Rathin Shah, who grew up in India, had never been to a professional hockey game until the Pittsburgh Penguins invited him and four other graduate student researchers to PPG Paints Arena for an unlikely reason.

There was plenty of fast-paced action in the game between the Penguins and Florida Panthers that night in 2021. But the group was actually there to see what happened when the players left the ice between periods — replaced by hulking machines.

Three semesters later, those same students from Carnegie Mellon University are working toward what would be a first in a city that is both big on hockey and on building robots.

Using artificial intelligence, the student team nicknamed “AI on Ice” is developing an autonomous or self-driving Zamboni machine.

More precisely, they are taking the two-Zamboni machine convoy — traditionally driven by two people — and making the second one autonomous, though tethered electronically to the lead Zamboni, mimicking its speed and direction. A safety driver would be aboard the autonomous Zamboni.

The invention has already gotten some ice time at the Penguins training facility, the UPMC Lemieux Sports Complex in Cranberry. It will need further refinement before appearing for a demonstration at a future Penguins home game.

If it performs as planned, fans long mesmerized by the Zamboni and its ability to systematically scrape up and resurface ice will have another reason to marvel as the autonomous machine in the rear “learns” from the human driving up front.

It’s yet another reminder that artificial intelligence is reaching more and more facets of life, from robots entering collapsed buildings to others keeping older people company to still others learning to traverse the ice inside an NHL arena.

“We want to demonstrate it at a hockey game,” said Shah, 26, the team lead and a master’s student in robotic systems development who grew up in Pune, India. “That’s the final goal.”

Luke Mohamed, senior director of partnership sales with the Penguins, said the point is not to replace any Zamboni drivers but to help with the operation’s overall efficiency. Debuting the world’s first Zamboni-branded autonomous machine is an opportunity to showcase local innovation, he added.

Plus, it’s a heck of a capstone project for a group of aspiring roboticists.

“To have something that is recognizable by just about everyone and do something with it that’s never been done before is a pretty good resume-builder,” Mohamed said.

There are plenty of scholarly reasons why this particular motion-planning project had appeal. One of them was the fact it involved traversing ice, rather than roads, said Shah, and the other was simply the Zamboni.

“The fun part was working on the vehicle itself, ” he said. “Driving it around was the most fun part.”

The Zamboni takes about 5 to 8 minutes to resurface a 200-by-85-foot NHL rink, traveling at a speed of about 5 mph, Shah said.

The multi-ton vehicle uses an auger to scrape up used ice, washes it, then lays down a fresh surface. As it does all that, it also gives a surprisingly stable ride.

“We weren’t expecting it to be so easy and smooth to drive,” Shah said.

The student researchers teamed with three entities to advance their work, which began in August of 2021.

One of those collaborators is Locomation, a Carnegie Mellon spinout created in 2018 that is introducing human-guided autonomous technology to help the trucking industry keep up with growing demand for long-haul freight amid a shortage of drivers.

The Pittsburgh-based company proposed the idea for the project, one of a number that were available to students pursuing a master’s degree in robotic systems development within CMU’s Robotics Institute. Shah and his group chose to pursue it.

Two of Locomation’s co-founders, Çetin Meriçli and Tekin Meriçli, took particular interest in the effort, said John Dolan, a principal systems scientist at CMU who directs the master’s program in robotic systems development program.

The two brothers “sponsored and mentored the project, including providing funding for some of the transport and other costs,” Dolan said. “They also provided advice to the team regarding the autonomy retrofit.”

In addition to Shah, the team includes Nicholas Carcione, 24, of Twinsburg, Ohio; Shihao Shen, 23, of Shanghai, China; Jiayi Qiu, 24, of Ningbo, China, and Yilin Cai, 24, of Nantong, China.

Other collaborators also helped.

Zamboni — the company founded by Frank Joseph Zamboni, the child of Italian immigrants who invented the modern-day ice resurfacing machine — offered technical assistance and loaned a Zamboni.

Also involved, of course, are the Penguins, for whom consistent, smooth ice is critical.

Just like Zambonis already in use at Penguins games, the autonomous-equipped convoy being developed has a second vehicle following parallel path but intentionally set off, allowing it to cover more surface.

Shah said the team spent the fall of 2021 brainstorming ideas and outlining what needed to be done to make the project go.

Next, during the spring 2022 semester, the team progressively fine-tuned the convoy concept, initially using a miniature remote-controlled car led by an unmanned ground vehicle. It was tested in places including a basement on campus.

The goal was to show “proof of concept for the software,” he said.

From there, two hybrid vehicles were introduced and then the ice resurfacing equipment itself. It included one electric-powered Zamboni loaned to the project by the company.

There are built-in safeguards to bring the autonomous machine to a stop if necessary.

Shah said there is a safety emergency switch in the vehicle that, when pressed, reverts to manual mode. Also, an enable switch must be turned on for the vehicle to be able to receive autonomy signals.

As for the game itself, Shah said there really isn’t much stopping at all. He found that out as a first-time attendee when the Penguins beat the Panthers 3-2 in a game that ended in a shootout.

“The puck is effectively always close to the goal, either to yours or to the other team’s. You are on the edge of your seat for the full 20 minutes of the period, ” he said. “It truly is a fast sport.”

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