For details, please see:

The project is entitled: NSF PCL-Test Bed: AI-enabled, Cloud-based Self-Driving Nanofabrication Node for Accelerating Semiconductor Research and Education. Dr. Kong serves as a Co-PI and is in charge of system integration and automation. This project will address a longstanding challenge in semiconductor research and innovation, viz., the slow, costly, and difficult-to-reproduce processes involved in developing minuscule, micro-, and nanoscale electronic, photonic, and sensin

This project is in collaboration with Dr. Blake Johnson of VT ISE, and Dr. Raed Kontar at the University of Michigan with IOE Department. This award supports collaborative methods to improve bio-additive manufacturing, particularly 3D-printed tissue scaffolds for nerve repair. The research will enable organizations to share knowledge while protecting private data and intellectual property, reducing experimentation costs and advancing regenerative medicine, U.S. manufacturing,

Smart lab Ph.D. student Dhrubajyoti (DJ) Gupta received this Best Student Paper Award. The paper is entitled “Multi-task Coupled Physics-Informed Neural Networks for Thermo-Mechanical Modeling of Additive Friction-Stir Deposition,” and it received the Best Student Paper Award from the Manufacturing & Design Division at the Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers (IISE) Annual Conference & Expo 2026. This work presents a multi-task coupled physics-informed neural network

Classification of recycled plastics using sparse and imbalanced spectral data and data augmentation by the generative adversarial network - now published in Analyst https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2026/an/d5an01042j

Dou, C., Wang, R., Gnanasambandam, R., Li, J., and Kong, Z.J., Layer-wise printing parameter optimization for laser powder bed fusion. J Intell Manuf (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10845-026-02798-3

A. I. Saimon, R. Gnanasambandam and Z.J. Kong, "Geometry-Aware Physics Informed PointNet (GeoPIPN) for Fast Thermal Distribution Prediction in Additive Manufacturing of Unseen Part Geometries," in IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering , doi: 10.1109/TASE.2026.3674774.

Chaoran defended his dissertation entitled " Smart Process Design with Machine Learning for Defect Mitigation in Metal Additive...

Wang, R., Wang, R., Dou, C., Yang, S., Gnanasambandam, R., Wang, A. and Kong, Z., 2024. Sub-surface thermal measurement in additive...

Zhenyu "James" Kong, professor of industrial and systems engineering in the College of Engineering at Virginia Tech, has been named the...

Raghav Gnanasambandam joined the Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering of Florida State University as an Assistant...

SMART lab alumnus, Dr. Jihoon Chung, joined the Department of Industrial Engineering of The National Pushan University, Korean, in March...

On April 15, Raghav successfully defended his Ph.D. dissertation entitled "Physics-informed Machine Learning for Digital Twins of Metal...

SMART lab students/alumni, as well as their collaborators, received four recognitions in 2023 IISE Annual Conference Best Paper/Data/App...

Rongxuan Wang defended his dissertation entitled "Multi-Physics Sensing and Real-time Quality Control in Metal Additive Manufacturing" on...

Bo Shen defended his dissertation entitled "Advanced Data Analytics for Quality Assurance of Smart Additive Manufacturing" on 6/15/2022....

SMART lab students received four recognitions in 2002 INFORMS Annual Meeting Best Paper/Poster Competitions (two first-place winners and...

Four SMART lab teams won first place in their best paper competitions at the 2022 IISE Annual Conference!! IISE Quality Control and...

Dr. Kong was elected ASME Fellow due to his significant contribution in smart manufacturing, specifically sensing and data analytics in...

Smart lab is collaborating with Dr. Chris Williams, PI, (https://dreams.mii.vt.edu/) and Dr. Erik Komendera (https://faser.me.vt.edu/)...