The Distributed Intelligence Laboratory was founded in August of 2002 by Prof. Lynne E. Parker and is engaged in research in cooperative robotics and distributed artificial intelligence. Our research is focused on the computational issues of distributed intelligent systems -- particularly embodied intelligent systems that have a physical instantiation in the world, such as multi-robot teams, sensor networks, or software agents. We characterize distributed intelligent systems as multiple entities that integrate perception, reasoning, and action to perform cooperative tasks under circumstances that are insufficiently known in advance, and dynamically changing during task execution.

The Neurobotics Laboratory is interested in building a robot-human closed loop system to alter the neural control of movement as a way to rehabilitate, assist, and enhance human motor control and learning capabilities. Our primary target population is individuals with strokes, spinal cord injuries, traumatic brain injuries, and other injuries that inhibit daily activities. We also target sports medicine, military, and entertainment applications.

The Haptic Exploration Laboratory works with both robotic haptics and human-machine haptic interfaces. In the area of robotic haptics, we enable robots to explore the world through touch, using specialized robotic fingers and sensors and the appropriate planning and control. We are developing new finger designs and algorithms for autonomous and teleoperated haptic exploration. In the area of human-machine haptic interfaces, haptic interfaces are used to add the sense of touch to virtual and teleoperated environments. By creating physically-based mathematical models of interactions in real environments, we can enhance the realism of virtual environments. In addition, haptic feedback and active augmentation modes can improve the performance of robotic assistants in tele- and cooperative manipulation. These systems are evaluated using control theoretic and experimental approaches. This research has applications in many areas, including computer-assisted and simulated surgery, autonomous exploration of hazardous or remote environments, undersea salvage, enabling technologies, and manufacturing and design. Sponsors of our work include NSF, NIH and the Whitaker Foundation. The lab director is Dr. Allison Okamura.

Taking inspiration and guidance from the science of animal and human behavior, our goal is to build cooperative robots that can work and learn in partnership with people. Not only an engineering endeavour, we hope to gain scientific insight into the mechanisms that underlie this human and animal competence, and to develop a science of human-robot collaboration. Given the multi-disciplinary nature of this endeavor, our research explores a wide variety of topics including:

- Novel mechanical designs
- New sensing and actuator technologies
- Active multi-modal perceptual systems
- Natural language and gesture interfaces
- Expressive movement and skillful motor control
- Social learning
- Psychological modeling
- Human-robot interaction and collaboration

Directed by Prof. Alícia Casals, UPC, Spain

The Science Integration Program was established in April 2005 under the direction of University of Tokyo President Hiroshi Komiyama. The Science Integration Program - Human, started as the first activity in the overall program, will target integration of knowledge within the field of life science relating in particular to scientific knowledge of the human organism from genome to organism level phenomena.

MIRALab is a creative lab which benefits from an interdisciplinary team working in a very collaborative way.
The MIRALab research group at the University of Geneva was founded in 1989 by Nadia Magnenat-Thalmann.

Artificial Intelligence, Robotics and Vision Laboratory

Research topic of the laboratory includes humanoid robots, dynamics-based information processing, human figures, and medical robotics.

Ishikawa Namiki Laboratory, Department of Information Physics and Computing,
Graduate School of Information Science and Technology, University of Tokyo