National Science Foundation and Others Award $37M in Co-Robot Funding

The development of co-robots in the U.S. has just received an injection in the arm.

This week the National Science Foundation (NSF)—in partnership with the DOD, DARPA, NASA, the NIH, and the USDA—announced a $37 million slew of awards to bolster the development of robots meant to work cooperatively with humans.

“Our engineers and scientists are creating a world where robotic systems serve as trusted co-workers, co-inhabitants, co-explorers and co-defenders,” saidPramod Khargonekar, NSF's assistant director for engineering. “The National Robotics Initiative serves the national good by encouraging collaboration among academic, industry, nonprofit and other organizations -- and by speeding the creation of the fundamental science and engineering knowledge base used by researchers, applications developers and industry.”

According to the NSF, the awards run the gamut of the development cycle, from fundamental research to prototyping and testing. Some examples of projects include improving brain-controlled prosthetic devices, designing robots for search and rescue efforts, and robots that can assist with healthcare tasks.

This marks the fourth round of awards from the National Robotics Initiative, which the federal government launched in June 2011. In that time, the NSF and partner agencies have invested $150 million in research, prototyping and testing, and education efforts.  

In 2015, funds from the initiative supported 66 research proposals from 47 research institutions in 27 states.

Joining the partnership for 2016 proposal calls is the DOE.

“Basic research to develop the underlying understanding and technologies for robots and robotic systems is resulting in profound advances in the field with the potential to augment human abilities, perform dangerous tasks unsuitable for people and improve our quality of life,” said Jim Kurose, NSF's assistant director for computer and information science and engineering. “Working together with many federal agencies has helped to develop a broad portfolio of robotics research with a greater impact than any one agency could do by itself. We are excited to be growing this effort through the addition of the (DOE).”