Professor William R. Norris is the founding director of the Center for Autonomous Construction and Manufacturing at Scale (CACMS). ISE is the site of this research and development center dedicated to autonomous construction technologies, with funding from a partnership with the US Army Corps of Engineers Engineer Research and Development Center and other sources. Norris notes that CACMS has “brought in over $21 million in contracts and machine donations in the last six years and is well-positioned for future growth in translational robotic research,” saying that the center is “solving real-world, multidisciplinary problems from research to commercialization” of translational robotics. CACMS was directly developed from Norris' lab group. Under Dr. Norris' leadership, CACMS has overseen and delivered over fifteen construction-focused projects. Six seed projects have been funded by sponsoring a single Subject Matter Expert (SME) and a small team of one or two graduate students for one to two years. The six engineering faculty members are from The Grainger College of Engineering, and one faculty member from Texas A&M is participating. A new set of seed projects will be funded once additional funding is acquired.
The latest Corps of Engineers $11.25M contract is for the “Development and Assessment of Optimal, Adaptive Mobility for Manned and Unmanned Construction Engineering Systems” project. Norris confirms the contract terms as a base of $3.75 million for three years and future options of $7.5 million with a 10-year performance window for a total of $11.25 million. CACMS is developing additional government and industrial partnerships to ensure the center's relevancy to the public and private spheres.
The Army Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC) is integral to the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering. It helps solve challenging problems in civil and military engineering. An agreement signed this past September will fund research in protective structures and systems, enhancing and assessing the mobility of manned and unmanned systems, and engineering and engineering enabling technologies. As the agreement states, CACMS “can provide novel, basic, and applied solutions in the areas of ground/air swarming robotics to enable the automation of Army Engineer tasks such as horizontal/vertical construction and mechanical obstacle reduction/removal.”
The project's primary focus is the integration and development of manned and unmanned system capabilities for machine control that will improve safety and mission effectiveness for a wide range of Robotics for Engineer Operations. The project team will develop a prototype business process for collaborative applied research by universities, government organizations and industry that can be applied to areas beyond robotics. The center is directed to implement an expeditionary autonomous construction system and develop a prototype autonomous bulldozer and an underwater robot.
With a fleet of self-driving vehicles, the center will focus on some of the most pressing questions related to autonomous construction technologies, including ones related to control systems, expert systems, artificial intelligence, gap crossing and demolition; system architecture; and manufacturing technologies such as additive manufacturing. Numerous vehicle types will be tested and developed, including traditional wheeled vehicles, skid-steers and tracked vehicles.
The mission of the Center for Autonomous Construction in Manufacturing at Scale (CACMS) is concentrated on translational research — turning emerging technologies and basic research efforts into real-world solutions that will be of value to the US Army and the State of Illinois.
William R. Norris is an Illinois Grainger Engineering professor of Industrial and Enterprise Systems Engineering and Director of the Center for Autonomous Construction and Manufacturing at Scale (CACMS.)