AccScience Publishing / IJAMD / Online First / DOI: 10.36922/IJAMD026300024
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PERSPECTIVE ARTICLE

AI-enabled materials intelligence for lunar regolith: Design, fabrication, and lifecycle management

Zhen Liu1*
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1 Institute of Space and Earth Information Science, Fok Ying Tung Remote Sensing Science Building, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR , China
Received: 20 July 2026 | Revised: 18 August 2026 | Accepted: 24 August 2026 | Published online: 28 August 2026
© 2026 by the Author(s). This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ )
Abstract

Artificial intelligence (AI) offers a new route to address the heterogeneity, data scarcity, and strongly coupled composition-process-structure-performance relationships of lunar regolith materials. This perspective reframes lunar regolith as a materials-intelligence problem that integrates materials data, physical knowledge, and AI-driven decision-making. Four pathways are examined: high-temperature densification, low-temperature consolidation, additive/composite manufacturing, and functionalized regolith materials. Priority AI interventions include physics-informed process modeling, composition-process-property learning, in-process monitoring, adaptive control, multi-objective design, and lifecycle prognostics for degradation and remaining-life prediction. We further propose an AI-enabled closed-loop framework linking resource characterization, material selection, autonomous fabrication, in-service monitoring, maintenance, and reuse. Future progress requires benchmark datasets, simulant-to-real transfer, uncertainty-aware learning, and closed-loop validation under lunar conditions. The central challenge is not merely to produce stronger regolith materials, but to establish trustworthy and deployable materials intelligence for long-term lunar infrastructure.

Graphical abstract
Keywords
Lunar regolith
Materials intelligence
AI-enabled materials design
In situ resource utilization
Physics-informed learning
Autonomous fabrication
Lifecycle management
Funding
None.
Conflict of interest
Zhen Liu serves as a Youth Editorial Board Member of this journal, but was not in any way involved in the editorial and peer-review process conducted for this paper, directly or indirectly. Separately, the author declares that there are no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have influenced the work reported in this paper.
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International Journal of AI for Materials and Design, Electronic ISSN: 3029-2573 Print ISSN: 3041-0746, Published by AccScience Publishing