Human-Centered Robotic Systems
Robots and people that read each other's intent and share control of the task
What it means
AI, XR, and robotics that help robots sense human behavior, infer intent, provide context-aware feedback, and assist proactively in collaborative manufacturing workflows.
Why it matters
Industrial robots often treat humans as obstacles or supervisors, which limits natural collaboration in active manufacturing and logistics environments. Direct teleoperation is slow and cognitively demanding, and command-by-command control does not scale to contact-rich or multi-operator tasks.
What this research enables
Value to Industry
- Fewer interaction errors and safer collaboration on shared tasks
- Lower operator burden, with robots that adapt to the workflow
- Operators working remotely through shared control
Human-Robot Teaming
Adaptive robot behavior for collaborative manufacturing and logistics workflow
Operational Gap
Industrial robots often treat humans as obstacles or supervisors, which limits natural collaboration in active manufacturing/logistics environments
Core Innovation
Human-aware autonomy that enables diverse robots to predict worker behavior, adapt to preferences, learn from feedback, and support collaborative workflows
Value to Industry
Safer human-robot collaboration, improved adoption, more flexible automation, and robotic assistance that adapts to local workflows and human expectations
Adaptive robot behavior around operators and maintenance personnel
Faculty: Jiachen Li
U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF)OOperator - aware navigation and manipulation in active manufacturing spaces
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Human-robot material handoff at assembly/loading stations
Faculty:
XR-Assisted Shared Autonomy and Teleoperation
Turning uncertain health predictions into robust maintenance decisions
Operational Gap
Direct teleoperation is slow and cognitively demanding, and command- by-command control does not scale to contact-rich or multi-operator tasks
Core Innovation
Predicts the next action from motion and context, and uses haptics and multi-operator coordination to enable cooperative, contact-rich manipulation
Value to Industry
Lower operator workload, more natural interaction, improved coordination, and stronger support for contact-rich cooperative manipulation
Bidirectional intent communication in human-robot collaboration
Faculty: Mohsen Moghaddam
U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF)Embodied Interaction with XR and Haptic Gloves
Faculty:
Teleoperation with next-action prediction
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