Pat Mongan is a PhD student in the Confirm – Smart Manufacturing Research Centre, based in the University of Limerick. He graduated from Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology in 2018 with a First Class Honours BEng in Mechanical Engineering. Pat’s doctoral research is focused on the application of artificial intelligence to solve various issues in manufacturing environments. As part of the Fulbright award, Pat will visit Professor Nancy Diaz-Elsayed’s laboratory at the University of South Florida in Tampa. Here, he will focus on the development of a framework to establish autonomy in manufacturing systems.