Technology Project Call: Shipbuilding Industrial Base
Technology Project Call: Shipbuilding Industrial Base supports project teams developing adaptive welding and wire DED inspection to improve quality and throughput in US Navy shipbuilding.
Funder: Advanced Robotics for Manufacturing Institute
Due Dates: November 23, 2026 (Proposals) | December 2, 2026 (Supporting documents)
Funding Amounts: Project performance period ends January 31, 2029; target start on or before January 31, 2027
Summary: Supports adaptive welding and in-process wire DED inspection technologies to improve quality and throughput in the US Navy shipbuilding industrial base.
Key Information: Only ARM Institute members may submit proposals and work on funded projects.
Description
The Advanced Robotics for Manufacturing (ARM) Institute is issuing this Technology Project Call with funding from the US Navy. It supports targeted advances in thick-section naval welding and wire directed energy deposition (DED), with technical objectives developed directly from Navy sponsor feedback. The goals are to improve first-time quality, reduce rework, increase manufacturing throughput, and accelerate qualification.
The first project will develop, demonstrate, and validate an adaptive welding system using edge-compute artificial intelligence for multi-bead, multi-layer thick-section joints. The second will develop commercial-grade, in-process volumetric inspection for wire DED components. Together, these efforts aim to advance technologies deployable in operational shipyards and support wire DED adoption in safety-critical applications through earlier defect detection, real-time feedback and rework, lower final inspection costs, and shorter manufacturing lead times.
