In front of a standing-room-only crowd inside the John Lewis Student Center's Atlantic Theater, global leaders from the Hyundai Motor Group and Georgia Tech signed a memorandum of understanding, creating a transformative partnership focused on sustainable mobility, the hydrogen economy, and workforce development.  

As the automaker continues to construct its Metaplant America site in Bryan County — the cornerstone of Hyundai's $12 billion investment into electric vehicles and battery production across the state of Georgia — today's signing ceremony symbolizes the vision that Hyundai and Georgia Tech share on the road to advancing technology and improving the human condition. 

"As a leading public technological research university, we believe we have the opportunity and the responsibility to serve society, and that technology and the science and policy that support it must change our world for the better. These are responsibilities and challenges that we boldly accept. And we know we can't get there alone. On the contrary, we need travel partners, like-minded innovators, and partners with whom we can go farther, and today's partnership with Hyundai is a perfect example of what that means," Georgia Tech President Ángel Cabrera said.  

The state of Georgia and the Institute have positioned themselves as leaders in the electrification of the automotive industry. Hyundai is among the top sellers of electric vehicles in the United States as the company aims to produce up to 500,000 vehicles annually at the $7 billion Savannah plant when production begins in 2025. The plant will create 8,500 jobs, and the company's total investments are projected to inject tens of billions of dollars into the state economy while spurring the creation of up to 40,000 jobs.  

"It's clear, we are in the right place with the right partners," Jay Chang, president and CEO of Hyundai Motor Company, said. "When our executive chairman first decided on [the site of] the metaplant, one of the first things he said was, 'Make sure we collaborate with Georgia Tech.’ Hyundai and Georgia Tech have a lot in common. We have proud histories. We celebrate excellence, and we have very high standards. What we love about Georgia Tech is the vision to be a leading research university that addresses global challenges and develops exceptional leaders from all backgrounds."  

Spearheading new opportunities for students, the partnership will create technical training and leadership development programming for Hyundai employees and initiate engagement activities to stimulate interest in STEM degrees among students. 

José Muñoz, president and global COO of Hyundai Motor Company and president and CEO of Hyundai and Genesis Motor North America, says the company quickly realized the potential impact of the newly forged partnership with Georgia Tech.  

"Proximity to institutions like Georgia Tech was one of the many reasons Hyundai selected Georgia for our new EV manufacturing facility. Imagine zero-emissions, hydrogen-powered vehicles here on campus, advanced air mobility shuttling people to Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, or riding hands-free and stress-free in autonomous vehicles during rush hour on I-75 and I-85. Together, Georgia Tech and Hyundai have the resources to fundamentally improve how people and goods move," he said. 

In pursuit of sustainability, Hyundai has invested heavily in the potential of hydrogen and plans to lean on the Institute's expertise to explore the potential of the alternative fuel source, primarily for commercial vehicles. Hyundai has deployed its hydrogen-powered XCIENT rigs to transport materials in five countries. 

University System of Georgia Chancellor Sonny Perdue was on hand for Tuesday’s ceremony. Reflecting on his visits to the company's global headquarters in South Korea prior to the construction of the West Point, Georgia, Kia plant, he praised the company's values and world-class engineering ability.    

"This is a relationship built on mutual trust and respect. It's a company, a family atmosphere, and a culture that I respect and admire for the way they do business and honor progress, innovation, and creativity. That is why I am so excited about this partnership between the Hyundai Motor Group and the Georgia Institute of Technology because that will only enhance that," Perdue said. 

Owned by Hyundai, Kia recently invested an additional $200 million into its West Point facility to prepare for the production of the all-electric 2024 EV9 SUV. The plant currently manufactures more than 40% of all Kia models sold in the U.S.  

The partnership also includes field-naming recognition at Bobby Dodd Stadium, which is now known as Bobby Dodd Stadium at Hyundai Field, and provides student-athletes and teams with the resources needed to compete at the highest levels, both athletically and academically.

“A stitch in time saves nine,” goes the old saying. For a company in Georgia, that adage became very real when damage to a key piece of machinery threatened its operation. The group helping with the stitch in time was the Georgia Manufacturing Extension Partnership (GaMEP), a program of Georgia Tech's Enterprise Innovation Institute that — for more than 60 years — has been helping small- to medium-sized manufacturers in Georgia stay competitive and grow, boosting economic development across the state.

Silon US, a Peachtree City manufacturer that designs and produces engineered compounds used to create a wide range of products — from automotive applications to building materials, such as PEX piping and wire and cable, was experiencing problems with their extrusion line during a time of increasing customer demand. Problems with the drive mechanism on that extrusion line, a piece of equipment critical to the company’s ability to produce, threatened to shut them down. With replacement parts several weeks away, was it safe to continue operating? At what throughput rates? How much collateral damage might be incurred if they continued to operate?

That’s when Silon managers turned to GaMEP for help.

After working through ideas with GaMEP’s manufacturing experts, the team installed wireless condition monitoring sensors that provide continuous, real-time insights on their manufacturing assets’ health. With the sensors, Silon was able to find a sweet spot that not only allowed them to continue operating but also kept them from overexerting the equipment, preventing further damage.

The solution to that problem has now become a routine part of Silon’s process, as company technicians continue to use this sensor technology for early detection of any deviations or anomalies in the machinery’s health, allowing the company’s maintenance team to proactively respond by adjusting scheduled maintenance to avoid costly downtime.

GaMEP’s Sean Madhavaraman says, “Silon is more productive than ever and on track for growth. The strong results in this challenge are a great example of the decades-long focus of GaMEP to educate and train managers and employees in best practices, to develop and implement the latest technology, and to work together with businesses to find solutions.”

Daniel Raubenheimer and Matt Gammon, Silon’s general managers, also lauded GaMEP, saying, “GaMEP’s extensive experience within the manufacturing realm has been a great benefit to our company. The wireless condition monitoring sensors allow us to predict future breakdowns and mitigate a potential catastrophe — allowing us to operate in a safe manner, while saving money, time, and effort.”

CREATE-X’s Startup Launch will introduce its 10th cohort of talented startup founders on Demo Day, Aug. 31, 5 – 7p.m., in the Exhibition Hall. Last year, the event drew more than 1,500 people, including business and community leaders, to view new products from a wide range of industries. All of the startups are developed through the creative work of Georgia Tech’s faculty, alumni, and students. With these products, CREATE-X founders aim to address global problems head-on with the latest technology and ingenuity.

At the event, attendees will be able to explore the products of over 100 newly minted startups, from consumer apps to deep tech, and engage with more than 250 founders about their entrepreneurial journeys. In 2021, CREATE-X startups were at the frontier of the current AI revolution, integrating OpenAI's GPT-3 well ahead of mainstream adoption.

CREATE-X began in 2014 as a Georgia Tech initiative to instill entrepreneurial confidence in students launching real startups. Their signature program is the 12-week Startup Launch accelerator, in which students and alumni intern for their own companies. Participants attend sessions, team socials, and pitch practices and receive coaching and mentorship from experienced entrepreneurs and notable Tech alumni. Demo Day is the finale of the program, a vibrant exhibition that is free and open to the public.

The inaugural cohort had eight teams. Several companies among the first six cohorts are valued above $100 million, and one company is valued at $1.3 billion. The program has worked with nearly 450 startup teams, with a total portfolio valuation of over $1.9 billion, and has produced more than 1,100 founders launching startups. In the future, CREATE-X Director Rahul Saxena said the program hopes to produce 300 startups a year.

“CREATE-X has a rich entrepreneurial ecosystem that will support students as they launch real startups. In every cohort, I remind participants that the connections they make in the program will carry after, and that they’re surrounded by talent,” Saxena said. “We want every Georgia Tech student to have this advantage when starting their business.”

He noted, “From consumer apps revolutionizing everyday life to sustainable fashion brands paving the way toward responsible consumption — there's something here for everyone. CREATE-X founders are a testament to tomorrow’s possibilities, and we invite you to see it for yourself.”

Registration is open now for Demo Day 2023. For more information, visit the CREATE-X website.

Graduate students, under the guidance of SCL affiliated faculty member Jianjun Shi, have recently received well-deserved recognition for their accomplishments. The students' research interests revolve around the use of machine learning and data analytics in relation to advanced manufacturing.

Michael Biehler (advisor: Professor Jianjun Shi)

• Mary G. and Joseph Natrella Scholarship, American Statistical Association (ASA) (2023)
• Best Student Paper Award (Winner) Quality Control and Reliability Engineering (QCRE) Division, IISE (2023)
  • For the paper: M. Biehler, D. Lin , J. Shi (2023): “DETONATE: Nonlinear Dynamic Evolution Modeling of Time-dependent 3-dimensional Point Cloud Profiles” IISE Transactions
• Best Student Paper Award (Finalist) Data Analytics and Information Systems (DAIS) Division, IISE (2023)
  • For the paper: M. Biehler, A. Kulkarni, J. Li, J. Shi (2023+): “MULTI-MODAL: MULTI-fidelity, multi-modality 3D shape modeler:” submitted to IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering
• Phillip J. and Delores A. Scott Graduate Student Health and Wellness Award, H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, Georgia Tech (2023)
• IHE-LeaD Fellow, Burroughs Wellcome Fund, Interdisciplinary and Health and Environment Leadership Development (2022-2023)

Alina Gorbunova (advisors: Professor Jianjun Shi and Professor Kamran Paynabar)

• NSF Graduate Research Fellowship (2023)

 Shancong Mou (advisor: Professor Jianjun Shi)

• Best Track Paper Award (Winner), Quality Control and Reliability Engineering (QCRE) Division, IISE (2023) 
  • For the paper: Mou, S., Gu, X., Cao, M., Bai, H., Huang, P., Shan, J., Shi, J.*, 2023 “RGI: Robust GAN-Inversion for Generic Pixel-wise Anomaly Detection and Mask-free Image Inpainting”, The International Conference on Learning Representations (ICLR 2023).
• John S.W. Fargher Jr. Scholarship, IISE (2023)
• Angela P. and Reed J. Baker Research Excellence Award, School of ISyE, Georgia Institute of Technology (2023)

 Zihan Zhang (advisors: Professor Jianjun Shi and Professor Kamran Paynabar)

• Aerospace and Test Measurement Division Scholarship, ISA (2023)
• ISA Scholarship, ISA (2023)
• Gilbreth Memorial Scholarship, IISE (2023)
• NCORE Student Scholar, National Conference on Race and Ethnicity in Higher Education (2023)

Valerie Thomas, Anderson-Interface Chair of Natural Systems and Professor in the H. Milton School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, was recently asked to speak as part of Sustainability Research + Innovation (SRI) Congress 2023. The event was hosted online and at the Panama Convention Center by the National Secretariat of Science, Technology, and Innovation of the Republic of Panama (SENACYT) and the Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research (IAI).

Sustainability Research + Innovation Congress 2023 is the world's largest gathering for the global sustainability community, and for the first time, the event took place in the Latin American and Caribbean Region. SRI unites more than 2000 global sustainability research leaders, government and civil society experts, funders and innovators to inspire action and promote a sustainability transformation. The global and annual event elevates diverse knowledge on sustainability, provides an inspiring platform to share innovative ideas, and creates an inclusive space for collaboration and action. SRI is a joint initiative of Future Earth and the Belmont Forum.

As part of the Fri Jun 30 panel session "Reducing Emissions from Logistics", Thomas discussed "Life-cycle Approaches to Assessing Emissions from Logistics." To help provide the academic perspective, she was joined by Marilyn Brown, Regents' and Brook Byers Professor of Sustainable Systems in the School of Public Policy,  who spoke on "Three trends challenging U.S. and global emissions reductions from logistics." The private sector perspective was provided by Alex Rodriguez, Regional Head of Energy Transition Execution - LAM with A.P. Moller - Maersk. Rodriquez provided a broad and interesting discussion of air-water-land logistics, its impact on the environment, and possible future solutions. The session was organized by Jorge Barnett Lawton, Managing Director of the Georgia Tech Panama Logistics Innovation & Research Center, who also moderated the session from Panama City.

To learn more about the annual event and view available recordings, please visit https://sricongress.org/.

Thomas Kurfess, Ph.D., P.E., was elected president of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME)--he will be the 142nd president. Kurfess is the chief manufacturing officer of the Georgia Institute of Technology, and the executive director of the Georgia Tech Manufacturing Institute. He is the HUSCO/Ramirez Distinguished Chair in Fluid Power and Motion Control and professor in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering.

He also serves as the chief technology officer at the National Center for Manufacturing Sciences. He served as the chief manufacturing officer and founding director for the manufacturing science division at Oak Ridge National Laboratory from 2019 to 2021. He served as the assistant director for advanced manufacturing at the Office of Science and Technology Policy in the Executive Office of the President of the United States of America in 2012 and 2013, coordinating advanced manufacturing research and development.

American Society of Mechanical Engineers (news release) >>

Shreyes N. Melkote, who holds the Morris M. Bryan, Jr. Professorship in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology, won the 2023 SME Gold Medal award which recognizes outstanding service to the manufacturing engineering profession in technical communications through published literature, technical writings, or lectures.

SME is a nonprofit association committed to advancing widespread adoption of manufacturing technologies and developing North America’s talent and capabilities. He was among seven 2023 SME International Honor Award winners are recognized for their significant contributions to manufacturing in the areas of manufacturing technologies, processes, technical writing, education, research and management, and service to SME. The 2023 SME International Awards Gala was held on June 5 at the Royal Park Hotel in Rochester, Michigan.

Melkote also serves as executive director of the Novelis Innovation Hub at Georgia Tech and as associate director of the Georgia Tech Manufacturing Institute. Melkote’s research focuses on the science and technology of manufacturing processes, industrial robotics for manufacturing, and data-driven methods for cyber manufacturing.

For over six decades, SME’s International Honor Awards have identified professionals whose bodies of work have led to critical breakthroughs and advancements in manufacturing technologies, processes, and education as well as honored members for their volunteerism.

“These seven professionals are among the most accomplished thought leaders in manufacturing, and I’m proud to acknowledge they also hold membership in SME,” said Bob Willig, executive director and CEO of SME. “Though their backgrounds are varied, all share a penchant for continuous improvement where status quo just doesn’t cut it.”

Melkote has published over 280 technical papers on these topics, has one U.S. patent and has successfully transitioned technology to industry. Melkote is a recipient of the SME Outstanding Young Manufacturing Engineer Award, the ASME Blackall Machine Tool and Gage Award and several best paper awards. He served as president of SME's North American Manufacturing Research Institution (NAMRI) from 2014-15, and as ASME Swanson fellow and assistant director for Technology at the Advanced Manufacturing National Program Office at NIST from 2015-16. Melkote is a fellow of SME, ASME and CIRP and has been a SME member since 1994.

SME 2023 International Honor Award Recipients:

• SME Gold Medal — Shreyes N. Melkote, Ph.D., FSME, Morris M. Bryan, Jr. Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta
• Eli Whitney Productivity Award — Lonnie Love, Ph.D., FSME, Fellow, National Security Programs, Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, New Mexico
• Joseph A. Siegel Service Award — Sandra Bouckley, FSME, P.Eng., Executive Director & CEO (retired), 2017 President, SME, Southfield, Michigan
• Donald C. Burnham Manufacturing Management Award — Vaughn M. Hall Jr., International Vice President and General Manager, Corning Precision Materials, Corning Inc., Asan, South Korea
• SME Frederick W. Taylor Research Medal — Shaochen Chen, Ph.D., Chair and Zable Endowed Chair Professor, NanoEngineering Department, University of California, San Diego, San Diego
• SME Albert M. Sargent Progress Award – Subir Chowdhury, FSME, Chairman and CEO, ASI Consulting Group, Bingham Farms, Michigan
• SME Education Award — Laine Mears, Ph.D., FSME, CMfgE, PE, BMW SmartState Endowed Chair of Automotive Manufacturing, University Centennial Professor and Department Chair, Automotive Engineering Department, Clemson University, Clemson, South Carolina

Chuck Zhang, GTMI faculty member and the Harold E. Smalley Professor in the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, is one of five faculty members will help grow the College of Engineering’s work in high-impact cyber-physical systems security (CPSS) as new Cybersecurity Fellows.

Fellows represent expertise in a variety of areas of CPSS, which addresses risks where cyber and physical worlds intersect. That includes the Internet of Things (IoT), industrial systems, smart grids, medical devices, autonomous vehicles, robotics, and more.

“As devices, systems, and the world continue to become more connected, cyber-related threats that were traditionally limited to the digital domain have made their way to physical systems,” said Raheem Beyah, dean of the College, Southern Company Chair, and a cybersecurity expert. “The College of Engineering has world-renowned cybersecurity and artificial intelligence researchers. This new cohort will continue to expand the College’s breadth of expertise and leadership in CPSS.”

The three-year fellowship was made possible by a gift from Kyle Seymour, a 1982 mechanical engineering graduate who retired as president and CEO of S&C Electric Company in 2020. Seymour wanted to help increase cybersecurity-related research and instruction within the College.

School chairs nominated potential fellows, who were evaluated and selected by a committee of senior cybersecurity researchers and College leaders. 

Five faculty members will help grow the College of Engineering’s work in high-impact cyber-physical systems security (CPSS) as new Cybersecurity Fellows.

Fellows represent expertise in a variety of areas of CPSS, which addresses risks where cyber and physical worlds intersect. That includes the Internet of Things (IoT), industrial systems, smart grids, medical devices, autonomous vehicles, robotics, and more.

“As devices, systems, and the world continue to become more connected, cyber-related threats that were traditionally limited to the digital domain have made their way to physical systems,” said Raheem Beyah, dean of the College, Southern Company Chair, and a cybersecurity expert. “The College of Engineering has world-renowned cybersecurity and artificial intelligence researchers. This new cohort will continue to expand the College’s breadth of expertise and leadership in CPSS.”

The three-year fellowship was made possible by a gift from Kyle Seymour, a 1982 mechanical engineering graduate who retired as president and CEO of S&C Electric Company in 2020. Seymour wanted to help increase cybersecurity-related research and instruction within the College.

School chairs nominated potential fellows, who were evaluated and selected by a committee of senior cybersecurity researchers and College leaders. 

View the new Cybersecurity Fellows >>

Centipedes are known for their wiggly walk. With tens to hundreds of legs, they can traverse any terrain without stopping.

“When you see a scurrying centipede, you're basically seeing an animal that inhabits a world that is very different than our world of movement,” said Daniel Goldman, the Dunn Family Professor in the School of Physics. “Our movement is largely dominated by inertia. If I swing my leg, I land on my foot and I move forward. But in the world of centipedes, if they stop wiggling their body parts and limbs, they basically stop moving instantly.”

Intrigued to see if the many limbs could be helpful for locomotion in this world, a team of physicists, engineers, and mathematicians at the Georgia Institute of Technology are using this style of movement to their advantage. They developed a new theory of multilegged locomotion and created many-legged robotic models, discovering the robot with redundant legs could move across uneven surfaces without any additional sensing or control technology as the theory predicted.

These robots can move over complex, bumpy terrain — and there is potential to use them for agriculture, space exploration, and even search and rescue.

The researchers presented their work in the papers, “Multilegged Matter Transport: A Framework for Locomotion on Noisy Landscapes,” in Science in May and “Self-Propulsion via Slipping: Frictional Swimming in Multilegged Locomotors,” in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in March.

A Leg Up

For the Science paper, the researchers were motivated by mathematician Claude Shannon’s communication theory, which demonstrates how to reliably transmit signals over distance, to understand why a multilegged robot was so successful at locomotion. The theory of communication suggests that one way to ensure a message gets from point A to point B on a noisy line isn’t to send it as an analog signal, but to break it into discrete digital units and repeat these units with an appropriate code.

“We were inspired by this theory, and we tried to see if redundancy could be helpful in matter transportation,” said Baxi Chong, a physics postdoctoral researcher. “So, we started this project to see what would happen if we had more legs on the robot: four, six, eight legs, and even 16 legs.”

A team led by Chong, including School of Mathematics postdoctoral fellow Daniel Irvine and Professor Greg Blekherman, developed a theory that proposes that adding leg pairs to the robot increases its ability to move robustly over challenging surfaces — a concept they call spatial redundancy. This redundancy makes the robot’s legs successful on their own without the need for sensors to interpret the environment. If one leg falters, the abundance of legs keeps it moving regardless. In effect, the robot becomes a reliable system to transport itself and even a load from A to B on difficult or “noisy” landscapes. The concept is comparable to how punctuality can be guaranteed on wheeled transport if the track or rail is smooth enough but without having to engineer the environment to create this punctuality.

“With an advanced bipedal robot, many sensors are typically required to control it in real time,” Chong said. “But in applications such as search and rescue, exploring Mars, or even micro robots, there is a need to drive a robot with limited sensing. There are many reasons for such sensor-free initiative. The sensors can be expensive and fragile, or the environments can change so fast that it doesn’t allow enough sensor-controller response time.”

To test this, Juntao He, a Ph.D. student in robotics, conducted a series of experiments where he and Daniel Soto, a master’s graduate in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, built terrains to mimic an inconsistent natural environment. He then tested the robot by increasing its number of legs by two each time, starting with six and eventually expanding to 16. As the leg count increased, the robot could more agilely move across the terrain, even without sensors, as the theory predicted. Eventually, they tested the robot outdoors on real terrain, where it was able to traverse in a variety of environments.

“It's truly impressive to witness the multilegged robot's proficiency in navigating both lab-based terrains and outdoor environments,” Juntao said. “While bipedal and quadrupedal robots heavily rely on sensors to traverse complex terrain, our multilegged robot utilizes leg redundancy and can accomplish similar tasks with open-loop control.”

Next Steps

The researchers are already applying their discoveries to farming. Goldman has co-founded a company that aspires to use these robots to weed farmland where weedkillers are ineffective.

“They’re kind of like a Roomba but outside for complex ground,” Goldman said. “A Roomba works because it has wheels that function well on flat ground. Until the development of our framework, we couldn’t confidently predict locomotor reliability on bumpy, rocky, debris-ridden terrain. We now have the beginnings of such a scheme, which could be used to ensure that our robots traverse a crop field in a certain amount of time.”

The researchers also want to refine the robot. They know why the centipede robot framework is functional, but now they’re determining the optimal number of legs to achieve motion without sensing in a way that is cost-effective yet still retains the benefits.

“In this paper, we asked, ‘How do you predict the minimum number of legs to achieve such tasks?’” Chong said. “Currently we only prove that the minimum number exists, but we don't know that exact number of legs needed. Further, we need to better understand the tradeoff between energy, speed, power, and robustness in such a complex system.”

CITATION:

Baxi Chong et al., Multilegged matter transport: A framework for locomotion on noisy landscapes.Science380,509-515(2023).DOI:10.1126/science.ade4985