Learn about the robotics research happening at UVA Engineering and brainstorm ideas on how robotics can play various roles in other scientific disciplines.
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The Robotics + X Symposium invites faculty across UVA Engineering and related schools (College of Arts and Science, SDS, Medical School, etc.) to participate in a one-day event focused on interdisciplinary robotics research.
This one-day symposium will present an opportunity for the broader scientific community at UVA to learn about the robotics research happening at UVA Engineering and brainstorm ideas on how robotics can play various roles in other scientific disciplines. Through tutorials, presentations, demonstrations, and collaborative discussions, the event will seed new interdisciplinary projects, strengthen community ties, and position UVA as a national leader in embodied physical AI.
We seek two types of participation: (1) Faculty whose work intersects with core robotics through fields such as computer science, electrical and computer engineering, mechanical engineering, and so on. Faculty may focus on a tutorial style participation where they may focus on demonstrating their work to the broader science community. (2) Faculty in adjacent science domains, including but not limited to medicine, biology, chemistry, civil engineering, environmental science, architecture, and data science, where robotics can serve as a transformative enabler. Faculty may focus on presenting their research and potential ideas on transformative robotic collaboration.
The goal of the symposium is to catalyze cross-cutting research, highlight existing robotics efforts across UVA, and identify new collaborative opportunities. Activities will include faculty research talks, poster presentations, robot demonstrations, and a forward-looking panel discussion aimed at developing joint projects and proposals. This event is an excellent opportunity to showcase your work, identify new collaborators, and shape the future of robotics research at UVA.
If you would like to participate through either type of participation, please reach out to Rohan
(rohanchandra@virginia.edu).
About Robotics + X
Robotics is entering a new transformative era (2023-) fueled by the convergence of generative artificial intelligence, advances in hardware architecture and accelerators, and pretrained foundation models trained on the entirety of the internet. This new era, which arguably can be considered as the successor of the self-driving vehicles wave, is witnessing a global momentum consisting of humanoid robots and general embodied AI systems which has led to the emergence of “physical artificial intelligence” as a defining theme of modern robotics research. The next 10 years will witness physical artificial intelligence transform, not only factories and warehouses, but society at its core.
UVA Engineering is home to a vibrant robotics community spanning multiple departments and anchored in the Link Lab, a nationally recognized research center for cyber-physical systems. Faculty across Computer Science, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Systems Engineering, and more conduct research in ground robotics, aerial robotics, medical robotics, marine robotics, multi-robot systems, autonomous driving, human-robot interaction, among other areas.
However, to think futuristically, we must think beyond factories. To fully harness the promise of societal transformation brought by robotics, it is critical to look beyond traditional engineering and computer science disciplines. We propose the concept of Robotics + X, where “X” includes not only related technical domains in CS and ECE such as control theory, natural language processing, and computer vision, but also scientific fields such as medicine, biology, chemistry, geology, and civil engineering. The integration of robotics with these fields presents an unprecedented opportunity to solve grand societal challenges–from robotic surgery and assistive care to autonomous environmental monitoring and resilient infrastructure design.