December 4, 2024 – At the 2024 Defense Manufacturing Conference (DMC) two ARM Institute teams were recognized with Defense Manufacturing Technology Achievement Awards (DMTAAs). Established in 1999, the annual DMTAA Awards are given to teams comprising government, industry and academia employees responsible for outstanding projects in manufacturing technology. These projects demonstrate technical accomplishments and provide a responsive world-class manufacturing capability that affordably meets the warfighter’s needs throughout the defense acquisition lifecycle.

The two awarded projects are:

Spatial Intelligence with Dynamic Extended Reality (SPIDER) for Manufacturing and Sustainment

Project team: Michael Skocik (ARM Institute Director of Federal Technology Initiatives and Project Manager for the project), Harry Pierson (Air Force Research Laboratory – Materials & Manufacturing Directorate, Manufacturing, Industrial Technologies and Energy Division (AFRL/RXM)), Christopher Koehler (Air Force Research Laboratory – Materials & Manufacturing Directorate, AFRL/RXM), Shane Groves (Warner-Robins Air Logistics Center (WR-ALC/EN)),Bhaskar Banerjee (Grid Raster Inc.), Yao Sun (Grid Raster Inc.), and Christian Loera (Grid Raster Inc.)

Project Summary: The mixed reality cloud platform for robotics is a revolutionary tool that enables creation of and interaction with real-time, serial-number-specific digital twin data via Augmented Reality (AR). Developed in collaboration with Grid Raster Inc., the ARM Institute, WR-ALC, and AFRL, it allows rapid 3D scanning of DAF assets approaching mm accuracy with no cumbersome infrastructure required. The project has produced multiple transitions to WR-ALC including paint taping on the C-130 in under 10% the time of traditionally manual processes, high-resolution defect capture and mapping on F-15 wings, and localization of objects for the laser de-paint system at WR-ALC in approximately 1/10th the time of robotic localization.

Depot Factory AI Robotics (DFAIR)

Project Team: Michael Skocik (ARM Institute Director of Federal Technology Initiatives and Project Manager for the project), Jeff Kingsley (Air Force Research Laboratory – Materials & Manufacturing Directorate, Manufacturing, Industrial Technologies and Energy Division (AFRL/RXM)), Harry Pierson (Air Force Research Laboratory – Materials & Manufacturing Directorate, AFRL/RXM), Shane Groves, Warner-Robins Air Logistics Center (WR-ALC/EN)), Andy Strat, (Titan Robotics), Alex Klinger (Titan Robotics), David Gelati (Titan Robotics)

Project Summary: DFAIR is a robotic solution for removing fasteners, including threaded fasteners and rivets. It autonomously detects, localizes, and classifies fasteners, and applies the correct tool and process for each different type of fastener. Each fastener receives a classification confidence score that allows the system to autonomously proceed with high-confidence decisions and ask human operators about borderline cases. DFAIR is currently running in pilot production at Robins AFB for F-15 wing disassembly. DFAIR has realized a 10-fold reduction in labor for F-15 wing disassembly and has removed operators from a difficult and dangerous depot task.

The ARM Institute congratulates our project teams on this well-deserved recognition!

More About ARM Institute Projects

ARM Institute projects catalyze collaboration between diverse organizations to address critical areas of need in U.S. manufacturing through robotics, artificial intelligence (AI), and workforce development. For standard, core-funded ARM Institute Technology Project Calls, the ARM Institute issues a Project Call document, our members form project teams that span industry, government, and academia to submit a proposal, and the ARM Institute selects and awards the projects that have the highest possible impact both for the Department of Defense and the U.S manufacturing ecosystem at-large. ARM Members then receive access to the outputs of our funded projects through the ARM Member Community.

Learn more about our Project Calls here. Additionally, we expect to release our next core-funded Technology Project Call soon! Stay tuned for more details. Note that ARM Institute Members receive early access to our Project Call documents before they are released publicly and gain access to member-exclusive events and webinars to help them prepare competitive responses to our Project Calls.

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