The National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded more than $2 million to fund projects led by Georgia Tech robotics researchers. The principal investigators (PIs) and co-PIs for these projects represent three of the Institute's six colleges, illustrating the interdisciplinary collaboration that distinguishes Tech as a leader in the national initiative to accelerate the development and use of robots in the United States.

"Georgia Tech faculty have a strong tradition of exceptional research and a robust interdisciplinary focus," said Henrik Christensen, KUKA Chair of Robotics and director of the Robotics & Intelligent Machines Center (RIM), the flagship for the Institute's robotics efforts. "I'm extremely proud of and continually impressed with the contributions our researchers make to advancing robotics."

Three projects received NSF funding through the National Robotics Initiative program, which was unveiled by President Obama in June 2011, and is led by NSF with support from NASA, the National Institutes of Health, and the United States Department of Agriculture. Tech's new projects focus on the development of the next generation of robotics and the advancement of the capability and usability of such systems in innovative application areas:

*"Learning from Demonstration for Cloud Robotics"-Led by School of Interactive Computing Associate Professor Andrea Thomaz, this project received $426K and aims to leverage cloud computing to enable robots to efficiently learn from remote human domain experts.

*"Understanding Neuromuscular Adaptations in Human-Robot Physical Interaction for Adaptive Robot Coworkers"-Led by School of Mechanical Engineering Assistant Professor Jun Ueda, this research focuses on developing theories, methods, and tools to understand the mechanisms of neuromotor adaptation in human-robot physical interaction. Associate Professor Minoru Shinohara (School of Applied Physiology) and Assistant Professor Karen Feigh (School of Aerospace Engineering) serve as co-PIs on the project, which received almost $1.2M.

*"Don't Read My Face: Tackling the Challenges of Facial Masking in Parkinson's Disease Rehabilitation through Co-Robot Mediators"-Led by College of Computing Associate Dean & Regents' Professor, Ronald Arkin, this project received almost $580K and has two primary goals: 1) developing a robotic architecture endowed with moral emotional control mechanisms, abstract moral reasoning, and theory of mind sensitive to human affect and ethics; and 2) creating a specific architecture for a robot to mediate communication barriers between caregivers and patients with Parkinson's disease who experience "facial masking," or lack of recognizable emotion.

The fourth project, "Bioinspired Collaborative Sensing with Novel Gliding Robotic Fish," received more than $83K from the NSF's Robust Intelligence (RI) program, which encompasses all aspects of the computational understanding and modeling of intelligence in complex, realistic contexts. Led by School of Electrical & Computer Engineering Associate Professor Fumin Zhang, the research aims to establish a theoretical framework and provide an enabling technology for robust underwater collaborative sensing with small, inexpensive robots.

Robotics research at Tech attracts more than $35 million in sponsored research each year. Core research areas include mechanisms, control, perception, artificial intelligence, human interaction, and application technologies. The Institute continues to advance personal and everyday robotics through its research into the ways robots can learn from and interact with humans, and by exploring issues surrounding their governance and ethical use.