Michigan Robotics

A summary of what's been happening in the Michigan Robotics community, including: • the latest look at an effort to expand rural health care access • the role that gender of AI voices can affect our trust in autonomous vehicles • a lot more umrobotics.substack.com/p/datasets-for…

I'm excited to be part of this NPR story on neurotic robots. "Neurotic robots can be more relatable than extroverted bots, study finds" by Nell Greenfieldboyce @umsi @UMRobotics @BlackInRobotics @HRI_Conference @ieeeroman @ieeeras @UMichResearch npr.org/2025/07/25/nx-…

A 40-mile flight corridor for testing drones and electric aircraft will connect U-M's Mcity to Michigan Central’s innovation district in Detroit. The research skyway will be the centerpiece of M-air, a public-private partnership for advanced air mobility. myumi.ch/NrymD

New paper to be presented at IFAC 14th Symposium on Robotics entitled "Local Minima Prediction using Dynamic Bayesian Filtering for UGV Navigation in Unstructured Environments." #IFAC2025 @IFAC_Control @umsi @UMRobotics dx.doi.org/10.7302/25842.

We started "Robo Reflections" 💭 the new #HRI group @UMRobotics. It's like a reading group, but better - we engage in critical discussions beyond the readings of a single paper 🩶 Co-organized: @longjinghsu, @masterson_a, @mavrojean, @lionelrobertjr, leia stirling

What if advanced care met patients where they are? Dr. Mark Drealos and team developed a mobile OCT, which can safely position the scanner to accurately image the eye if a patient is sitting, reclining, or lying down. Read: robotics.umich.edu/news/2025/impr…

How can robots feel and localize extrinsic contacts through both vision👀and touch🖐️? #RSS2025 @RoboticsSciSys Introducing ViTaSCOPE: a sim-to-real visuo-tactile neural implicit representation for in-hand object pose and extrinsic contact estimation! jayjunlee.github.io/vitascope/

Happy to share my talk from the #ICRA2025 workshop on long-term human motion prediction (motionpredictionicra2025.github.io), where I highlight recent research from the @fluentrobotics lab on engineering fluent human-robot teamwork! youtu.be/FXNelyxjM9A @UMRobotics

eye exams can be challenging for kids. we created #robot #characters that make these exams approachable for them 🧸 check our #pictorial at @acm_dis! 🎥 youtube.com/watch?v=pokUG5… 🌭 dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/37… 💼 osf.io/bm8gs/?view_on… collab: @UMRobotics @umsi @UMichMedSchool

A special ICRA — a reunion with my former groups and a new beginning with my current one! #ICRA2025 @UMRobotics @Caltech @GTrobotics

For #WorldBiodiversityDay, Talia Moore spoke with @PaulsonInst on bioinspired robotics: “Bioinspired robotics can bring attention to rare or endangered species and help us see how they've evolved these awesome capabilities.” paulsoninstitute.org/conservation/c…

We received the #ICRA2025 #HRI #Award for Arts & Robotics on our co-painting robot 🏆 This project shows how arts and robotics can be used as a testbed to create better robots and to discover new knowledge about humans. @ieee_ras_icra @UMRobotics @DARPA

Work by Jeeho Ahn and @mavrojean Expo Hall (Room 101A) - 9AM- 1PM Wednesday video: youtu.be/WNWegHkDJ1Q paper: fluentrobotics.com/pdfs/ahn2025pi… code based on ReloPush: lnkd.in/g6xy2M7h hardware: mushr.io @UMRobotics

At #ICRA2025? Now (2pm), go paint with a robot from @p_alvesoliveira's lab in the exhibition hall, arts & robotics space!

This research explores passengers' questions about AI-driven vehicles and shows how clear explanations can boost understanding and acceptance of this technology. #CSCW2025 @umsi @UMichCSE #selfdrivingcars @UMRobotics #explainableAI #vehicles arxiv.org/abs/2505.06428

ROB 310: Sensors & Signals featured a... • walking crawling Mbot • computerized chessboard • musical abacus • & more!

A new paper reveals that gender similarity enhances trust when the voice aligns with expected gender roles. @CarolQiaoning @Jessie_YangXi @umsi @UMRobotics #automatedvehicles #selfdrivingcars #Robots #Robotics #ai #aivoice #genderbias #aibias nature.com/articles/s4159…

We've just installed a new robotics research water tank. We used 8 water samples from other tanks around the country to start it off. Read more: robotics.umich.edu/news/2025/new-…

A new paper on human-robot intimacy, Sexual and Emotional Intimacy with Robots:...Review, merges theory and practice to redefine emotional and sexual closeness. @umsi @ieeeras @UMRobotics @HRI_Conference @ieeeroman #sexrobot @BlackInRobotics #Robotics dx.doi.org/10.7302/25453

I graduated 6 PhD students since last year! Ray Zhang -> Research Scientist at @ToyotaResearch @JustinTzuYuan -> Postdoc at MIT w/ @SangbaeMIT @CynthiaChienErh -> Applied Scientist at Amazon Robotics Tribhi Kathuria -> Lecturer at @UMRobotics @SangliTeng -> Postdoc at UC…