Skip to main content
Apply

Arts and Sciences

Open Main MenuClose Main Menu
Department of Computer Science

Collaborative Goal and Policy Learning from Human Operators of Construction Co-Robots

In this research, the focus is to allow autonomous robots to collaborate with each other and with human teammates.  A part of this research conducted by Dr. Crick and his students is funded through a grant from NSF's National Robotics Initiative, and focuses on robotic construction equipment.  Humans and robots have different strengths and skills; humans have a stronger grasp of context and big-picture decision making, but are not actually very good at low-level control.  It takes many years for an equipment operator to become proficient at manipulating the controls of a motor grader or excavator, but on the other hand, no robot can coordinate all of the activities on a job site.  Our research bridges the gap, allowing the robot to plan optimal control inputs within the larger frame of a human-demonstrated task, and perform faster, safer and more efficiently than the human could do alone.
 
MENUCLOSE