The Pennsylvania Infrastructure Technology Alliance (PITA) is a collaboration of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the Center for Advanced Technology for Large Structural Systems (ATLSS) at Lehigh University, and the Institute for Complex Engineered Systems at Carnegie Mellon University. The mission of the PITA program is to assist the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and companies within the Commonwealth to increase operating efficiency and to enhance economic development.
A key outcome of this PITA grant is the development of machine learning based algorithms needed for enabling intuitive and user-friendly autonomous capabilities for the FLX BOT. Learning-based algorithms will be developed for autonomous perception, mapping, map completion, localization, and navigation. These will enable workers to use the FLX BOT with minimal training allowing for rapid deployment.
The grant, titled “Intelligence and Autonomy Development for a Snake-like Robot with Inspection and Maintenance Applications", is a collaboration between FLX Solutions and Lehigh University Mechanical Engineering Assistant Professor Subhrajit Bhattacharya and Assistant Professor in Computer Science, Aparna Bharati.