This National Science Foundation (NSF) Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) Project Grant award of $874,489 to the University of Massachusetts, Amherst will support research to enable bipedal humanoid robots to rapidly navigate hazardous and unstructured environments, such as those encountered during search and rescue operations after natural disasters. The key objectives are to: (1) develop an event camera-based pose tracking framework for accurate real-time pose estimation during rapid robot...
The National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded a $323,345 Project Grant under its Integrative Activities (CFDA 47.083) program to the University of New Haven. The grant supports the acquisition of a legged robotic platform to conduct research and education on risk-aware automated exploration of unknown hazardous environments, with applications for automated search and rescue operations. The research will explore techniques such as real-time object dynamics estimation, natural language...
This $330,001 federal Project Grant awarded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) supports a research project at Clark University on the physical principles governing the dynamics of soft, undulating filaments in granular environments. Key objectives include: Constructing prototype soft robots that can navigate through complex sediment beds, enabled by a deeper understanding of burrowing mechanics Developing theoretical models to capture the shape, speed, and...
The National Science Foundation awarded a $572,149 project grant to the Regents of the University of California at Riverside under the Engineering program (CFDA 47.041). The grant will support research from March 2021 to February 2026 on developing morphological computation techniques for resilient dynamic locomotion of compliant legged robots. This has applications for precision agriculture. The Engineering program seeks to improve quality of life and economic strength by fostering innovation...
This National Science Foundation (NSF) Project Grant award under the NSF Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) provides $421,935 to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to develop an insect-scale quadrupedal robot with advanced climbing and grasping capabilities. The key objectives of this 3-year project, starting January 1, 2025, are to: (1) develop analytical models of adhesion and lubrication principles to enable inverted and vertical climbing with feedback control; and (2) demonstrate...
The National Science Foundation (NSF) Directorate for Engineering (CFDA 47.041) awarded a $451,667 Project Grant to Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University (Virginia Tech) to conduct fundamental research on creating plant-inspired growing robots capable of long-duration monitoring missions in complex, dynamic environments. The research aims to develop robotic hardware and capabilities that mimic plant-like "growth" and adaptation, enabling real-time and long-term...
The National Science Foundation (NSF) Directorate for Engineering (CFDA 47.041) awarded a $1,640,000 Project Grant to the University of Nevada, Reno (UNR) to develop more resilient autonomous robotic systems. The 4-year project, titled "EFRI BRAID: Resilient Autonomous Navigation Inspired by the Insect Central Complex and Sensorimotor Control Motifs," aims to leverage recent discoveries in insect neuroscience to enable robots to rapidly adapt to changes in their environment or damage...
This $629,806 Project Grant from the National Science Foundation's Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) funds experimental, numerical, and robotic research into the role of dynamic load sensing in legged locomotion. West Virginia University will conduct the research from October 2021 through September 2025. As part of the effort, Marshall University will receive a sub-award to perform $629k neurophysiology experiments on insects at its facilities and in collaboration with the University of Cologne,...
This National Science Foundation (NSF) project grant under the Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) aims to develop the world's smallest functional bipedal robot, multi-legged robot, and wheeled robot, each approximately 100 times smaller than the current state-of-the-art. The $854,461 award to Carnegie Mellon University, spanning from September 1, 2024 to August 31, 2027, will establish scaling laws to understand how actuation, joint losses, and contact properties change at smaller scales. This...
This $269,069 federal Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Integrative Activities program (CFDA 47.083) aims to advance space exploration by improving the performance and resilience of multi-agent robotic systems for harsh environments like the Moon or Mars. The University of Vermont & State Agricultural College, in collaboration with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, will develop data-driven robustification mechanisms to enhance the fault tolerance of multi-agent...