The Rise of Robotics: Projects Helping Shape Our Future

The Rise of Robotics:Robots have long captured our collective imaginations. In today’s world robotics are an essential driver behind next-generation products, medical innovations, educational advances and more. Case Western Reserve University innovations are leading the way.

Researchers across Case Western Reserve University—including at the cutting-edge Human Fusions Institute—develop projects with the potential to reshape how we conduct our lives.

Robots for mental health and human interaction

In the Social and Physical Human-Robot Interaction (SaPHaRI) Lab at Case School of Engineering, Assistant Professor Alexis E. Block’s research team designs, builds, and programs robots for unique social and physical interactions with humans.

One such example involves the NAO robot, part of the team’s ongoing AstroPsycho project: a multimodal framework designed to provide dynamic mental health support in challenging environments where traditional support is limited or impossible. 

By leveraging asynchronous therapist guidance and real-time physiological signals to administer on-demand support sessions, AstroPsych adapts continuously to the evolving needs of individuals in crisis.

The SaPHaRI team is also at work on RoboSOAR (Robotic System for Optimized Adaptive inteRaction), a Baxter Robot (Rethink Robotics, 2011) a robot they inherited that is mounted on a custom mobile base. Knowing how influential first impressions can be, the team is exploring how a robot that adapts its gestures and behaviors based on human feedback can shape people’s willingness to engage with it.

Learn more about the SaPHaRI team’s work including their ongoing Turtlebots project, an exploration of the interaction between humans and a group of mobile robots in a guided navigation context.

Biologically inspired robots bury cables and retrieve underwater mines

In Assistant Professor Kathryn “Kati” Daltorio’s lab at Case School of Engineering, the team is working to create “soft robots”: creations that bridge a gap between the design and function of biological creatures and manufactured robots. Their goal? Enable humans to accomplish important tasks—wherever they may be.

In one such example, the Daltorio Lab is working to extend human reach underground. Funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, they’re drawing inspiration from worms to develop a peristaltic conduit that expands and contracts to burrow into the ground. The project—which also earned Daltorio a prestigious National Science Foundation CAREER Award—could pave the way for underground powerline installation nationwide, regardless of surrounding infrastructure limitations.

But worms aren’t the only creatures offering Daltorio inspiration. As co-director of the Biologically Inspired Robots Lab, Daltorio models crabs, applying their abilities to crawl, clutch, and climb to the robots her team creates. Possible applications include retrieving unexploded bombs from underwater, testing the integrity of offshore oil structures and the like—but they’re just getting started. Newswise/SP