Contextual Robotics Forum 2015: the Future of Robotics

Estimated reading time: 8 minutes

“Northrop Grumman is dedicated to be at the forefront of autonomy, and the vision that UC San Diego has here in the Contextual Robotics Institute works well with our collaborative partnering,” Pieronek said during his remarks at the Forum.

Qualcomm Technologies CTO Matt Grob described how the next generation of robots could be integrated into various aspects of human life. Society in the future could include, for example, robots that walk dogs, take inventory in company warehouses, scan farm fields to monitor the application of fertilizers and pesticides, save victims from burning buildings and drive people around safely.

“Robotics is in a state of revolution,” said Grob. Some of these technologies, he noted, are no longer the future. They are already of the past and present. 

For example, researchers in the lab of UC San Diego electrical engineering professor Mohan Trivedi are developing intelligent and autonomous automobile systems to enable safe, stress-free and efficient driving. These highly sensorized cars are programmed to continuously monitor the driver’s movements and gaze, and then use this information to predict what the driver intends to do, as well as when it’s appropriate to merge, change lanes, accelerate and decelerate. Trivedi announced that intelligent assistance features built in his lab will be installed in the Audi A8 in 2017.

Developing robotics to understand and work with people

Trivedi acknowledged that not everyone will be comfortable with leaving the driving up to a machine. He noted that Institute researchers are interested in teaching robotic systems to understand human behavior to increase the overall synergy between robots and humans.

“We want [humans and robots] to live in the same space,” said Trivedi.

Building robots that can better interact with humans involves taking cues from the brain, which is “the ultimate cognitive engineer,” said Andrea Chiba in her talk at the Forum. Chiba is a cognitive science professor at UC San Diego who works with UC San Diego bioengineering professor Todd Coleman on a robot rodent called iRat. The robot interacts with live rodents to better understand social interactions.

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