Manufacturers, robot suppliers, and researchers, here’s your chance to get in on the ground floor of an upcoming national competition intended to help make robots more handy and nimble on the factory floor.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is launching the Agile Robotics for Industrial Automation Competition (ARIAC), a joint effort with the IEEE Conference on Automation Science and Engineering. Now in the planning stages, this simulation-based competition aims to inspire applications of the latest advances in artificial intelligence and other technologies to solve the challenge of making robots more capable, versatile, and collaborative, as well as easier to program.

Solutions will be demonstrated in a computer model of a real-world manufacturing operation.

By engaging now, organizations and individuals can participate in devising the challenges that will make up the competition. NIST will unveil the specific task-related challenges at the IEEE International Conference on Automation Science and Engineering, to be held Aug. 21–24, 2016, in Fort Worth, Texas.

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