By providing specialized environments for land, air and water-based robotics, the center marks the latest expansion of an ecosystem that began in 1979 with the founding of the world’s first academic department devoted to robotics.
A different way of thinking about robotics
CMU launched the Robotics Institute with the ambitious premise that robotics research requires more than mechanical systems alone. From its earliest days, the Robotics Institute focused on building robots capable of operating in the real world: systems that could sense their surroundings, reason about uncertainty and act autonomously. Since then, its research continued to span areas where those capabilities were essential, like intelligent manufacturing, self-driving vehicles, space exploration, disaster response, and medical and caregiving robotics."Since the beginning in 1979, the Robotics Institute was built to bring together the full range of capabilities required for autonomous systems - from perception and reasoning to deployment," said Raj Reddy , Moza Bint Nasser University Professor of Computer Science and Robotics in the School of Computer Science. "That approach enabled advances in areas such as self-driving vehicles, drones, health care robotics and manufacturing automation."
The decision to create the Robotics Institute reflected both a recognition of the technology’s potential and a growing national need. In the late 1970s, as federal investment in automation and advanced technology increased, robotics emerged as a national strategic priority. CMU leadership - including computer scientist and artificial intelligence pioneer Reddy, who would become the institute’s founding director - recognized that progress required a research enterprise that integrated computer science, engineering, perception and AI at scale.
That vision attracted early support from the U.S. government and industry, including the Office of Naval Research and Westinghouse, who turned to CMU because its research emphasized full robotic systems, rather than individual mechanical parts.
As the institute grew, that emphasis shaped both its research directions and its culture. Early field robotics projects - including the Remote Reconnaissance Vehicle developed by faculty such as Red Whittaker and deployed following the 1979 Three Mile Island nuclear accident - pushed robotics beyond controlled laboratory settings and into hazardous environments. Research into space exploration tested those limits further, requiring robots to sense, decide and act in environments where human oversight was distant or delayed.
Work in autonomous navigation and perception, including robotic vehicles that competed in Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) challenges, helped establish foundations for later advances in self-driving vehicles. Meanwhile, research in human-robot interaction, including collaborative robotic systems developed by faculty such as Manuela Veloso , explored how robots could operate safely and effectively alongside people in offices, hospitals and other shared spaces.
The Robotics Innovation Center at Hazelwood Green will advance Carnegie Mellon University’s world-leading collaborative ecosystem for robotics, automation and artificial intelligence research and development. The cutting-edge facility will help solve complex challenges with real-world impact, kick-start a new wave of innovation, and help redevelop Hazelwood Green, a former steel mill, into a nexus for Pittsburgh’s new industrial revolution.
The RIC will add 150,000 square feet of advanced robotics research space for CMU faculty, staff and students, expanding the capacity and capabilities for foundational research, integration and commercialization.
Designing autonomous systems was only part of the challenge. Proving they could function reliably in complex, real-world environments required additional space, infrastructure and partnerships. As robotics research at CMU matured, it required new ways of testing, collaboration and scale.
Making robots work where it matters
By the mid-1990s, a new model for applied research was emerging at the university - one that could move federally funded robotics work past prototypes and into practical use.In 1994, Robotics Institute faculty Whittaker and Dave Pahnos began discussions with NASA about how to translate research from CMU’s Robotics Institute and Field Robotics Center into deployable systems for government and industrial use. With NASA’s support, CMU worked to establish an organization focused on engineering, testing and licensing robotic technologies developed through federal research programs.
A $2.5 million NASA seed grant and bipartisan state redevelopment funding provided the catalyst for the National Robotics Engineering Center (NREC), a hub designed to bridge the gap between research and deployment. By 1995, a coalition of local, regional and state partners formalized this vision by acquiring and renovating a historic foundry in Pittsburgh’s Lawrenceville neighborhood, turning a relic of the city’s industrial past into an engine for its future.
"NREC was created to engineer robotic systems for work in the world while spawning the enterprises and people who would make it happen," said Whittaker. "This was a vision before its time, when basic research was still climbing out of the primeval ooze and there was little evidence that the technology, applications and markets would fully mature."
NREC became a durable bridge between foundational research and real-world application. It gave researchers a place to confront the practical challenges of scaling robotics systems, informing new research directions and creating pathways for technology transfer and commercialization. By designing, testing and refining robots in real operating conditions, researchers at NREC have contributed to advances in autonomy, perception and operation across sectors as diverse as infrastructure and manufacturing to defense and space.
Technologies developed at NREC now power autonomous capabilities in equipment used by companies such as John Deere and Caterpillar, supporting precision agriculture and enabling mining machinery to work in some of the world’s harshest environments.
Over three decades, NREC has also played a significant role in shaping Pittsburgh as a hub for robotics and autonomy. Technologies, expertise and alumni from NREC seeded new companies and attracted investment, while the center’s presence in Lawrenceville became an early example of innovation-driven redevelopment in Pittsburgh.
Scaling robotics and manufacturing research at Mill 19
As robotics and advanced manufacturing work at CMU extended beyond the traditional lab environment, a new kind of facility was built to support projects that require industrial-scale space, proximity to industry partners and shared infrastructure.Mill 19, located on the Hazelwood Green site along the Monongahela River, was redeveloped from a former steel mill into a shared research and collaboration space focused on advanced manufacturing, robotics and industry partnerships. In 2019, Mill 19 opened with CMU’s Manufacturing Futures Initiative (elevated to the Manufacturing Futures Institute, MFI, in 2021) and the Advanced Robotics for Manufacturing (ARM) Institute as the first anchor tenants, joined by Catalyst Connection, a nonprofit resource for small and medium manufacturers in the region.
Researchers in Mill 19 leverage the facility’s industrial-scale environment to bridge the gap between lab research and practical manufacturing challenges. A flexible robotic testbed supports work in assembly, material handling and inspection, while digital twin research allows researchers to model and improve manufacturing systems in real time, creating shared data frameworks that help companies modernize how their production lines operate. Other projects use machine learning to reduce the time required to train industrial robots and develop shared data platforms designed to support broader adoption of robotics across manufacturing environments.
"The resources at Mill 19 in robotics, metals discovery and additive manufacturing have expanded research in manufacturing through interdisciplinary collaborations across the university," said MFI faculty director Gary Fedder. "The scaled-up facilities, along with support by MFI’s engineering team to create AI-ready data collection and curation infrastructure, is enabling new directions toward a future of human-centered, AI-powered transformation in manufacturing."
Mill 19 also serves as a hub for workforce development. Through hands-on learning and partnerships with industry and public organizations, the facility connects students, researchers and workers with emerging manufacturing and robotics technologies.
Facilities at Mill 19, such as the Materials Innovation Cloud Lab, are also included in the CMU’s recently established AI Science Foundry , which integrates autonomous experimentation, advanced robotics and AI-driven workflows. The Foundry enables researchers to remotely design, deploy and analyze complex experiments using interconnected physical and digital systems - speeding innovations to impact at a pace faster from hypothesis to impact.
Robotics Innovation Center: Built for what comes next
For decades, CMU researchers have developed robotic systems designed to operate in real-world environments. Advances in machine learning, perception and computing have expanded what those systems can do, as demand for autonomous and semi-autonomous technologies has grown across industries including manufacturing, agriculture, infrastructure and health care.As these systems have become more complex, so have the conditions required to support them. Many research projects now require space for large platforms, specialized infrastructure, cross-disciplinary collaboration and engagement with external partners. Those needs often extend beyond what traditional laboratory settings were built to accommodate.
The Robotics Innovation Center was designed to support that work. It extends an approach that has shaped CMU’s robotics work for more than four decades: integrating computer vision, cognition, mobility and interaction into systems built to operate alongside people in everyday settings. The center brings together faculty and students from the Robotics Institute and the College of Engineering in shared space, strengthening collaborations that span AI, mechanical systems, materials and human-centered design and accelerating discovery and innovation. It includes space for corporate partners to co-locate with CMU researchers and for community programs , linking research activity to workforce development initiatives in Hazelwood.
"Carnegie Mellon didn’t just participate in the birth of robotics - we helped shape its intellectual DNA," said Theresa Mayer , CMU’s vice president for research. "By uniting discovery, fabrication and industry partnership under one roof, and by investing in the next generation of talent, we’re building both transformative technologies and the workforce that will carry robotics forward."
