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Through Florida A&M University, the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering is partnering in a large multi-institutional collaboration that has received $26 million from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to launch a new Engineering Research Center (ERC).
The center, led by Northwestern University, is dedicated to revolutionizing robots’ ability to amplify human labor. Carl Moore, an associate professor and robotics researcher in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, leads the FAMU team at the joint college.
The ERC core partners include Carnegie Mellon University, FAMU and Texas A&M University with additional faculty support from Syracuse University, the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Called Human AugmentatioN via Dexterity (HAND), the new ERC will transform dexterous robot hands into versatile, easy-to-integrate tools. By developing technologies that enable human-like robotic dexterity, the center aims to create robots capable of intelligent and versatile grasping, fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination. These functions will improve robots’ ability to assist humans with manufacturing, caregiving, handling precious or dangerous materials and more.
Researchers want to ensure new robotic hands are inexpensive, easy to operate without expertise, robust, durable and mass-manufacturable.
J. Edward Colgate, a Walter P. Murphy Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Northwestern’s McCormick School of Engineering and an expert in robots and haptics, will lead the center. While robots already play an important role in manufacturing, Colgate says their full potential has been limited. Developing robotic hands that are as versatile and dexterous as human hands will enable robots to affect society more broadly.
“Rapid advances in artificial intelligence (AI) have created an incredible opportunity to make robot manipulators accessible to small American manufacturers, people with motor impairments and many others who might benefit,” Colgate said. “A huge challenge, however, is what we put at the end of the robot’s arm. Today’s two-jaw grippers are far too limited. HAND’s fundamental research will lead to robots with dexterous and versatile hands, manual skills and intuitive interfaces that anyone can learn to use.”
But dexterity isn’t the new project’s only goal. The researchers also want to ensure new robotic hands are inexpensive, easy to operate without expertise, robust, durable and mass-manufacturable. As part of the center, robotics and technology researchers will work across disciplines to engage experts in education, policy, accessibility and diversity, equity and inclusion.
Moore will focus on robotic touch interaction and lead the project’s recruiting, mentoring and inclusion efforts.
Moore says the challenge addressed by HAND is to advance robots to the point that they augment humans in hands-on work by overcoming a key technical challenge: dexterity. Today’s robots lack hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills that enable humans to effortlessly manipulate various objects, perform assembly, learn new skills and cope with variability. HAND’s vision is to revolutionize dexterous robotics to augment and empower the human workforce.
The interdisciplinary team will help develop and prepare a diverse workforce for a new field of study focused on dexterous robots and foster a culture that nourishes inclusivity and ensures equitable access to new technologies. The work could potentially lead to increased worker productivity, improved job opportunities, reshoring of manufacturing, reduced supply chain vulnerability, enhanced food safety, improved quality of life, and democratization of robotics’ benefits.
The project’s objectives are driven by three key research areas: hands, intelligent dexterity and human interface. The “hands” thrust focuses on developing robust, mass-producible robot hands that feature soft, durable sensing skins, advanced actuators and innovative designs optimized for versatility and robustness. Moore, alongside joint college faculty members Tarik Dickens and Brandon Krick, will contribute to this area.
The “intelligent dexterity” thrust aims to create a comprehensive library of visual-tactile-motor skills, known as “dexterity policies,” and combine them into high-level dexterous behaviors. These advancements are expected to achieve breakthrough performance across a wide range of benchmark tasks.
The “human interface” thrust will explore new paradigms for programming, teaching and supervising in-hand dexterous tasks. This effort aims to make these tasks accessible to skilled workers without prior robotics experience, thereby accelerating worker training and enhancing robot adoption. Engineering professor Jonathan Clark is a key contributor to this third research thrust.
Students at the joint college will help research, design and create the Dexterity Education (DexEd) testbed. DexEd will be an open-source, low-cost platform that introduces high school and community college students to dexterous robotics and machine learning. Led by Clark and engineering professor Shonda Bernadin, DexEd will be disseminated to all partner universities and deployed at STEM days, summer engineering camps, classrooms and National Robotics Week celebrations.
Each partner will be responsible for an “application testbed,” referring to a controlled environment or a platform where experimental research, development and testing for new technologies or systems are conducted. Testbeds are integral to the mission of ERCs, as they provide the infrastructure and resources necessary for researchers to validate their concepts, prototypes and technologies in a realistic, controlled setting.
The NSF grant will fund the new center across five years, with the ability to renew for another $26 million for an additional five years. It marks the first ERC led by Northwestern.
Since its founding in 1985, the ERC program has supported convergent research, education and technology translation at U.S. universities. Each ERC unites members from academia, industry and government to produce transformational engineered systems along with engineering graduates who are adept at innovation and primed for leadership in the global economy.
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