Toward Fast and Flexible Autonomy in Manufacturing and Design through Machine Learning

Speaker: Andrew Gillman, Research Materials Engineer at the Air Force Research Lab in Dayton

Abstract: 

Many design, manufacturing, and maintenance ecosystems have seen automation augment human tasks. However, many implementations are rigidly programmed to a particular task and thus lack functional agility and the ability to respond to large deviations from the planned objective. With the goal of “Teaching Tools to Be Teammates”, the Digital Manufacturing Research Team within the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) is exploring how to make a variety of coupled design and manufacturing processes more agile and autonomous while actively collaborating with human subject level experts. Recent advances in machine learning and artificial intelligence have shown promise in providing this agility, and the team is exploring how to employ these algorithms while augmenting physics-based models and insights towards enabling more autonomy in manufacturing. From controls and design for additive manufacturing to robotic spray applications, we are understanding and developing models for how to map complex nonlinear data sets with high degrees of variability and uncertainty and make decisions about how to plan and modify processing steps to achieve the desired structure or part with required functionality.

About the presenter:

Dr. Andrew Gillman is a Research Materials Engineer in the Air Force Research Laboratory’s (AFRL) Manufacturing and Industrial Technologies Division as a member of the Digital Manufacturing Research Team, where his research projects leverage physics-based modeling, data analytics, and machine learning for enhancing understanding of complex manufacturing processes and require development of frameworks for automated learning and collaboration between humans and robotic manufacturing systems. Dr. Gillman is also an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Integrated Systems Engineering at The Ohio State University and is an AFRL co-located researcher at the College of Engineering’s Center for Design and Manufacturing Excellence (CDME). Prior to joining this research team, Dr. Gillman was a postdoctoral Research Scientist in the Functional Materials Division of AFRL. He received his PhD in Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering from the University of Notre Dame after receiving a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Purdue University.