UC institute picks four industry research projects for 2024

UC’s Industry 4.0/5.0 Institute is dedicated to harnessing UC’s collective talent across campuses to help solve pressing issues facing businesses. The institute’s name references the fourth industrial revolution taking place in the United States.

In its second year, the institute has expanded its business membership and launched four new research projects. Eight faculty members and 15 students across four colleges are participating this year.

The first project, led by Anand and UC College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning Professor Ming Tang, creates an interactive digital model of a factory floor using augmented reality to improve safety and efficiency. The primary industry champion for the project is global diversified manufacturing company Worthington Industries with support from institute members Standard Power, Innovative Numerics, Kinetic Vision and Ryerson.

“This provides a complete snapshot of a factory and its machines and parts in real time,” Anand said.

The models Anand creates in his lab can help companies make smarter decisions about everything from energy use to workflow.

“The information is in graphic, digital form so you can see what’s going on and use a digital twin to manipulate various scenarios,” Anand said. “What if I decrease product flow here? Or increase it there?”

Associate Professor Rui Dai in electrical and computer engineering will lead the second project for industry champion Siemens to use artificial intelligence to improve immersive media sharing through network streaming for applications like virtual reality headsets.

“Immersive media is becoming more popular. This project will look at how you can make use of artificial intelligence tools to make streaming easier with less data or computer processing,” Kumar said.

Anand and Kumar are teaming up with UC College of Medicine Professor Amit Bhattacharya for the third project creating an interactive digital model to help autonomous robots better predict how people will share spaces to improve worker safety. The industry champions are Siemens and Innovative Numerics.

“In places where people share space with robots or other machines, if we have an ability to predict how people will move, that information can be used to create a safer environment for workers,” Anand said. “You can use this predictive capability to create effective and safe environments.”

The last project examines trustworthy AI for autonomous vehicles in industrial environments. Anand and Kumar are working with Aerospace Engineering Professor Kelly Cohen and UC College of Arts and Sciences Associate Professor of Psychology Tamara Lorenz. 

Cincinnati-based consumer goods giant Procter & Gamble Co. is the primary industry champion with support from members Standard Power, Kinetic Vision and Ryerson.

“Businesses increasingly are using autonomous guided vehicles in combination with manually operated ones,” Anand said. “How do you allow these two to work alongside each other?”

Workers need to be able to trust these systems, Anand said.

“People will not adopt these technologies if they do not trust them,” he said. “So how do you present the instructions and make it more explainable? Ensure that they find trust in those systems?”

Kumar said UC is poised to help businesses with these problems because the university can harness the collective talents of experts across campus. The institute is based in UC’s new Digital Futures building in the Cincinnati Innovation District.

“With the institute, we are building multidisciplinary teams to solve complex issues,” Kumar said.

Featured image at top: A student uses a virtual-reality headset. UC's Industry 4.0/5.0 Institute selected four new research projects for 2024. Photo/Andrew Higley/UC Marketing + Brand