Insider Brief
- A University of Michigan-led research team has received a $6.2 million grant from Japan’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism to develop AI systems and autonomous robots designed to help shipbuilders detect construction problems before they cause costly delays.
- According to the university, the project will develop robotic and AI “co-pilot” systems capable of comparing a ship’s actual construction progress against a digital twin of its intended design while identifying installation conflicts, routing problems and structural mismatches earlier in the building process.
- The research involves University of Michigan, MIT and Japanese academic partners developing lidar-equipped robotic systems, multimodal AI models and a reconfigurable shipbuilding test platform, with complementary projects led by Yokohama National University, Osaka University, Osaka Metropolitan University and the National Maritime Research Institute.
A University of Michigan-led research team has received a $6.2 million grant from Japan’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism to develop AI systems and autonomous robots designed to help shipbuilders detect construction problems before they cause costly delays.
According to the university, the project will focus on developing robotic and AI “co-pilot” systems capable of comparing a ship’s actual construction progress against a digital twin of its design in real time. The systems are intended to help shipyard workers identify installation conflicts, routing problems and structural mismatches earlier in the construction process.
“We want to build a co-pilot system that uses AI and robotics to take some of the detective work off workers’ shoulders,” said Alan Papalia, UM assistant professor of naval architecture and marine engineering and the principal investigator of the American research team. “The system should automatically map what’s installed, identify where reality is drifting from the design, and suggest workable alternatives when something needs to change.”
The research is being led Papalia alongside researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Japanese academic and industrial partners. The program is scheduled to run through early 2027 and is overseen by the Monohakobi Technology Institute, an R&D organization within Japanese shipping company NYK Line.
According to the university, the robots will move through partially completed ship interiors collecting lidar scans, camera imagery and other measurements.
AI models will use that data to build a digital model of the ship as constructed and compare it against the intended design plans.
Shipbuilding often becomes complicated as pipes, cables, electrical systems and equipment are installed in confined spaces under changing schedules. Researchers said construction changes can lead to situations where later components no longer fit properly or access routes become blocked, creating expensive rework and delivery delays.
The AI systems being developed are intended not only to identify mismatches but also to predict future conflicts and suggest alternative installation approaches along with operational tradeoffs for workers to evaluate, the university noted.
To train the AI models, researchers plan to simulate shipbuilding processes repeatedly to generate synthetic datasets while also interviewing shipyard workers in the U.S. and Japan so the systems better reflect how experienced tradespeople make decisions in real-world environments.
The project also includes development of a reconfigurable “Shipbuilding Test Block,” a physical ship-section model designed to test robotic systems across different outfitting scenarios and construction stages.
“It’s very complementary to our other research projects led by Japanese universities, in which the main focus is robots for automation of hull construction and steel welding,” noted Hideyuki Ando, managing director of the Monohakobi Technology Institute. “We wanted to partner with the University of Michigan because of their unique status as a high-output research university with a dedicated department for naval architecture and marine engineering.”
According to the university, the American team includes University of Michigan researchers focused on robotic systems, shipyard partnerships, worker interviews and the Shipbuilding Test Block, while MIT’s Faez Ahmed will lead development of AI models that can process multiple types of data and suggest workable solutions. Complementary Japanese projects are being led by Yokohama National University, Osaka University, Osaka Metropolitan University and the National Maritime Research Institute.
