CMU joins the ARL’s Open Campus Initiative

Carnegie Mellon University recently signed a collaborative research agreement with the Army Research Laboratory, and will be part of their Open Campus Research initiative, which aims to accelerate transformational, game-changing research to make soldiers safer, stronger, and more effective.

The Army Research Laboratory’s (ARL) Open Campus initiative is a collaborative research endeavor, with the goal of building a science and technology ecosystem that will encourage groundbreaking advances in basic and applied research areas that will help to enhance the country’s national security.

Through the Open Campus framework, ARL scientists and engineers will work side-by-side with visiting CMU scientists in ARL’s facilities, and as visiting researchers at collaborators' institutions. The endeavor will address homeland and national security issues by providing soldiers with the most cutting-edge equipment and technology to ensure their safety and increase their effectiveness.

ARL’s Open Campus is transforming the national security research culture.

James H. Garrett, Jr., Dean, College of Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University

The initial work targeted under this agreement between CMU and ARL will focus on advanced manufacturing research to include advancing the science of manufacturing at the nexus of advanced algorithms, robotics, and additive manufacturing. CMU researchers will have access to army problems, challenges, and real-world operational data, as well as to ARL equipment, infrastructure, and facilities. Future collaborations are already being planned around digital engineering, machine learning, autonomy, and artificial intelligence.

James H. Garrett, Jr., Dean of the College of Engineering, and Dr. Philip Perconti, Director of the U.S. Army Research Laboratory, will host a ceremony on April 17, 2018 at Carnegie Mellon University’s Pittsburgh campus to officially commemorate the start of the new relationship and the collaborative research it will accelerate to benefit the U.S. Army.

“ARL’s Open Campus is transforming the national security research culture by bringing together researchers from varying backgrounds and providing a framework for collaboration,” says Garrett. “The initiative will have a profound positive impact by accelerating the pace of innovation to provide increased capabilities for national security and defense.”