ROBOTS IN THE REAL WORLD
WORKING WITH HUMANS

Our research teams solve pressing robotics challenges in three overarching areas:
autonomous systems, cyber-physical technologies, and medical robotics.

Many of  the robotics systems we develop are able to adapt and evolve based
on the people and situation - the context - they encounter.

Faculty, students, and professional research staff in each of the
Contextual Robotics Institute's three core research areas will be housed in
collaborative research laboratories - collaborations - in Franklin Antonio Hall,
the newest engineering building at UC San Diego.

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Robotic News


Control algorithms could keep sensor-laden balloons afloat in hurricanes for a week

Control algorithms could keep sensor-laden balloons afloat in hurricanes for a week

December 23, 2016

Controls engineers at UC San Diego have developed practical strategies for building and coordinating scores of sensor-laden balloons within hurricanes. Using onboard GPS and cellphone-grade sensors, each drifting balloon becomes part of a ``swarm’’ of robotic vehicles, which can periodically report, via satellite uplink, their position, the local temperature, pressure, humidity and wind velocity. This new, comparatively low-cost sensing strategy promises to provide much-needed in situ sampling of environmental conditions for a longer range of time and from many vantage points within developing hurricanes. This has the potential to greatly improve efforts to estimate and forecast the intensity and track of future hurricanes in real time. Full Story


Israel's Journey to the Moon

Israel's Journey to the Moon

December 12, 2016

In 2010, Yonatan Winetraub, a citizen of Israel, sat down with two friends at a bar and said, “I have a crazy idea. Why don’t we be the first Israelis to land a spacecraft on the moon?” Six years later, the company they founded, SpaceIL, is making history as part of the Google Lunar XPRIZE competition aimed at placing an unmanned spacecraft on the moon's surface before the mission deadline of December 31, 2017.  Full Story


Scientist, Entrepreneur, Robotics Expert Will Speak to Downtown Collaboratory 'Game Changers'

Scientist, Entrepreneur, Robotics Expert Will Speak to Downtown Collaboratory 'Game Changers'

November 22, 2016

The fourth presentation in the Game Changers Series features Todd Hylton, a professor of practice at the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering and executive director of the UC San Diego Contextual Robotics Institute.The presentation, free and open to the public, will be held 5-7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 30, at the Downtown San Diego Partnership offices at 401 B St., Suite 100.The field of robotics is poised to change all aspects of modern life, from driving to housekeeping to our jobs. Hylton -- who has worked at Brain Corporation and DARPA, cofounded 4Wave, and is an inventor and entrepreneur who has earned 19 patents throughout his career -- is well-positioned to explain what is fueling the increased interest and investment into robotics and how this emerging field will affect not only our region but also the global economy. Full Story


News Archive

Seminars

Apr 01, 2024

"Becoming Teammates: Designing Assistive, Collaborative Machines"

Monday, Apr. 1st @ 2pm

Format: Zoom  

Speaker: Chien-Ming Huang

Mar 14, 2024

"Learning Controllers for Multi-Robot Teams"

Thursday, Mar. 14th @ 11am

FAH 3002 / Zoom https://ucsd.zoom.us/j/95959557868

Speaker: Gaurav S. Sukhatme

Mar 07, 2024

"Computational Symmetry and Learning for Efficient Generalizable Algorithms in Robotics"

Thursday, Mar. 7th @ 11am

FAH 3002 / Zoom https://ucsd.zoom.us/j/95959557868

Speaker: Maani Ghaffari