FW-HTF-P: Towards Preparing Future Machinists: Exploring Tacit Knowledge in Machining with Artificial Intelligence and Extended Reality

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This project investigates how to capture and pass on tacit knowledge in machining. Experienced machinists have a great deal of tacit knowledge that is essential for their decision-making, but such knowledge is personal, context-specific, and consequently difficult to acquire, as well as to formalize and communicate to others. This both complicates training new machinists and risks losing this tacit knowledge entirely as experienced machinists born in the post World War II baby boom retire. To address these challenges, the project team will investigate to what extent, and how, tacit knowledge in machining can be identified, understood, and transferred with the help of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Virtual/Augmented Reality (XR). The work in this project development grant will lead to a better understanding of experienced machinists’ tacit knowledge and how it is applied in their work. It will also generate new ideas for AI techniques that recognize tacit knowledge and XR-based training systems and evaluation metrics; these will form the basis of future research that supports U.S. strategic plans around preparing the workforce for manufacturing industries.The project will expand a convergent team of researchers from multiple disciplinary backgrounds, including engineering, learning sciences, computer science, game design/gamification, psychology, and workforce development. The proposed research is structured around three fundamental thrusts: (1) A human-subject research pipeline will be developed and applied to key stakeholders to understand the types of tacit knowledge and the ways in which tacit knowledge is acquired and utilized. (2) AI and XR techniques will be explored to understand, identify, and transfer tacit knowledge. (3) Cognitive models will be established to evaluate human performance in XR training and the credibility and acceptance of the training. The project team will pay special attention to developing ideas that can make the machining occupation more accessible to populations that are currently under-represented in this field, working with partners at a nearby school that teaches machining to deaf and hard of hearing students. The overarching goal of this research is to deepen the understanding of tacit knowledge in machining and support new directions for machining training, while developing the techniques in general ways that might be applied to training in domains beyond machining.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.