NSF Awards $30M to UT Austin for Center on Human-Robot Co-Adaptation
PeterStone_TX · x · 2026-08-28
The University of Texas at Austin has received a $30 million award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to establish the Center for Human and Robot Co-Adaptation.
The center will bring together 39 researchers from six universities—including MIT, Yale, and Indiana University—and multiple industry partners, such as Amazon, NVIDIA, and Google DeepMind. The primary goal is to study how assistive robots can leave the lab and live/work alongside humans in real-world settings like homes and hospitals, establishing a new science of "human-robot co-adaptation" where both parties learn and adjust behaviors over time.
- Leadership: Directed by Joydeep Biswas, associate professor of computer science at UT Austin.
- Partners: Collaboration with MIT, Yale, Indiana University Bloomington, University of Utah, Tufts University; industry collaborators include Amazon, Apptronik, Diligent Robotics, Google DeepMind, Hello Robot, MassRobotics, NVIDIA, and Robust AI.
- Focus: Researching long-term adaptation mechanisms for robots interacting with humans in everyday environments.
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