Funded with a $6.2 million grant from the Japanese Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport, and Tourism, the collaboration will design and prototype AI and robot teammates to track what was actually built inside the growing ship and compare it to a digital twin of the intended structure. The system will then create reports of mismatches that workers can use to make adjustments. “We want to build a co-pilot system that uses AI and robotics to take some of the detective work off workers’ shoulders,” said  Alan Papalia , U-M assistant professor of naval architecture and marine engineering and the principal investigator of the American research team. “The system should automatically map what’s installed, identify where reality is drifting from the design, and suggest workable alternatives when something needs to change.” Papalia’s team includes researchers from U-M and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.…