A nonprofit consortium founded and led by Pittsburgh's Carnegie Mellon University is receiving more than $250 million to launch American Robotics, a nonprofit institute dedicated to developing new technology.
Most of the money, $173 million, is coming from more than 200 public, private and academic partners, while the Department of Defense is chipping in $80 million in matching funds.
The institute will develop ways to integrate robotics and other autonomous technologies into manufacturing. But that work will eventually translate to defense applications, including weapons systems to safeguard soldiers and others to counter technologies designed to defeat American weapons systems.
American Robotics is the 14th Manufacturing USA institute.
The Manufacturing USA network is an offshoot of the National Institute of Standards and Technology in the Department of Commerce.
