Marquette Today

Campus News and Events

Submit news

Menu

  • Campus News
    • Top News for Students
    • Top News for Faculty & Staff
    • Magazines at Marquette
    • Campus Alerts
  • Archives
  • Submit news
    • Editorial Guidelines
    • Contacts
  • @MarquetteToday
  • Events Calendar
  • Topics
    • Community Engagement
    • Diversity
    • Innovation
    • Master Planning
    • Marquette Momentum
    • Research
    • Strategic Planning
  • March 27, 2023

Engineering faculty receive grant to improve robotic dexterity

August 12, 2020

Schimmels

Dr. Joseph Schimmels, Robert C. Greenheck Chair in Design and Manufacturing in the Opus College of Engineering, received a $750,000 National Robotics Initiative grant through the National Science Foundation to fund a project that seeks to improve robotic dexterity.

Huang

The grant, totaling nearly $750,000 over the course of three years, will support Schimmels and co-principal investigator Dr. Shuguang Huang, associate professor of mechanical engineering, in their research to improve robotic dexterity by providing a robot system the human-like ability to continuously adjust its inherent mechanical behavior as a task progresses.

“Current robots are better than people at executing desired motions in free space, but they are not nearly as adept at performing tasks in which motion is constrained in some way,” Schimmels said. “The need for human-like dexterous manipulation is valuable for areas like senior living assistance and healthcare, but also physically demanding and dangerous roles in agriculture, construction, space exploration, nuclear remediation and manufacturing.”

Robots have great difficulty in performing everyday tasks — peeling potatoes, opening a bottle, closing a container, cleaning a surface or assembling furniture — because inevitable uncertainties in the exact location of objects often cause robot commanded positions to conflict with physical constraints, resulting in excessive contact forces and task failure. This system would allow robots to be compliant in directions that are constrained and to be stiff in directions for which the commanded motion is needed to complete the task.

“This is an exciting project for Dr. Schimmels and Dr. Huang as they look to advance the capabilities of robotic assistance,” said Dr. Kristina Ropella, Opus Dean of the Opus College of Engineering. “The technologies developed will be wide-ranging throughout the field of mechanical engineering —kinematics, dynamics, and control — as well as computer science and will benefit the Marquette community by engaging and educating students in these areas of national need.”

The National Robotics Initiative 2.0 program builds upon the original National Robotics Initiative to support fundamental research in the United States that will accelerate the development and use of collaborative robots, whose main purpose is to work with people or other robots to accomplish a goal. The focus of the program is on ubiquity, which in this context means seamless integration of co-robots to assist humans in every aspect of life. In addition to the NSF, NRI-2.0 is also supported by NASA, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.

Filed Under: Awards & Accomplishments, For Faculty/Staff, News

More news

Massage-A-Thon running through April 13

March 27, 2023

Register for upcoming GROW classes 

March 27, 2023

Père Marquette Lecture: ‘Philosophical Reflections on Śabad (Word),’ April 30

March 27, 2023

GROW courses on performance review process 

March 27, 2023

Nursing professor honored with Vel R. Phillips Trailblazer Award from Milwaukee Common Council

March 27, 2023

Movie Screening: ‘The Letter: A Message for our Earth,’ April 3

March 27, 2023

Dr. Karen Andeen named 2023 Way Klingler Sabbatical Fellowship Award winner

March 27, 2023

Undergraduate Commencement tickets: what you need to know

March 24, 2023

More news

Quick Links

  • Faculty/Staff News
  • Student News
  • Magazines at Marquette
Submit news

Featured Stories

Marquette’s Army ROTC program takes pride in past, focuses on future

Marquette’s Army ROTC program takes pride in past, focuses on future

By Kevin Keenan, communication intern in the Office of University Relations  Military training at Marquette dates to October 1918 when a unit of the Students Army Training Corps of the United States was established on campus as part of the World War I effort—it was demobilized at the end of the war. In 1940, a Naval […]

Marquette Bookshelf: ‘Sajjilu Arab American: A Reader in SWANA Studies’

Marquette Bookshelf: ‘Sajjilu Arab American: A Reader in SWANA Studies’

Co-Edited by Dr. Louise Cainkar, professor of social and cultural studies Both a summative assessment of the field and an exploration of new directions, this multidisciplinary reader addresses issues central to the fields of Arab American, U.S. Muslim, and Southwest Asian and North African (SWANA) American studies. Taking a broad conception of the Americas, this […]

Educating the next generation of Marquette Nurses

Educating the next generation of Marquette Nurses

By Katie Darragh, communication intern in the Office of University Relations  Ranked 29th among nursing colleges nationally for its bachelor’s program, Marquette’s College of Nursing is a dynamic community of innovative teacher–scholars who are embracing Marquette’s mission to Be The Difference in the health of the community and in the lives of over 900 student […]

Read more featured stories.

Safety

Free steering wheel locks available from MUPD; new software available for Hyundai vehicles

Safety Task Force efforts help lead to reduced crime on campus

Marquette University makes safety a top priority

Human Resources News

Register for upcoming GROW classes 

GROW courses on performance review process 

March is National Nutrition Month

Research

Apply for NMDSI mini-grants by April 7

Biological sciences professor receives R01 funding from NIH to expand genome editing tools in lizards

Marquette faculty and staff research grants from December 2022/January 2023

Awards & Accomplishments

Nursing professor honored with Vel R. Phillips Trailblazer Award from Milwaukee Common Council

Dr. Karen Andeen named 2023 Way Klingler Sabbatical Fellowship Award winner

Dr. Mark Berlin named 2023 Sabbatical Fellowship Award winner

Marquette UniversityCopyright 2022 by Marquette University
MARQUETTE.EDU // A TO Z