This National Science Foundation (NSF) Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Project Grant, awarded under the Engineering (CFDA 47.041) program, will provide $650,000 over 5 years to enable robots to work more safely and effectively alongside humans. The key objectives are to develop new algorithms and control methods that allow robots to better predict human intent, adapt their behavior in real-time, and ensure safe and stable physical interactions. Specifically, the research will focus...
The National Science Foundation (NSF) Directorate for Engineering awarded a 5-year, $626,006 CAREER grant to The Pennsylvania State University, doing business as Penn State, to support research that enables dynamic modeling, control, and design for next-generation autonomous aerial systems with enhanced capabilities and operational efficiency. The project aims to establish a foundational framework that could revolutionize the entire lifecycle of autonomous systems, from production to...
This National Science Foundation (NSF) Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program award to Montclair State University supports research to advance multi-human, multi-robot collaborative manufacturing systems in emerging Industry 5.0 contexts. The $500,000 grant, spanning 5 years from September 2024 to August 2029, aims to develop a synergistic computational framework for characterizing, modeling, and assessing human factors and task scheduling to improve both manufacturing efficiency...
The National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded a $368,886 Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) grant under the Engineering Program (CFDA 47.041) to Purdue University to conduct fundamental research on using snapping instabilities for designing shape-reconfigurable structures. The 4-year project, starting on March 15, 2024, aims to develop theoretical models, experimental data, simulation tools, and new design methods to enable structures that can extensively vary their shapes while...
The National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded a $703,424 Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program grant to Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University (Virginia Tech) to develop hardware and software tools to facilitate communication between robots and humans through visual, auditory, and haptic interfaces. The research aims to formalize the bidirectional exchange between humans and robots as a closed-loop dynamical system, enabling assistive robots to learn user preferences...
This Project Grant awarded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) under the Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) will support $361,090 in research to expand the understanding of how robots can make safe decisions in real-world environments. The goal is to develop new methods that enable robots to better assess and respond to nuanced safety challenges, such as avoiding areas marked with caution tape, slowing down when transporting hot liquids, and seeking clarification when uncertain about a task....
The National Science Foundation awarded a $557,806 Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program grant to Lehigh University to conduct research on how the allocation of design tasks between humans and artificial intelligence (AI) agents impacts engineering design outcomes. The 5-year project seeks to develop a systematic approach for defining optimal roles for AI within hybrid human-AI design teams. It will use computational modeling and experiments with a video game platform to assess how...
The National Science Foundation (NSF) Engineering program awarded a $546,127 Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) grant to the University of Pittsburgh to investigate novel, reversible adhesion mechanisms for soft materials like hydrogels. This research aims to enable the reconfigurable assembly of soft machines, such as medical implants, wearable devices, and biomimetic robots. The project will explore the underlying mechanics of stimuli-responsive osmocapillary and electrostatic...
The National Science Foundation awarded a $100,000 CAREER grant to Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) under the Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) to conduct research on leveraging the collective power of robotic grasping algorithms through meta-learning and active perception. The project aims to develop ensemble learning methods and active vision strategies to improve the reliability of robots in manipulating objects in cluttered and unstructured settings. The research outcomes will be used...
Arizona State University received a $569,413 National Science Foundation Project Grant under the Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) for the period of June 1, 2021 through May 31, 2026. The grant funds the "CAREER: WHEN REALITY FAILS EXPECTATIONS: CONTAINING REFLECTIVE DOMAIN MODELS FOR HUMAN-AWARE PLANNING AND LEARNING OF ROBOTIC TEAMMATES" project. This project aims to develop domain models and learning techniques to help robots better understand human expectations and adapt their...