CREST-RASM
CREST Center for Research Advancement in Smart Manufacturing (CREST-RASM)
The Centers of Research Excellence in Science and Technology (CREST) at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona (CPP) is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) under Award #2514616 from 2025 to 2030. The CREST Center for Research Advancement in Smart Manufacturing (CREST-RASM) is led by Dr. Shokoufeh Mirzaei, the Principal Investigator (PI).
The vision of CREST-RASM is to become the model hub for innovation and research in smart manufacturing, bringing together a diverse community of researchers, industry experts, and stakeholders to develop groundbreaking solutions, technology, and best practices to transform smart manufacturing systems and enhance our nation’s workforce.
The mission of CREST-RASM is to propel the manufacturing industry into a new era of efficiency, sustainability, and competitiveness. The initial award period is expected to result in numerous collaborative products and research experiences for more than 80 undergraduates and 40 graduate students. In addition, the center’s education program aims to engage more than 550 K-12 students, 600 community college students, and 100 K-12 teachers. CREST-RASM is expected to sustain smart manufacturing research at CPP for the next 20 years.
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CREST-RASM Goals
Learn More About the Programs and Goals
In alignment with the Smart Manufacturing Institute (CESMII), a Manufacturing USA Institute, CREST-RASM’s goals are to: (1) develop novel and transformative research focused on highly integrated topics related to smart manufacturing systems intelligent factory, EXtended Reality (XR) in human-system integration, robotics and automation, and cybersecurity within the framework of a cyber-physical manufacturing facility; (2) increase the research capacity of CPP in smart manufacturing, and (3) develop highly impactful education and training programs that empower student to pursue graduate degrees in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) disciplines.
Subproject 1: Digital Twin-based Factory
IME Smart Manufacturing Lab’s Intelligent Factory: A Novel Paradigm for Enhanced Operations, Predictability, and Safety (PI: Zahra Sotoudeh). The goal of Subproject 1 is to create an Intelligent Factory (IF), which involves physical assets and their digital replica with bidirectional data exchange.
Subproject 2: Virtual/Augmented Reality
Intelligent Human-System Integration Using Augmented and Virtual Reality (AR/VR) (PI: Fatemeh Jamshidi). This subproject aims to unlock the potential of advanced XR technologies by creating and assessing immersive and adaptable training scenarios and enabling real-time monitoring and operational decision-making capability for complex manufacturing and assembly tasks.
Subproject 3: Robotics and Automation
Motion, Grasp, and Regrasp Planning of Manipulator Robots for Agile Manufacturing and Assembly (PI: Ellips Masehian). The goal of this subproject is to address these gaps by developing methods and algorithms for autonomous robotic systems to perform advanced grasping and regrasping in dynamic settings.
Subproject 4: Cybersecurity
A lightweight Mutual Authentication Protocol for Industrial Internet of Things (Mingyan Xiao). The goal of this research is to develop a lightweight mutual authentication protocol between a low-cost resource-constrained device and a resource-rich server that is resistant to various security attacks.
Education and Workforce
CREST-RASM will play a key role in bridging the critical gap in smart manufacturing research and workforce. The vision of CREST-RASM’s education and workforce development plan is to establish a comprehensive program that spans elementary, middle, and high school levels, extends through community college and undergraduate studies, and culminates in a graduate program that leads to a PhD fellowship at a research-intensive institution.
IME Smart Factory at Cal Poly Pomona
Video of IME Smart Factory at Cal Poly Pomona. No sound. Video from Dr. Ellips Masehian.
