University of Utah researchers will participate in a new National Science Foundation Science and Technology Center designed to study human-robot co-adaptation. Led by the University of Texas at Austin, the Center for Human and Robot Co-Adaptation aims to understand how people and robots learn from one another and adjust behaviors over long periods in everyday settings.
The University of Utah will play a central role in the five-year collaboration, which is funded by a $30 million NSF grant. Daniel Brown, an assistant professor in the Kahlert School of Computing within the John and Marcia Price College of Engineering, will lead the Utah contingent of researchers. Other Kahlert faculty involved in the project include Tucker Hermans, Jason Wiese, Kenneth Marino, and psychology professor Frank Drews.
The University of Utah will provide real-world proving grounds through the Human Environment with Robots (HERO) Facility Network. Mobile robots will be deployed at University of Utah Health sites, such as the Craig H. Neilsen Rehabilitation Hospital and the planned One U Residential Center. These robots will start with simple fetch-and-delivery tasks before expanding to duties like cleaning, tidying, social conversations, assistive feeding, and social navigation.
The research seeks to move robotics beyond short laboratory experiments to understand how technology can support independence in environments like dormitories, museums, and care facilities. According to researcher Jason Wiese, the project offers a chance to study how robots can adapt to individual needs and support greater independence. Utah will also contribute to education and outreach through collaborations with the Utah STEM Action Center.
The center brings together 39 researchers from six universities, including Indiana University Bloomington, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Tufts University, and Yale University. Industry collaborators for the project include Amazon, Apptronik, Diligent Robotics, Google DeepMind, Hello Robot, MassRobotics, NVIDIA, and Robust AI.
