This year’s Fiscal Year 2023 government funding bill contains significant resources to support important Kentucky institutions and programs. Utilizing his role as Senate Republican Leader and as a senior member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Sen. McConnell advocated on behalf of the University of Louisville in this year’s government funding process. That includes his support of the NSA’s cyber workforce training initiative, which has funded educational programming at the University of Louisville.

“It’s an honor to return to my alma mater and announce that NSA’s cyber workforce training initiative, which has made landmark investments in educational programming at UofL, will once again receive robust resources from this fiscal year’s government funding bill. UofL is at the center of the growing cybersecurity field, benefitting the Commonwealth’s economy and our country’s national security. I look forward to more students taking part in this program and entering the workforce with the skillset needed to succeed in the 21st century,” said Sen. McConnell.

UofL launched its Cybersecurity Workforce Certificate in 2020 thanks to $6.2 million in funding from the NSA as a pilot for a national program supported by Sen. McConnell to train a qualified cybersecurity workforce. The UofL program so far has enrolled more than 200 students, with an emphasis on training military veterans and first responders in health care cybersecurity and logistics.

“The need for highly skilled cybersecurity professionals to protect our information systems is increasing rapidly. The University of Louisville is leading the way to meet this need in developing our innovative cybersecurity workforce training program and assembling a coalition of universities to support and replicate this training on a national level,” said Lori Stewart Gonzalez, interim president of UofL. “We are grateful to Sen. McConnell for supporting this and other programs with additional funding, and for his advocacy on behalf of UofL and Kentucky.”

UofL’s cybersecurity certificate program includes online learning, hands-on applied learning labs at all levels and gamification components, along with online technology industry badging from Microsoft, IBM and Google. Students gain expertise in artificial intelligence, robotics process automation, blockchain, internet of things (IoT), machine learning and other areas to earn individual badges throughout the certificate’s 24 modules.

“With technology continuing to become more of an integral piece of our everyday lives, a strong cybersecurity industry and workforce are the most important protections we have to ensure secure businesses and critical infrastructure across the Commonwealth and nation,” said Kevin Gardner, UofL’s executive vice president for research and innovation. “As a top research institution, UofL is proud to lead the charge on this important work through groundbreaking and unparalleled research, innovation and academic programs. We appreciate Sen. McConnell’s support for advancing cybersecurity technology and growing our cybersecurity workforce.”

UofL is partnering with corporations, including logistics companies, health care providers and others, as well as other colleges and universities to create a national cybersecurity training coalition. UofL’s university partners include Kentucky Community and Technical Colleges, University of North Florida, University of Arkansas – Little Rock, City University of Seattle, Kentucky State University, Simmons College, City University of New York, Kennesaw State University, Hood College and Northwest Missouri State University. The University of West Florida and Purdue University Northwest also are building university coalitions for cybersecurity workforce training.

“This new funding can allow UofL and the other lead universities to leverage resources and initiate cooperation for the good of the entire cybersecurity national community,” said Sharon Kerrick, associate professor and assistant vice president, UofL Digital Transformation Center.

Following the initial $6.2 million in funding to launch the UofL program in 2020, the university received an additional $2.3 million to expand it to include logistics and train-the-trainer components in which students are trained to instruct others in their organizations.

The UofL provides future-focused curricula and educational tools to help train the workforce in fast-growing technology areas by integrating the best features of industry and academic institution relationships.

The skills needed by nearly all manufacturers soon will be shaped to some degree by the rapidly accelerating robotics and machine learning revolution, including automation, robotics, additive manufacturing and artificial intelligence. RAMPS will allow UofL’s Louisville Automation and Robotics Research Institute (LARRI) and other centers to purchase additional advanced equipment, such as a robotic quadruped, and introduce future workers to these devices.

“We want to make this technology accessible for people or students who don’t necessarily have the advanced technical skills, but they are enthusiastic,” said Dan Popa, director of LARRI and lead for the RAMPS project. “They want to learn about robotics, AI and additive manufacturing, how they are used in industry and what kind of skills you need to operate this type of equipment.”

Made possible by funding secured by U.S. Rep. John Yarmuth from the U.S. Department of ����ֱ��, RAMPS aims to address workforce needs in the advanced manufacturing industry sector and enhance employment opportunities for underrepresented groups. It will allow LARRI, the Additive Manufacturing Institute of Science and Technology (AMIST) and Micro/Nano Technology Center (MNTC), all based in the at UofL, to obtain additional equipment and pilot programs to increase awareness and access to training in robotic and additive manufacturing technology over the next year.

“I’m so proud to have secured $750,000 in federal funding for UofL’s RAMPS program, which will help students excel in the industries of tomorrow,” Yarmuth said. “Manufacturing is a key sector of our local and state economy, and robotics and automation will have a tremendous impact on how businesses and industries operate moving forward. UofL is a national leader in innovative training programs, and through its RAMPS program, students will have access to the state-of-the-art equipment and training that will best position them to succeed in our rapidly changing workforce.”

“The RAMPS program not only will help fulfill today’s workforce needs of our commonwealth, it also will enhance the University of Louisville’s work in advanced research and education in robotics and additive manufacturing,” said UofL Interim President Lori Stewart Gonzalez. “We are extremely grateful to Congressman Yarmuth for his support in helping us obtain this funding.”

Using existing and new equipment and leveraging the knowledge and skills present in the UofL facilities, RAMPS leaders will introduce K-12 students, high school graduates and university students to robotics and additive manufacturing and help train them to use these advanced technologies in the workplace.

“The goal of this program is to help future technicians and engineers prepare for employment in additive manufacturing fields that are both high-paying and growing in need. Whether it is a mid-career person looking to transition professions, a currently enrolled college student or someone with no post-high school education, we will be delivering workforce training tailored to an individual’s starting education and skills level,” said Thomas Berfield, co-director of AMIST.

Berfield anticipates that AMIST will add equipment used in the aerospace, automotive, dental and biomedical industries, among others.

Workers at Kentucky’s multiple manufacturing facilities are expected to be disproportionately affected by the shift toward automation, making programs like RAMPS essential to advance employment opportunities in the commonwealth.

“While it is true that automation is expected to displace workers in manufacturing, the adoption of robot technology actually predicts wage growth as those positions are replaced with higher skilled workers in high-tech positions needed to interface with the robots,” Popa said.

RAMPS leaders expect around 200 students will be exposed to these technologies in the first year as part of pilot projects, followed by more robust and formalized workforce training programs and curricula to be developed in future years.

In addition to training workers, RAMPS will elevate UofL’s programs at LARRI, AMIST and MNTC by further improving the high-quality learning environment within these centers, attracting highly qualified faculty and talented students and increasing opportunities for additional funding.

Since the opening of LARRI’s dedicated robotics lab on the UofL campus in October, it has hosted more than 400 K-12 and college students, industry professionals and researchers to learn about existing and potential uses of robots, drones and other technology.

“The research we do here at UofL has real impact in engineering a future technology-driven economy in Kentucky and beyond,” said Kevin Gardner, UofL’s executive vice president for research and innovation. “We are grateful to Congressman Yarmuth for securing this funding to expand that impact and support our work to build the next generation of robotics technologies and professionals.”

Launched in 2020, is the only robotics research center in Kentucky. The institute is a collaboration of researchers and students working to provide solutions for manufacturing, health care and logistics challenges.

“LARRI is moving from a virtual institute to a physical institute facility,” said Dan Popa, director of LARRI and professor of electrical and computer engineering in UofL’s . “This facility will provide space for collaborative ventures among students, faculty and community and industry partners and will help our faculty take advantage of nationally competitive funding opportunities and new cross-disciplinary educational programs.”

LARRI’s 12 dedicated faculty members, postdoctoral staff, affiliated faculty and more than 50 student researchers are investigating human-robot interaction, automation and robotics for industry, networked robots and autonomous vehicles, planning and control for mechatronic systems and other areas.

“In a state with so many innovative manufacturing businesses and in a city that is a leader in health care innovation, LARRI is a vitally important collaborative and research resource,” said UofL President Neeli Bendapudi. “And for our students, LARRI provides an opportunity to learn and practice with the emerging technologies that will allow them be leaders in engineering innovation.”

“LARRI was formed to conduct state-of-the-art research in robotics and automation and help meet regional and national workforce needs in these technology areas,” said Speed School Dean Emmanuel Collins. “This new facility enables LARRI to expand its research footprint and provides more collaborative space for its researchers. This center already is excelling and we expect its progress to accelerate with the addition of this new space.”

Several key research projects at LARRI focus on health care, including interactive robots to help individuals on the autism spectrum, a specialized chair to improve function in children with spinal cord injuries and an automated nursing assistant.

“The theme is not robots replacing humans. It is humans and robots working together,” Popa said. “Humans do certain things; robots do other things. ARNA, the nursing assistant robot, will not replace nursing staff, but perform helpful basic tasks to alleviate overwork and stress and improve patient care.”

LARRI’s new space, made possible by the estate of Shih-Chung Chen, is located in the J.B. Speed School Innovation Center on Arthur Street, next to the Engineering Garage, a creative makerspace and workshop where students can explore, build and test their ideas, and around the corner from General Electric’s FirstBuild, a similar makerspace.

LARRI already has during the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency competition in the new space. The JPL team used the space as a base of operations for testing and preparation for the competition and demonstrated their robots for LARRI faculty, students and staff.

A team from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) traveled from California on September 20 to collaborate with robotics researchers at the (LARRI) facility. NASA’s JPL is a federally-funded research and development center that works on developing new technology for robots that could be useful for future space exploration.

The 40-person JPL team, dubbed “CoStar” made the trip to University of Louisville to compete for a $2 million prize in the third and final round of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Subterranean (SubT) Challenge. This international robotics competition was held September 21-23 at Louisville Mega Caverns beneath the Louisville Zoo.

“Being out here at UofL Speed School and specifically working with LARRI is a fantastic way for us to be preparing and ensuring our robots and associated software are ready for competition,”��said Benjamin Morrell, robotics engineer at JPL and deputy team lead of CoStar. “It’s an incredible facility.”

LARRI Director Dan Popa said the event is a great opportunity to showcase Speed School and the robotics program at the brand-new, cutting-edge facility.

“It is a really good spot to support this kind of competition because it has easy in and out access, and the facility itself was built in such a way to quickly deploy robots and test them,” Popa said. “We are pleased to see it being used to maximum capacity.”

In the DARPA SubT Challenge, CoStar, (which is a collaboration of JPL, CalTech, MIT, Kaist (University in Korea) and LTU (University in Sweden), competed against seven other teams of autonomous robots exploring unknown environments including cave, urban and mine elements and will demonstrate how their autonomy, networking, perception and mobility capabilities perform on physical courses underground.

Morrell explained that the system is designed for robots to go in quickly, map what a disaster area looks like and report back to a human rescue crew so they can pinpoint where survivors are and avoid areas that are dangerous.

“For a NASA application, we are looking at cave exploration on the moon and Mars, using this same kind of technology to gather scientific information,” said Morrell.

With a new research facility soon to open, Popa said the university is currently recruiting faculty from this same elite robotics community from around the country and the world.

“This helps visibility, and for people to know about what we’re doing here,” he said.

Speed School students also reap the benefits.

“It’s a great opportunity for them to be exposed to this,” said Popa. “The challenges that DARPA has put together have very difficult feats, and these teams are the cream of the crop in research around the world.”

With each new challenge, DARPA has played a role in moving robotics forward, according to Popa.

“Every five years DARPA has issued a new challenge and they have included autonomous driving, humanoid robots and now this subterranean challenge,” he said. “All these challenges are pushing development not just at universities but at companies, and eventually they come into the commercial sector.”

Check out video from the visit below.��

Alumnus Collie Crawford (BSEE ’18, MEng IE ’19) has the distinction of being the first graduate of GE’s newest workforce development program, Industry 4.0 Development program, or I4DP. The two-year program was created in 2019 to address a growing business need – a stable of technical engineering talent with the depth and breadth of Industry 4.0 skills that can support GEA’s smart factories. The four hands-on rotations for I4DP include highly-specialized, in-class training in industrial controls, robotics, testing and data visualization.

While Crawford had previous co-op and industry experience in controls, he was intrigued by the opportunity to learn more about the other three areas.

“I loved learning from the engineers during my rotations and finding new applications and ways to do things,” he said.

Trenton Ingrim, senior director of Advanced Manufacturing of the program, also a Speed School graduate (EE ’95, MEng EE ’98), said Crawford has been “fantastic.”

“His structured and logical approach to the work is a credit to him – plus he can definitely see the connections between systems,” Ingram said. “Completing the program, we want them to understand how a smart, interconnected factory works, and identify what they like most and feel the strongest about as they look for their first assignment off program.”

For Crawford, that first assignment has been taking a controls engineering position in dishwasher manufacturing and hitting the ground running.

He said Speed School established a solid foundation that helped him to pursue his career goals.��

“I enjoyed the capabilities the co-op program gives you to go out in the field while also learning in school, and applying your problem solving skills while also learning some parts of the trade that are more technical,” he said.

Crawford also cited the Capstone course as a continuing influence.

“It was a really good course that held us to the fire of doing everything properly, and it was a great experience there that I still use frequently,” he said.

In addition to Crawford, the program’s first graduate, two other current I4DP participants, Lana Chausenko (CSE ’17) and Jordan Klotz (EE ’18, MEng EE ’19) are Speed School alumni.

Chausenko said I4DP was an amazing opportunity she couldn’t pass up, and it included robotics, which she said she fell in love with after taking classes with Dan Popa at Speed School. But for her, the program also offered a way to understand operations from a macro view.

“I’ve always thought before you start your main position, that understanding the system and how it all works together is very important, to get all the perspectives,” she said. “That’s what I’m experiencing right now.”

For Jordan Klotz, the master’s program at Speed School was the most valuable experience to prepare him for his future career path.

“The opportunity to work in a lab at UofL was wonderful,” he said. “It was one of the most diverse places I’ve ever worked, with some of the smartest people I’ve ever met from all over the world – China, India, Romania, everywhere. The professors at UofL are top minds in their field and great teachers. That is one of the strengths of Speed School and one of the things that helped me the most – getting involved and asking the right questions.”��

Trent Ingrim said Speed School talent has been instrumental for GE Appliances.

“In the Industry 4.0 program, three of the four assignment leaders for the participants graduated from UofL,” he said.

“It’s easy to get excited about the bells and whistles, the machine learning, the AI,” said Ingram. “But we need people who can understand the fundamental building blocks and different components – what they are – what they do – and how to put them together,” said Ingrim. “It’s a good partnership with Speed School and I look forward to what the future holds.”

The program provides training and $50,000 in funding that helps university researchers translate the ideas they develop in the lab into new, technology-backed startups. Participating teams complete an intense, two-month bootcamp learning about commercialization, engaging with industry and talking to potential customers.

Two projects from UofL were chosen to participate in recent bootcamp cohorts:

• BioCaRGOS, short for Capture and Release Gels for Optimized Storage (bioCaRGOS), uses a novel water-based stabilizer to enable storage of sensitive biospecimens like RNA, DNA or proteins at low temperatures for long periods of time, including during transport to remote locations. The project team includes: co-inventors Gautam Gupta and��Rajat Chauhan, both in the J.B. Speed School of Engineering, and business mentor Jeff Cummins, who also is an Entrepreneur-in-Residence with the UofL Office of Research and Innovation.

• ARNA, short for , an artificially intelligent health care robot created to provide round-the-clock patient monitoring and allow nurses to focus more on direct patient care by taking on some of their time-consuming tasks. The project team includes: co-inventors Dan Popa and Sumit Kumar Das, of engineering, and business mentor Mary Tapolsky, of the UofL Forcht Center for Entrepreneurship.

Chauhan, of the BioCaRGOS team, said the experience helped his team find an industry commercialization partner. They currently are seeking partners for an upcoming application NSF Partnerships for Innovation program, which allows NSF-backed projects like his to work with industry on research and development and accelerate the technology’s path to market.

“Vaccine stability (especially for COVID-19) remains a critical challenge and is the critical bottleneck for effective distribution of the state-of-art MRNA based vaccines to current population,” said Chauhan, BioCaRGOS entrepreneurial lead and a postdoctoral research scientist. “Our technology has the potential to advance the delivery of vaccines at room temperature, a feat that cannot be achieved currently.”

Teams must be nominated for the national I-Corps bootcamp, and must first complete a regional . Both the BioCARGOS and ARNA teams completed UofL’s I-Corps site program — part of UofL’s suite of��, that also includes the UofL , NIH and NSF programs. I-Corps at UofL requires successful participation and completion of , UofL’s own 10-week entrepreneurial bootcamp.

“These programs support commercialization of the work being done by our researchers here at UofL,” said Jessica Sharon, UofL’s director of innovation programs. “We’re proud of the ARNA and BioCARGOS teams, and their work to accelerate product development of their innovations to address unmet needs in the market.”��

The idea is to use an artificially intelligent robot they call ARNA — — to perform some tasks and cleaning in areas where it might be dangerous to send human hospital staff.��

The bot has been outfitted with an ultraviolet disinfecting light and sprayable sanitizing agent so it can clean commonly touched surfaces where the virus might live, such as handles, tables and elevator buttons.

“In times like this, where we are battling a highly contagious virus, our health care professionals are at the forefront and are exposed to it,” said Sumit Kumar Das, the J.B. Speed School of Engineering research scientist leading the project. “We hope that our technology will help contribute towards providing solutions to the challenges that our community is facing right now.”

was originally invented to help with round-the-clock patient monitoring and allow nurses to focus more on direct patient care by taking on some of their time-consuming tasks. Now, the research team, part of the Louisville Automation and Robotics Research Institute, or LARRI, hopes ARNA can help hospital workers during pandemic.

They have tested the bot in the Shumaker Research Building on UofL’s Belknap campus, and hope soon to test it in a hospital setting. UofL biology researchers are working on developing the sanitizing method and will test surfaces for virality in the Shumaker trial.

ARNA is not intended to replace human cleaning and disinfecting staff, “but this robot could help keep people from getting sick,” said Dan Popa, who leads LARRI. “Because it is designed to clean areas that pose hazards to human health, it can help employers protect workers from potential exposure to those areas.”

He adds that his team has been working non-stop to modify the bot: “This is work that is definitely something that will continue because the need for it is crucial.”��

UofL is providing financial support for COVID-19 research, but additional funds are needed to continue the work over time. Donations specifically for the research can be made online here.��

“This cooperative project will help bolster Kentucky’s economy, create jobs and put the Commonwealth at the forefront of automation and human-machine interaction,” said UofL president Neeli Bendapudi and UK president Eli Capilouto, in a joint statement.

The project, titled the , will harness the collective research power of 40 multidisciplinary researchers from UofL, UK, Eastern Kentucky University, Kentucky State University, Morehead State University, Somerset Community College, Transylvania University and Western Kentucky University.

A video explaining the KAMPERS project can be found .

The research results will have applications in the construction of components for robotic and autonomous systems in areas as diverse as elder care, home service, health care, education and other collaborative human-robot interactions.

The research for the KAMPERS project will fall into three categories: materials, device configuration and systems. Co-investigators of research include UK professors Seth DeBolt and John Anthony, and UofL electrical and computer engineering professor Dan Popa. Popa and his team are working in all three research areas, with a special emphasis on collaborative robotics.

“As we introduce more robots in the manufacturing environment, they have to be more intelligent and they have to be chaperoned and taught by the workers —in a way that doesn’t take jobs but creates more opportunities,” Popa said. “I think the frontier is to push into more and more applications for medium to small companies that can use this technology. This will do a lot for robotics in Kentucky and give us a nationally visible research presence.”

UofL’s portion of the grant is $5.3 million. Fifteen UofL faculty and 15 to 20 students and staff will work on the project, according to Popa. He says the collaboration could also pave the way for a new robotics institute at UofL.

KAMPERS will hire, educate and mentor eight new faculty, and an average of five post docs and 28 graduate students per year. It will offer opportunities for undergraduate researchers, creating a ripple effect of experience throughout the state and country.

The grant also aims to increase underrepresented minorities in these fields, including African Americans, Hispanics and women.

In a study, researchers Drs. Mohammad Nasser Saadatzi and Karla Conn Welch paired a human student with a humanoid robot —��a little orange-and-white artificially intelligent robot named NAO — in a mock classroom. The two took turns reading words that were presented on a computer screen by a virtual character simulating a human teacher.

The robot seemed to help the five participating students adapt to group learning contexts, which the researchers said��. As a result, the kids learned more words — 100% of the ones taught to them, and 94% of the ones exclusively taught to NAO.

“And that was significant as a part of the research,” said Welch, a professor of engineering. “The children did seem to interact and engage and pay attention to the robot, as well as the computer teacher.”��

Saadatzi said that, especially , actively participating in class can sometimes seem overwhelming and there’s the fear of embarrassment or judgement. But the NAO was friendly — kids would interact with him almost celebrating correct answers and saying “hello” and “goodbye” before and after class.��

“The robot played the role of a peer for the student,” he said. “The student got to learn new academic skills, but also had the opportunity to practice some of the social skills required for multi-student contexts without the negative feedback and teasing of their peers.”

That gave the students a chance to practice their social skills — things like building friendships, paying attention when someone’s speaking, turn taking, tolerating intermittent attention by the teacher, joint attention and so on. Roland Bibb said those interactions have been a big help to his son Jaryn, a seventh grader who participated in the study.

“I noticed improvement towards the end, and it’s all pretty much carried over through school,” he said. “I definitely think it opened him up more; opened him up more to communicate.”

Saadatzi is also working on other tools that could help kids with autism in or outside the classroom. One invention, which he tested in the study, is a set of smart eyeglasses that could track and wirelessly collect physiological data in real time — electrodermal activity, cardiac rhythm, skin temperature and blood volume changes, etc. That information can be used to understand their emotional state. He further developed that idea in for translational research.

For the researchers, part of the goal of this work is to show the value technology — like artificial intelligence, virtual reality and robotics — can have in helping young students with and without disability learn and succeed.��

“We would like to see these more and more in school settings, and more and more in home settings,” Welch said. “The cost is certainly a factor right now, but that’s what we want to show with the research — that this has some, not just value, but an educational piece or an interaction piece so that people can see how useful these are.”��

Watch a video on the on the research below.

The University of Louisville doctoral candidate just at the IEEE Conference on Manipulation, Automation and Robotics at Small Scales (MARSS 2018), held in Nagoya, Japan in early July.

His paper, “,” focuses on research conducted at UofL’s . He’s studying how to build a better AFAM micro-robot — one small enough to manufacture nanotechnologies, or even manipulate cells to cure disease.

Zhang’s paper was chosen from among eight finalists, a list that included students from University of Michigan, University of Pennsylvania, and University of California Berkeley, among others.

“Winning the conference is a great matter to me,” he said. “I didn’t realize this idea was worth any award when I came up with it; it was only a small modification to make AFAM (robot) better.”

The bottom line is that, in order to make tiny things, the workers themselves need to be tiny. It’s an idea Zhang became enamored with after he was introduced to the tiny bots by a fellow student.

“The small size, the mechanism, the intriguing design and exquisite structures took my heart,” he said.

As a doctoral student at UofL, Zhang works under Dr. Dan Popa at the Next Generation Systems robotics lab in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. There, Zhang was introduced to the AFAM, a micro-robot created by Dr. Popa and colleagues 10 years ago.

Zhang’s paper focuses on his research into how best to resolve issues with the AFAM, including its difficult assembly and failure rate. Popa said he was very proud of Zhang’s work and award.��

“He worked hard on all aspects of the paper, conducted both simulation and experiments, and wrote down his results,” Popa said.�� “I think it speaks well for the research dedication of our students and for the quality of engineering graduate programs here at Speed School.”��

As for Zhang, he’s now working on a way to direct the bots using lasers. After he finishes his PhD at UofL, he’s planning to continue his research, either working with industry or at a university.

“This field is very active and there are new developments everyday,” he said. “I’m excited about it.”