Living and Working With Robots

The widespread use of service robots has been predicted to be “just around the corner” for decades. 
This project seeks to overcome the prevailing technical and social hurdles to deploying these robots by building and studying them in communities where they will be used rather than just in laboratories and warehouses. The team will begin its work designing robots for use on UT Austin’s campus in university libraries and other facilities. The goal is to design these robots in a way that upholds human values, does not cause unintentional harm, and improves campus quality of life and productivity. With these elements in place, this project will help create a new model for human-machine partnerships.