The use of robotics and AI for casting and forging is critical to ensuring greater national security, modernization, and warfighter readiness.
August 29, 2025 – The ARM (Advanced Robotics for Manufacturing) Institute is proud to announce the project selections from the institute’s recent Robotic Inspection for Casting & Forging Project Call released in April 2025. Funding for this project call was provided by the Office of the Secretary of Defense Manufacturing Technology Program (OSD ManTech).
The ARM Institute is the nation’s leading robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) Manufacturing Innovation Institute. ARM Institute projects bridge the gaps between industry, government, and academia to spur impactful innovations that strengthen U.S. manufacturing. By releasing Project Calls to the ARM Institute’s 450+ member organization consortium, the ARM Institute is able to connect groups that otherwise would not be able to collaborate.
Cast and forged components lie at the heart of critical commercial and defense systems, providing a vital contribution to warfighter readiness for the United States. However, these industries are plagued with significant issues, including personnel safety concerns, material availability, and cost, further exacerbated by the legacy platforms, whose designs and processes were largely conceived, defined, and stored on paper. The challenges for the United States to produce low-volume, high mix cast and forged components pose a critical and enduring issue.
The use of robotics in casting and forging represents a significant opportunity to enhance our national security. To match the urgency of this opportunity, the ARM Institute executed a rapid process with the Project Call being released in mid-April 2025, submissions due at the beginning of May 2025, selections made a few days later, and projects beginning at the end of May.
This Project Call leveraged the ARM Institute’s extensive prior work on robotic solutions for casting and forging as a foundation with the objectives being derived from the institute’s research, lessons learned from previous projects, and the institute’s Roadmap for Robotics and Automation in Casting and Forging, which was created in partnership with subject matter experts from the institute’s consortium and industry.
The ARM Institute plans to award around $1.3M in project funding, for a total contribution of approximately $2.3M across the two projects. To date, the ARM Institute has catalyzed more than 150 robotics technology and workforce development projects.
“This Project Call demonstrates the unique position of the ARM Institute to rapidly catalyze robotics, AI, and automation solutions to strengthen US manufacturing, modernize the Organic Industrial Base, and secure greater national resiliency,” said Dr. Chuck Brandt, ARM Institute Chief Technology Officer, “Our robust national consortium of experts stands ready to collaborate and execute on critical defense and industry priorities.”
Learn more about the selected projects below:
Dual-Mobile Robotic Platform for Large Casting Inspection
Project Team: ARIS Technology (Principal Investigator), Newport News Shipbuilding, Waukesha Foundry, Harrison Steel, and Rock Island Arsenal
Description: ARIS Technology teamed up with four foundries for this project to ensure scalability and impact for the end users. This project team develop a complete dual-platform system for thermal, long-range and short-range scanning for various part sizes and inspection requirement. Specifically, the team will design two mobile platforms, develop two interoperable mobile platforms for global and local scanning accuracy, generate a process to increase accuracy of the relocalization, create platform sequence planning using digital twin simulation, and leverage intuitive measurement plan generation.
Casting Inspection using Spatial AI and XR
Project Team: Grid Raster (Principal Investigator), Letterkenny Army Depot, FRC East, SFSA
Description: Working with several foundries to define their requirements, this project team will work to leverage spatial artificial intelligence (AI) and extended reality (XR) for casing inspection. Specifically, the team will leverage automatic RGB, LiDAR, and thermal imaging, thermal tomography to compare discrepancy between different temperatures (hot and ambient), and dimensional and anomaly detection and compare to ground truth at different temperatures (hot and ambient). The team will prototype 2D/3D mapping and thermal tomography, automatic defect detection and dimension estimation, and an AI model for classification for human-assisted automatic quality inspection for metal casting.
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).