Our lab's research builds human-centered principles and methods to enable effective and intuitive interactions between people and robotic technologies and facilitate the successful integration of these technologies into human environments.
Recent Publications
Sprout: Designing Expressivity for Robots Using Fiber-Embedded Actuator
In this paper, we explore how soft robotics techniques can help create a new form of robot expression. We present Sprout, a soft expressive robot that conveys its internal states by changing its body shape. …
March 31, 2024
Lively: Enabling Multimodal, Lifelike, and Extensible Real-time Robot Motion
Robots designed to interact with people in collaborative or social scenarios must move in ways that are consistent with the robot’s task and communication goals. However, combining these goals in a naïve manner can result …
March 2, 2023
The virtual and the physical: two frames of mind
Virtual and physical embodiments of interactive artificial agents utilize similar core technologies for perception, planning, and interaction and engage with people in similar ways. Thus, designers have typically considered these embodiments to be broadly interchangeable, …
February 9, 2021- More...
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Lab Values
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Create value for People
Our work is grounded in real problems, human needs, and desire to improve human life.
We shouldn’t seek to use technology for technology’s sake. We should be human-centered not only in topic, but in process and essence. Follow the Wisconsin Idea.
Do the science right
In the People and Robots Lab, we hold ourselves to the highest standards of scientific rigor and integrity. This means creating and using strong experimental designs, genuine ethnographies, and reporting solid results.
Be the best work out there
We create work that would be considered the “best work out there.” We value quality over quantity, and aim for maximum impact. We have a prestigious record for paper awards and nominations, fellowships, dissertation awards, and our alumni have gone onto great institutions like Hopkins, Yale, UNC, NRL, Microsoft, Google, and Facebook.
Aim to flourish and nurture
We help each other, train others, value the quality of life of the members of the lab, and cultivate a positive and supportive culture for personal growth.
Always improve
We continuously improve the processes, systems, and environment for individuals and teams. We should think bigger than our own work and try to create systems that help everyone. If everyone participates and contributes to this improvement, we all accomplish better science.