Researchers at UW-Madison and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology recently developed a collaborative project to develop new ways of integrating robots into human workforces, according to a university press release.
UW-Madison Human-Computer Interaction Laboratory Director Bilge Mutlu will serve as the principle investigator alongside Julie Shah, an assistant professor of aeronautics and astronautics at MIT. The National Science Foundation provided a three-year grant of over $290,000 to fund the project, according to the NSF awards records.
The robotics research Mutlu and Shah will conduct aims to analyze interactions between humans and robots. They will use a kind of new-generation robot called "Baxter" robots as subjects in their research, UW-Madison news content strategist Sandra Knisely said in an email.
These “new-school” robots function mainly as manufacturing “workers” that are capable of accepting a wide range of program tasks, as opposed to traditional robots with a narrow list of capabilities.
“This new family of robotic technology will change how manufacturing is done,” Mutlu said in the release.
The research will also explore collaboration between workers and robots and help transition them into workplaces.
UW computer sciences graduate Allison Sauppé observed these robots at the global furniture manufacturer Steelcase last summer. Sauppé said in the release that many employees treated them like co-workers.
“Some workers saw Baxter as a social being or almost a co-worker, and they talked about Baxter as if it were another person,” Sauppé said in the release.
