Research and Development


Our robots are designed to co-exist with people in everyday environments. To reach this goal, our development efforts have tackled some of the most interesting challenges in robotics through various collaborative research projects that span multiple disciplines. The following highlight major areas of ongoing focus:


Object manipulation within unstructured environments

Robots, characteristically, manipulate objects by grasping, moving, and then placing or assembling them. Our research in object manipulation focuses on interactions within unstructured environments, starting with basic tasks and building to more complex forms of dexterity.


Safe navigation in dynamically-changing environments

To effectively work in real world environments, a robot must plan and safely execute collision-free paths around people and clutter (noise). Our work in motion planning creates embedded systems that ensure robust, safe motion in dynamically-changing environments.


Building a coherent world map

Safe operation by a robot is critically dependent on robust, accurate, and timely awareness of its surroundings. Our work integrates cues from diverse forms of embedded sensors and geometric primitives to define the basic map of the surrounding space, and then supplements this world model with semantic labeling of simple and complex objects.


Completing a task after unexpected changes

Even the best-laid plans often go awry. A robot must, therefore, react quickly to minor disturbances, and create a new plan to execute its task when faced with major unexpected changes. Our research in task-level planning integrates motion planning and perception to re-sequence basic operations and achieve the desired objective.