National Robotics Initiative A Positive Step

Advanced Man­u­fac­tur­ing Partnership:

On Fri­day, June 24^th, at Carnegie Mel­lon Uni­ver­si­ty, Pres­i­dent Oba­ma launched the Advanced Man­u­fac­tur­ing Part­ner­ship (AMP). The col­lab­o­ra­tive research effort brings togeth­er lead­ing aca­d­e­m­ic insti­tu­tions, busi­ness­es, and gov­ern­ment agen­cies to pro­mote inno­va­tion and inven­tion.

A total of $500 mil­lion has been allot­ted for AMP. Six uni­ver­si­ties are involved at this stage includ­ing CMU, Geor­gia Tech, Stan­ford and Michi­gan. Near­ly a dozen busi­ness­es, includ­ing Ford Motor Co., Northrop Grum­man Corp., and Cater­pil­lar Inc., are also par­tic­i­pat­ing in the plan. The pres­i­dent of MIT, Susan Hock­field, and the CEO of Dow Chem­i­cal, Andrew Liv­eris will head up AMP. As it turns out, Robots are a major focus of the plan as well.

The Nation­al Robot­ics Ini­tia­tive and the Future of Robots:

Sev­en­ty mil­lion dol­lars in AMP fund­ing is ear­marked for robot­ic research and inno­va­tion, termed The Nation­al Robot­icsIni­tia­tive. The Nation­al Robot­ics Ini­tia­tive is sup­port­ed by a num­ber of gov­ern­ment agen­cies includ­ing NASA, the Unit­ed States Depart­ment of Agri­cul­ture, Nation­al Sci­ence Foun­da­tion, and The Nation­al Insti­tutes of Health.

Robots have an impor­tant role to play in reen­er­giz­ing Amer­i­can man­u­fac­tur­ing and ulti­mate­ly cre­at­ing new jobs. At CMU, Oba­ma point­ed out that the ini­tia­tive’s pur­pose is ​“to accel­er­ate the devel­op­ment and use of robots in the Unit­ed States that work beside, or coop­er­a­tive­ly with, peo­ple.“

The chief focus of The Nation­al Robot­ics Ini­tia­tive is mak­ing col­lab­o­ra­tive human and robot work pos­si­ble. Such tech­no­log­i­cal advance­ments would tru­ly change the way work is accom­plished, the way robots are viewed, and man­u­fac­tur­ing in gen­er­al. There are many robot­ic trans­for­ma­tions that will have to take place before this coop­er­a­tion can occur — changes to robot soft­ware, hard­ware, etc. But fed­er­al back­ing and fund­ing may be the best way to accel­er­ate inno­va­tion.

Read more about the ben­e­fits of col­lab­o­ra­tive indus­tri­al robots.
Find infor­ma­tion on the Nation­al Robot­ics Ini­tia­tive.

For more infor­ma­tion con­tact Robots​.com rep­re­sen­ta­tives at 877−762−6881 or online.