NSF PCL-Test Bed: Bringing Electronics Prototyping Home: A National AI-Driven Cloud Laboratory

Award ID: 2607577

NSF PCL-Test Bed: Bringing Electronics Prototyping Home: A National AI-Driven Cloud Laboratory America's ability to compete in critical technologies, from defense systems to medical devices, depends on the speed of hardware innovation. Today, building and testing an electronic prototype can take weeks to years and require expensive facilities and foreign suppliers, putting cutting-edge development out of reach for most universities, startups, and small manufacturers. This project will establish a Programmable Cloud Lab Node operated by Adom Industries in Fort Worth, Texas. Engineers anywhere in the country would be able to log in remotely, describe their hardware needs, and let artificial intelligence generate the design, while on-site robots automatically build and test the physical prototype. What once took months will now take hours, at a fraction of traditional costs. This domestic, AI-powered infrastructure will reduce dependence on overseas manufacturing, strengthen supply chain resilience, and keep critical technology on American soil. The project will also train the next generation of engineers through university partnerships and open-source design tools. This project integrates conversational AI with fully autonomous robotic work cells in an electronics-focused cloud laboratory advancing science drivers spanning high-throughput component evaluation, automated characterization, AI-driven firmware generation, and machine-learning-based empirical data generation. Over the four-year award period, the project aims to produce breakthroughs in reproducible hardware design, cross-domain AI training datasets for electronics, and autonomous experimental design capabilities that are novel and unique. Adom Industries will provide a fully operational, AI-driven electronics prototyping cloud laboratory unique in the national Programmable Cloud Lab network. These capabilities would, for the first time, enable any engineer in the country to log in remotely to the node, provide their design and have a fully tested, physically assembled circuit board ready within hours. It would establish the fastest electronics prototyping facility available anywhere, compressing development cycles that currently take weeks or years into days. As a provider of custom electronics robotic motion control systems and AI-integrated work cell automation the electronics prototyping capabilities provided by this PCL Node could be leveraged by other automated laboratories for designing, assembling, and validating the electronic systems that those nodes may require, including nodes in the PCL network. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NSF Program Director: Waleed Nasser