ROBOTS IN THE REAL WORLD
WORKING WITH HUMANS
Our research teams are working to solve today’s pressing challenges in key areas including healthcare and autonomous vehicles.
Long term, we aim to develop robots that serve society in real-time, in the real world. These robotic systems will adapt, evolve, and create their own solutions based on the people and situations – the context – they encounter. And they’ll need to be secure.
To deliver, we are tackling fundamental research bottlenecks that will open up new capabilities for robots. Autonomous operation in many different environments is just one example.
Our plans require new approaches to research. New paradigms. We’ve aligned world-class expertise in hardware, software, cognitive science, design, machine learning, materials, security, and more, to make it happen.
Join us.
The Contextual Robotics Institute held the 6th annual Forum on November 7, 2019.
Attendees connected with San Diego's top researchers, students and industry professionals working on cutting edge robotics.
The UC San Diego Contextual Robotics Institute held the 2019 San Diego Robotics Forum on Thursday, November 7. We brought together the broader robotics community in San Diego to continue to grow the regional ecosystem. The Forum showcased the breadth and depth of robotics work underway here.
The day-long program featured presentations, panel discussions, posters, demonstrations, and networking.
Read a 2019 Forum wrap-up here.
Robotics News
May 18, 2020
Engineers develop low-cost, high-accuracy GPS-like system for flexible medical robots
Roboticists at the University of California San Diego have developed an affordable, easy to use system to track the location of flexible surgical robots inside the human body. The system performs as well as current state of the art methods, but is much less expensive. Many current methods also require exposure to radiation, while this system does not. The system was developed by Tania Morimoto, a professor of mechanical engineering at the Jacobs School of Engineering at UC San Diego, and mechanical engineering Ph.D. student Connor Watson. Their findings are published in the April 2020 issue of IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters. Full Story
April 8, 2020
Thanks to 'flexoskeletons,' these insect-inspired robots are faster and cheaper to make
Engineers at the University of California San Diego have developed a new method that doesn’t require any special equipment and works in just minutes to create soft, flexible, 3D-printed robots. The structures were inspired by insect exoskeletons, which have both soft and rigid parts--the researchers called their creations “flexoskeletons.” Full Story
Seminars
(All Seminars)
Location: Atkinson Hall Auditorium
Time: 5:00pm - 7:00pm
"Learning Adaptive Models for Human-Robot Teaming"
Atkinson Hall 4004/4006
Howard Thomas - University of Rochester
"Key Challenges in Agricultural Robotics with Examples of Ground Vehicle Localization in Orchards and Task-Specific Manipulator Design for Fruit Harvesting"
EBU 1 - Qualcomm Conference Room
Amir Degani - Technion (Israel Institute of Technology)
"The Business of Robotics: An introduction to the commercial robotics landscape, and considerations for identifying valuable robot opportunities."
Center for Memory Recording Research (CMRR)
Phil Duffy - Brain Corp