The University of Illinois Grainger College of Engineering has revealed plans to establish a new research and development center dedicated to autonomous construction technologies. With funding of up to $8 million, the new Center for Autonomous Construction in Manufacturing at Scale will be located at the university campus in Champaign, Illinois.
The center will focus on various technological areas relevant to autonomous construction including control systems, expert systems, artificial intelligence, gap crossing and demolition, system architecture, and manufacturing technologies.
Who is Funding the University of Illinois Autonomous Construction Center?
The university anticipates that the Center for Autonomous Construction in Manufacturing at Scale will be self-funded after its third year. Initially, the program will receive $2.45 million from the Engineer Research and Development Center of the US Army Corps of Engineers. There is also the potential for an additional $1.8 million in funding in 2023 and $3.75 million in 2024.
In addition to the funding from the US Army Corps of Engineers, the university plans to involve other professors in seed projects. These projects will be supported through a combination of grant money and graduate student submissions. One project that is in the works is an autonomous bulldozer that can clear minefields, remove obstacles, and fill in trenches.
The founding director of the Center for Autonomous Construction in Manufacturing at Scale is William R. Norris, who is also the director of the UIUC Autonomous and Unmanned Vehicle Systems Lab. The lab has previously completed projects such as a robot-augmented mobility wheelchair device and an architecture for autonomous additive manufacturing with concrete.
Norris aims to bring together the industry, academia, commercial centers, and startups to develop new autonomous construction technologies. He believes that by creating technology that is applicable to various industries, the center can contribute to the commercial success of Illinois and the United States.
