Metrics magazine highlights Industrial AI Center

INDUSTRIAL AI: REALIZING THE PROMISE

As industries integrate AI more pervasively into their workflows and supply chains, they will need research expertise to guide them, as well as skilled engineers with a background in the field. They'll find both at UMD. Lee's aim in the coming years is to build up the center into a research and education powerhouse, drawing potentially hundreds of graduate students and postdocs to conduct research, while creating opportunities for both undergraduate and graduate students to gain skills and know-how.

Among other steps, he is introducing Industrial AI to undergraduate and graduate students through courses he teaches in the mechanical engineering department, thus updating the existing curriculum to take into account the growing interest in machine learning, AI, and data.

“AI should not belong just to advanced researchers,” Lee said. “I want to bring it to the undergraduate level, starting in the sophomore year. Traditionally, we use a physics-based approach to engineering education, with every student taking physics, chemistry, and calculus. But our society today needs both a physics-based and a data-centric approach.”

Students enrolled in Lee’s Introduction to Industrial AI course will learn AI, machine learning, and data science fundamentals, and gain experiences using real data from industrial systems such as semiconductors, EVs, wind turbines, jet engines, and rotary machines. The course is designed to complement existing programs within the department, Lee said.

With Lee on the faculty, UMD's Clark School of Engineering now becomes one of the few engineering colleges in the nation where students can study and gain hands-on experience with Industrial AI, working under a mentor who pioneered the field. Lee's 2020 book Industrial AI: Applications with Sustainable Performance is considered a seminal work on the topic.

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