The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded a $300,000 Early-concept Grants for Exploratory Research (EAGER) grant to the University of Illinois under the NSF Engineering program (CFDA 47.041). The 2-year project, titled "TASKDCL: Personalized Robotic Assistance: Developing Safe, User-Taught Functionalities for Diverse Needs," aims to address the challenge of enabling a quadrotor to safely pick up and deliver a small package to a human's outstretched hand based on the human's instructions. The research effort seeks to incorporate the human's cognitive state into the quadrotor's decision-making, fostering bidirectional sensorimotor interaction between the human and the robot. The project has two interconnected thrusts: (1) planning and control for safe human-robot interaction with models for human cognitive states, and (2) iterative learning for enhanced performance towards efficient and safe human-robot interactions. This EAGER award, co-funded by the NSF's Dynamics, Controls, and System Diagnostics and Mind, Machine, and Motor Nexus programs, is expected to contribute to the development of robots that can genuinely adapt to and meet individual needs for more personalized and safe human-robot interactions.
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