hands-free, repeatable inspections in complex environments. With AIDL, organizations can scale inspection capabilities while modernizing maintenance workflows for next-generation operations.
ARCTOS Technology Solutions – Applied R&D for Enduring Advantage
Presenting Member Organization: ARCTOS
Description: The 5 Minute Pitch presentation will introduce ARCTOS Technology Solutions (a relatively new member of ARM), and activities associated with robotics and automation in two of its groups: the Industrial Innovation Technologies (IIT) and the Training and Technology Transition (TTT). The IIT provides technical expertise, laboratory facilities, and specialized equipment to develop, demonstrate, and commercialize manufacturing, maintenance, and repair technologies for aerospace and defense applications. The TTT provides specialized technical expertise and program management of manufacturing technology and smart manufacturing training programs to address critical scale-up and skills gaps facing the aerospace and defense industrial bases.
Could We Make Robot Programming Any Easier?
Presenting Member Organization: Augmentus
Description: Tired of reprogramming parts? How about changing something so small as a step distance? AI us helping us build spreadsheets, websites and PowerPoint presentations. How about we use AI to help us program robots?
Accelerating Innovation with Digitally Enabled Manufacturing Test Beds
Presenting Member Organization: Commonwealth Center for Advanced Manufacturing
Description: The Commonwealth Center for Advanced Manufacturing (CCAM) is pioneering the use of digitally enabled manufacturing test beds to transform how emerging technologies are developed, matured, and deployed. In this presentation, CCAM will showcase how these dynamic test environments serve as critical infrastructure for validating advanced manufacturing technologies in localized, controlled settings. By leveraging in-situ monitoring and data extraction, we create a robust digital thread that captures the full lifecycle of the process—unlocking insights, ensuring traceability, and enabling scalable deployment. Beyond technology maturation, CCAM’s test beds double as a platform for workforce development. By embedding real-world, cutting-edge tools into training programs, we prepare today’s workforce for tomorrow’s manufacturing demands—aligning skills, building awareness, and ensuring competency as innovations move from R&D to production. Join us to discover how CCAM is closing the gap between innovation and implementation through digitally integrated test beds that drive both technological and human advancement.
Trends and Challenges of Industrial Robotics and Automation
Presenting Member Organization: NIST
Description: There are efforts within NIST to collaborate with industry to investigate, analyze, and disseminate the technical challenges confronting American industry in automation, with a particular emphasis on industrial robotics. Academic research has the potential to address some of these challenges, and although fundamental scientific research is valuable, applied research yielding tangible near-term benefits necessitates a precise understanding of prevailing technical challenges. The exchange of information from academia to industry often occurs through students hired into industry and research-derived startups for example, however, facilitating the reverse is less straightforward. Industry experts typically operate outside of academic spheres. NIST seeks to address this asymmetry by identifying technical challenges and communicating them through accessible channels for academics.
Enabling Applied Student Experiences Through Applied Research in a Manufacturing Setting
Presenting Member Organization: The Ohio State University
Description: This talk will highlight CDME’s approach to enabling student success in the developing career field of advanced robotics and automation.
Orbbec Sensors for Robotics
Presenting Member Organization: Orbbec
Description: 1. Company Introduction 2. Robotic Arm & AMR Sensor Use Cases 3. Robotics Sensors Portfolio 4. Software 5. Summary
Machine Learning Optimization for Data and Hardware Restricted Applications with Perforated AI
Presenting Member Organization: Perforated AI
Description: Perforated AI is a Machine Learning company that has developed a PyTorch add-on combining modern neuroscience with modern software to create neural networks that are smarter, smaller, and more accurate. The new tool empowers data scientists to achieve unprecedented efficiency and performance of PyTorch models with up to 40% reduction in training loss or 90% model compression without impacting inference. This means when applied to existing apps and models that run Deep Learning models on the cloud rather than on-device users could deploy on 90% restricted hardware with the same quality of decisions or maintain the same hardware and generate better decisions. This pitch will go over the algorithm, how it works, and how to engage with us as a company. Additionally, the pitch will include example use cases for how it can be used in environments where there is limited hardware or limited data.
ReadyOne Industries: Innovation, Protection & Workforce Empowerment
Presenting Member Organization: ReadyOne
Description: ReadyOne Industries, a nonprofit leader in protective military garment manufacturing, proudly serves the U.S. Department of Defense while empowering a workforce where over 75% of direct labor is performed by individuals with significant disabilities. Headquartered in El Paso, Texas, we produce advanced chemical and biological protective products designed to deliver maximum defense in high-risk operational environments, with an unwavering commitment to quality, compliance, and community. We are committed to innovation, integrating AI, robotics, and automation to streamline production, reduce costs, and fortify domestic manufacturing capabilities. ReadyOne welcomes collaboration with peers, research institutions, and automation leaders to co-develop scalable solutions that advance smart manufacturing and national security resilience.
We’re Not Weird…We’re SICK!
Presenting Member Organization: SICK
Description: SICK has been providing solutions for factory automation for close to 80 years. We feature many solutions that enable both industrial and mobile robots to perceive their environments while keeping their human co-workers safe. Vision-based robot guidance, LiDAR, radar, safety scanners and more…check out what SICK can do for you and your robots.
Advanced Manufacturing & Robotics Partnerships – Engaging Generation Z
Presenting Member Organization: Vincennes University
Description: Vincennes University has created various partnerships with employers to provide training. Several initiatives are explicitly designed to engage young people nearing the end of high school and entering college. Sample employers are Toyota, 3M, Kimball Electronics, Masterbrand Cabinets, Amazon, and Walmart. We also have a traditional A.S. degree in Advanced Manufacturing and Robotics that has been going strong for nearly 40 years. We would love to share our training capabilities with the ARM institute members.
Huntington Ingalls Shipbuilding Introduction
Presenting Member Organization: Huntington Ingalls Shipbuilding
Description: Learn who Huntington Ingalls Shipbuilding is, what they do, and how you can work with them.
Spray Anything RAMP
Presenting Member Organization: SFSA
Description: Learn about Spray Anything and RAMP
Scaling U.S. Textile Manufacturing with AI-Driven Simulation and Automation
Presenting Member Organization: Carnegie Mellon University
Description: This pitch presents a digital twin-based simulation framework that enables scalable, AI-enhanced textile manufacturing, addressing workforce shortages and production bottlenecks. By integrating physics-based simulation (via NVIDIA Omniverse, Isaac Sim, and COSMOS) with factory data from Merrow Manufacturing, the project creates trustworthy, annotated datasets to train robotic systems for fabric handling, sewing, and quality control. We demonstrate how domain-randomized datasets, progressive inspection, and predictive maintenance enable “what-if” analyses to validate automation strategies under varying demands. The system enables workforce efficiency by allowing a single operator to oversee multiple semi-autonomous machines while improving responsiveness to commercial and defense production surges. This replicable model aligns with the ARM Institute’s mission by accelerating U.S. manufacturing competitiveness through simulation-first, AI-integrated robotics.
Sensate Robotics: Combining Vision-Guided Pick-and-Place with Tactile Quality Control
Presenting Member Organization: Sensate Robotics
Description: Sensate Robotics is a start-up company and Fanuc systems integrator dedicated to the implementation of automation through superior vision & tactile sensing technology. Our goal is to introduce “machine touch” in the same way machine vision revolutionized many automation tasks in the manufacturing and agriculture markets. Traditional robots grip things based on fixed coordinates, often by CAD model. This strategy breaks down when gripping something like fruit. By using a vision system to localize a piece of fruit, we can also assess its quality by color and symmetry. When we grip the object, we can further assess its quality through novel touch-based algorithms (think when you select fruit at the grocery store), all while not crushing it. By merging the steps of an object’s transfer from the production line and quality control analysis, we can save time by combining these two steps.
Professional Shapes: Building Blocks for High-Performance Teams
Presenting Member Organization: Eigen Strategies
Description: At Eigen Strategies, we focus on not just designing technology, but also teams and operations to optimize internal efficiency, personnel development, and value generation. We are creating a tool for the engineering industrial base to address the intersection of challenges between technology strategy, resource management, and market fit. In our pitch, we would like to share more about our organization’s mission, and the vision for the future of holistic technology development where we design with care, and build with purpose. Read a snippet of how we explore teams here: https://www.eigenstrategies.com/post/professional-shapes-building-blocks-for-high-performance-teams
ThoughtForge Advances in Adaptive Insertion for Assembly
Presenting Member Organization: ThoughtForge
Description: In this talk, I will reintroduce ThoughtForge and the work we are doing. Share videos and the results of our 2024 ARM project. Then present how we are expanding on this project with the community and in defense manufacturing in general.
A Robot Optimized for High Fidelity Control of Contact Dynamics with Applications to Grinding and Deburring of Castings and Forgings
Presenting Member Organization: Force Robots
Description: Force Robots produces a table-top robot for finishing (grinding, shaping, smoothing) rough castings and forgings to achieve the desired net shape. Its low-inertia links and direct-drive style actuation allow programmable end-of-arm dynamics, from soft compliance to follow and blend variable contours, to high stiffness to generate precise geometry. Its direct-drive attributes allow surface geometry to be measured by part-to-tool contact, allowing intelligent finishing algorithms that focus work on needed areas in order to drive the measured part shape to match the CAD reference. Its drivetrain is robust to vibration, and it handles all the tools manual finishers use, from rotary files to abrasive belts, without requiring an end-of-arm compliance device. Finishing castings is currently as much an art as a science, and to realize easy-to-implement automation consortium collaboration is needed to develop visual sensing for work identification and inspection, and high-level intelligence to plan and execute the finishing process.
BG Workforce
Presenting Organization: BG Workforce
Description: HVTC BG Workforce Solutions equips the U.S. Military, Federal Government, Allied Military, and Domestic Organic Industrial Bases with the solutions and tools necessary to recruit, train, and sustain a skilled workforce. As part of our High Velocity Talent Continuum, we specialize in workforce modernization, digital transformation, and workforce, personal, and mission-critical development.
Unmudl
Presenting Organization: Unmudl
Description: Meet Unmudl! On October 14, 2019, five community colleges and NISOD came together and agreed to “Blaze The Way Forward” For The 64.5M Working Learners and 30M Employers in the US and ensure that every community and technical college learner gets into a job and that every company has the best talent to help it grow. At the end of 2021, Unmudl’s technology was ready for a large-scale pilot and that became a reality when Amanda Willard, Amazon’s workforce strategist chose Unmudl.
General Motors
Presenting Organization: GM
Description: Stay tuned!
Learn More about the Member Meeting Here
Join in our Mission to Strengthen US Manufacturing
ARM Institute Members lead the way to a future where people and robots work together to respond to our nation’s greatest challenges and to develop and produce the world’s most desired products. By becoming a member of our 450+ member organization consortium, you’ll join thousands of subject matter experts in building the future of US manufacturing through robotics, AI, and workforce innovations. Your membership unlocks not only access to member-exclusive events and webinars, including our Annual Member Meeting, but also project funding opportunities, project outputs, networking, a digital platform for collaboration, and more.
Explore membership here or email us at [email protected] to learn how you can contribute to this work.
Thank You to Our Event Sponsors and Platinum Members
Thank you to our sponsors for supporting this important event and, by doing so, helping to strengthen U.S. manufacturing!
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ABOUT THE ARM INSTITUTE
The Advanced Robotics for Manufacturing (ARM) Institute is a Manufacturing Innovation Institute (MII) funded by the Office of the Secretary of Defense under Agreement Number W911NF-17-3-0004 and is part of the Manufacturing USA® network. The ARM Institute leverages a unique, robust, and diverse consortium of 450+ members and partners across industry, academia, and government to make robotics, autonomy, and artificial intelligence more accessible to U.S. manufacturers large and small, train and empower the manufacturing workforce, strengthen our economy and global competitiveness, and elevate national security and resilience. Based in Pittsburgh, PA since 2017, the ARM Institute is leading the way to a future where people & robots work together to respond to our nation’s greatest challenges and to produce the world’s most desired products. For more information, visit www.arminstitute.org and follow the ARM Institute on LinkedIn and X (formerly Twitter).