National Robotics Initiative 2.0: Ubiquitous Collaborative Robots

National Robotics Initiative 2.0: Ubiquitous Collaborative Robots is sponsored by National Science Foundation. This opportunity supports mission-aligned projects and measurable outcomes.

NSF 20-522: National Robotics Initiative 2. 0: Ubiquitous Collaborative Robots (NRI-3. 0) | NSF - U.S. National Science Foundation Archived funding opportunity This solicitation is archived.

Important information for proposers and award recipients All proposals must be submitted in accordance with the requirements specified in the funding opportunity and in the Proposal & Award Policies & Procedures Guide (PAPPG) and its supplements . All NSF grants and cooperative agreements are subject to the applicable set of NSF award terms and conditions . NSF has updated its research security policies for NSF funded projects.

NSF 20-522: National Robotics Initiative 2. 0: Ubiquitous Collaborative Robots (NRI-2. 0) Download the solicitation (PDF, 0.

9mb) National Science Foundation Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering Division of Information and Intelligent Systems Directorate for Engineering Directorate for Education and Human Resources Directorate for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences U.S. Dept.

of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture National Aeronautics and Space Administration The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health Submission Window Date(s) (due by 5 p. m. submitter's local time): February 12, 2020 - February 26, 2020 Important Information And Revision Notes This solicitation is a revision of NSF 19-536 , the solicitation for the National Robotics Initiative (NRI-2.

0). The significant changes in the FY 2020 NRI-2. 0 solicitation are as follows: The deadline has been revised.

The definition of co-robot has been updated. The definitions of the themes have been updated. The lower funding bound of INT projects has changed.

NASA will only consider projects that are within its stated cost limits. USDA/NIFA will only consider projects that are within its stated cost limits. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) has been added as a partner organization.

The Department of Energy and the Department of Defense have been removed as partner organizations. Any proposal submitted in response to this solicitation should be submitted in accordance with the revised NSF Proposal & Award Policies & Procedures Guide (PAPPG) ( NSF 19-1 ), which is effective for proposals submitted, or due, on or after February 25, 2019. Summary Of Program Requirements National Robotics Initiative 2.

0: Ubiquitous Collaborative Robots (NRI-2. 0) The NRI-2. 0 program builds upon the original National Robotics Initiative (NRI) program to support fundamental research in the United States that will accelerate the development and use of collaborative robots (co-robots).

A co-robot is a robot whose main purpose is to work with people or other robots to accomplish a goal. An ideal co-robot is an adaptable partner, not limited to a narrow set of specified interactions or functions, but able to significantly enhance team performance despite changes in its role, its teammates, or the team’s collective goals. The focus of the NRI-2.

0 program is on ubiquity , which in this context means seamless integration of co-robots to assist humans in every aspect of life. The program supports four main research themes that are envisioned to advance the goal of ubiquitous co-robots: scalability , customizability , lowering barriers to entry , and societal impact, including human safety.

Topics addressing scalability include how robots can collaborate effectively with orders of magnitude more humans or other robots than is handled by the current state of the art; how robots can perceive, plan, act, and learn in uncertain, real-world environments, especially in a distributed fashion; and how to facilitate large-scale, safe, robust and reliable operation of robots in complex environments.

Customizability includes how to enable co-robots to adapt to specific different tasks, environments, or people, with minimal modification to hardware and software; how robots can personalize their interactions with people; and how robots can communicate naturally with humans, both verbally and non-verbally.

Topics in lowering barriers to entry should focus on lowering the barriers for conducting fundamental robotics research and research on integrated robotics application. This may include development of open-source co-robot hardware and software, as well as widely-accessible testbeds. Outreach or using robots in educational programs do not, by themselves, lower the barriers to entry for robotics research.

Topics in societal impact include fundamental research to establish and infuse robotics into educational curricula, advance the robotics workforce through education pathways, and explore the social, economic, ethical, security, and legal implications of our future with ubiquitous collaborative robots.

Collaboration between academic, industry, non-profit, and other organizations is encouraged to establish better linkages between fundamental science and engineering and technology development, deployment, and use. The NRI-2.

0 program is supported by multiple agencies of the federal government including the National Science Foundation (NSF), the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH).

Questions concerning a particular project's focus, direction, and relevance to a participating funding organization should be addressed to that agency's point of contact, listed in section VIII of this solicitation. Cognizant Program Officer(s): Please note that the following information is current at the time of publishing. See program website for any updates to the points of contact.

For a full listing of agency contacts see Section VIII. of this solicitation. Radhakisan Baheti, ENG/ECCS, Irina Dolinskaya, ENG/CMMI, Ephraim P.

Glinert, CISE/IIS, Tatiana Korelsky, CISE/IIS, Frederick M.

Kronz, SBE/OAD, Robert Scheidt, ENG/CMMI, Applicable Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance (CFDA) Number(s): --- USDA-NIFA Agriculture and Food Research Initiative --- National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Science) --- Computer and Information Science and Engineering --- Social Behavioral and Economic Sciences --- Education and Human Resources --- The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health Anticipated Type of Award: Standard Grant or Continuing Grant or Cooperative Agreement or contract vehicles as determined by the supporting agency Estimated Number of Awards: per year, subject to the availability of funds.

Foundational projects will range from $250,000 to $750,000 in total costs for up to three years. Integrative projects will range from $250,000 to $1,500,000 in total costs for up to four years. Please refer to Section III for agency-specific budget criteria.

Anticipated Funding Amount: $22,000,000 to $32,000,000 per year, subject to the availability of funds. Who May Submit Proposals: Proposals may only be submitted by the following: Institutions of Higher Education (IHEs) - Two- and four-year IHEs (including community colleges) accredited in, and having a campus located in the US, acting on behalf of their faculty members.

Special Instructions for International Branch Campuses of US IHEs: If the proposal includes funding to be provided to an international branch campus of a US institution of higher education (including through use of subawards and consultant arrangements), the proposer must explain the benefit(s) to the project of performance at the international branch campus, and justify why the project activities cannot be performed at the US campus.

Non-profit, non-academic organizations: Independent museums, observatories, research labs, professional societies and similar organizations in the U.S. associated with educational or research activities. There are no restrictions or limits. Limit on Number of Proposals per Organization: There are no restrictions or limits.

Limit on Number of Proposals per PI or Co-PI: An investigator may participate as PI, co-PI, or Senior Personnel in no more than two proposals submitted in response to this solicitation each year.

In the event that an individual exceeds this limit, proposals received within the limit will be accepted based on earliest date and time of proposal submission (i.e., the first two proposals received will be accepted and the remainder will be returned without review). No exceptions will be made. The above limit applies only to proposals to the NRI-2.

0 solicitation, not to the totality of proposals submitted to NSF. Proposals submitted in response to this solicitation may not duplicate or be substantially similar to other proposals concurrently under consideration by other NSF, NASA, NIOSH, or USDA programs.

Duplicate or substantially similar proposals will be returned without review, including those substantially similar to previously declined proposals without revisions to address concerns raised by reviewers. Proposal Preparation and Submission Instructions A.

Proposal Preparation Instructions Letters of Intent: Not required Preliminary Proposal Submission: Not required Full Proposals submitted via FastLane: NSF Proposal and Award Policies and Procedures Guide (PAPPG) guidelines apply. The complete text of the PAPPG is available electronically on the NSF website at: https://www. nsf.

gov/publications/pub_summ. jsp? ods_key=pappg .

Full Proposals submitted via Research. gov: NSF Proposal and Award Policies and Procedures Guide (PAPPG) guidelines apply. The complete text of the PAPPG is available electronically on the NSF website at: https://www.

nsf. gov/publications/pub_summ. jsp?

ods_key=pappg . Full Proposals submitted via Grants. gov: NSF Grants.

gov Application Guide: A Guide for the Preparation and Submission of NSF Applications via Grants. gov guidelines apply (Note: The NSF Grants. gov Application Guide is available on the Grants.

gov website and on the NSF website at: https://www. nsf. gov/publications/pub_summ.

jsp? ods_key=grantsgovguide ). Cost Sharing Requirements: Inclusion of voluntary committed cost sharing is prohibited.

Indirect Cost (F&A) Limitations: For NSF, PAPPG guidelines apply. For NIOSH and NASA, contact the cognizant program officer. See Section VIII for contact information.

For awards made by USDA/NIFA: Indirect Cost (IDC) is not to exceed 30 percent of Total Federal Funds Awarded (TFFA) of the recipient . Section 1462(a) and (c) of the National Agricultural Research, Extension, and Teaching Policy Act of 1977 (NARETPA) limits IDC for the overall award to 30 percent of Total Federal Funds Awarded (TFFA) under a research, education, or extension grant.

The maximum IDC rate allowed under the award is determined by calculating the amount of IDC using: the sum of an institution’s negotiated indirect cost rate and the indirect cost rate charged by sub-awardees, if any; or The maximum allowable IDC rate under the award, including the IDC charged by the sub-awardee(s), if any, is the lesser of the two rates.

If the result of number 1) above is the lesser of the two rates, the grant recipient is allowed to charge the negotiated IDC rate on the prime award and the sub-award(s), if any. Any sub-awards would be subject to the sub-awardee’s negotiated IDC rate.

The sub-awardee may charge its negotiated IDC rate on its portion of the award, provided the sum of the IDC rate charged under the award by the prime awardee and the sub-awardee(s) does not exceed 30 percent of the TFFA. If the result of number 2) above is the lesser of the two rates, then the maximum IDC rate allowed for the overall award, including any sub-award(s), is limited to 30 percent of the TFFA.

That is, the IDC of the prime awardee plus the sum of the IDC charged by the sub-awardee(s), if any, may not exceed 30 percent of the TFFA. In the event of an award, the prime awardee is responsible for ensuring the maximum indirect cost allowed for the award is not exceeded when combining IDC for the Federal portion (i.e., prime and sub-awardee(s)) and any applicable cost-sharing (see 7 CFR 3430. 52(b)).

Amounts exceeding the maximum allowable IDC is considered unallowable. See sections 408 and 410 of 2 CFR 200. Other Budgetary Limitations: Submission Window Date(s) (due by 5 p.

m. submitter's local time): February 12, 2020 - February 26, 2020 Proposal Review Information Criteria National Science Board approved criteria. Additional merit review criteria apply.

Please see the full text of this solicitation for further information. Award Administration Information Additional award conditions apply. Please see the full text of this solicitation for further information.

Additional reporting requirements apply. Please see the full text of this solicitation for further information. In the future, robots may become as commonplace as today's automobiles, computers, and cell phones.

Robots will be in homes and offices; assisting in hospitals, classrooms, and factories; helping to run farms and mines; and exploring in air, on land, under water, and in space. They will be helping the elderly and people with disabilities in their activities of daily living. They will help in performing mundane or dangerous tasks.

They will be among the first responders at natural disasters, rescuing people in need and protecting humans from hazards. Teams of humans and co-robots, large and small, will reliably and efficiently cooperate, enriching the quality of life and work for individuals and society alike. The NRI-2.

0 program seeks research on the fundamental science, technologies, and integrated systems needed to achieve this vision of ubiquitous collaborative robots . The NRI-2. 0 program builds upon the original NRI program to focus on ubiquity : the seamless integration of co-robots into every aspect of human society, and beyond.

To achieve this goal, the NRI-2. 0 program focuses on research into innovative computational algorithms, designs, modeling, and analytical techniques in four research themes critical to achieving ubiquitous co-robots: scalability, customizability, lowering barriers to entry, and societal impact .

A co-robot is not a robot that works with a specific other robot, but a robot that can assist other robots or people in accomplishing some goal. Most robots rely on a person to start and stop their operation. A co-robot is a robot whose main purpose is to work with people or other robots to accomplish a goal.

An exploratory Mars Rover may not be a co-Robot even though it gets instructions and/or gives data to humans on the Earth. A rover that leads a group of astronauts, alerting them to nearby hazards or carrying their supplies, or a group of heterogenous rovers that work together to analyze a feature faster or in more detail than they could do alone, may be a co-robot .

An NRI proposal should forcefully convince the reviewers that the proposed technology (Foundational) or proposed system (Integrative) enables or is a co-robot system. In terms of this program, scalability means how robots can collaborate effectively as their numbers increase dramatically . This includes having robots coordinate with multiple other humans or robots, forming co-robot teams .

To achieve scalability, co-robots will require fundamental advances in perception, planning, acting, and learning. Such activities may need to be done in a distributed fashion, and may need to leverage other resources, including the cloud, software agents, or other devices, such as cell phones and the Internet of Things. For large co-robot teams, innovative approaches will be needed to manage large-scale physical and digital resources.

To facilitate acceptability, robot behavior will need to be transparent, explainable, and legible. It is anticipated that this focus will necessitate new robot designs and new software architectures, especially to facilitate capabilities for inherent safety, safe failure and recovery modes, and self-diagnosis and self-repair.

For the purposes of this program, customizability means the ability of robots to easily adapt to new situations and new people. Customizable robots will be able to achieve a wide variety of tasks, in a wide variety of situations, and for a wide diversity of people, with little, or no, change to the underlying hardware and software.

They should be able to learn about their tasks, environments, and human preferences, and personalize their interactions accordingly. Co-robots will need effective multi-modal communication, with both novices and experts, using verbal, physical and affective communication channels.

They will also need to perceive or infer the behavior and intent of others, plan and learn from both human and robot collaborators, and interact with them physically. Research addressing lowering barriers to entry is aimed at broadening access to co-robots by the larger research community.

Approaches may include innovative, low-cost, open-source hardware and software, architectures, shareable testbeds, and other resources that can be easily used and augmented.

For remote-access testbeds, where the goal is to share robot testbeds with remote users with varying skills, innovative research is needed in immersive, flexible user interfaces; real-time, low-latency performance; safe reachable states; and design trade-offs to meet various constraints.

Finally, research addressing societal impact of ubiquitous co-robots will bring to the forefront educational, social, economic, ethical, security and legal issues.

This program encourages fundamental research to establish and infuse robotics into educational curricula and advance the robotics workforce through education pathways, and to understand the social and economic impacts of robots on our work, our social institutions, and our quality of life.

Pertinent research questions may address the social and economic impact of robots on our work, our social institutions, and our quality of life and work.

Relevant topics include understanding the complexities of the future co-robot economy; how economic and social inequality will be affected by ubiquitous co-robots; what policies could be instituted to ensure that all stakeholder groups benefit from the presence of co-robots in our everyday lives; how to assure that co-robot design occurs with safety considerations built-in to protect co-workers in proximity to co-robots, or workers who must interact with the co-robot on the job; and how co-robot algorithms can be developed to ensure that co-robot behavior is consonant with ethical and legal norms, thereby promoting responsible research and innovation.

The NRI-2. 0 program seeks to strengthen the robotics research community, fostering innovation and workforce development, accelerating progress, demonstrating novel capabilities, and building ecosystems for innovation. The program seeks to promote research to enable greater adaptability and resilience of robot behaviors, leading to more capable, robust systems.

The program also seeks to promote new approaches to the challenges of accountability, interoperability, and trust, which will doubtless be engendered by the vision of ubiquitous co-robots. The NRI-2.

0 program represents a natural evolution in robotics research and the co-robot perspective that is in alignment with the report to the House Robotics Caucus Advisory Committee of the U.S. Congress, "A Roadmap for U.S. Robotics From Internet to Robotics" ( http://www. us-robotics. us/reports/CCC%20Report.

pdf ), first published in 2009 and updated in 2016 ( http://jacobsschool. ucsd. edu/contextualrobotics/docs/rm3-final-rs.

pdf ). Another informative reference report is the WTEC Panel Report on International Assessment of Research and Development In Robotics ( http://www. wtec.

org/robotics/report/screen-robotics-final-report. pdf ). Building upon the successes of the National Robotics Initiative (NRI), the goal of the NRI-2.

0 program is to support fundamental research that will accelerate the development and use of robots in the United States that work beside or cooperatively with people.

Innovative robotics research and applications emphasizing the realization of ubiquitous co-robots is supported by multiple agencies of the federal government including the National Science Foundation (NSF), National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), and U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). The NRI-2.

0 program significantly expands the focus of the original NRI program to focus on ubiquitous co-robots .

This includes themes of: Scalability : how robots can collaborate effectively with dramatically larger teams of humans or other robots; how they can perceive, plan, act, and learn in uncertain, real-world environments, especially in a distributed fashion; and how they can operate safely, robustly, and reliably in large-scale, complex environments; Customizability : how robots can adapt to a variety of tasks, environments, and people, with minimal modification to hardware and software; how they can learn to be personalized in their interactions with people; and how they can communicate naturally, both verbally and non-verbally; Lowering barriers to entry : how the design of the robots' hardware and software can reduce the cost and learning curve related to doing serious robotics research; and how testbeds and other shareable resources can be developed to facilitate robotics research; and Societal impact : how ubiquitous co-robots affect the social, economic, ethical, legal, security, safety, and educational aspects of our everyday lives.

To achieve the vision of the NRI-2. 0 program, funding will support foundational research in robotics science and technology, including novel approaches, algorithms, designs, representations, and analyses, as well as innovative research in integrated robotic systems. While disciplinary research is important, the NRI-2.

0 program also encourages cross-disciplinary projects. Collaboration among academic, industry, government, non-profit, and other organizations is encouraged to establish better linkages between fundamental science and engineering and technology development and use, through partnerships among researchers, applications developers, users and industry.

International collaborations that enhance and add significant value to the proposed research and education activities will also be considered. While NRI-2. 0 encourages projects that include some aspects of technology development, fundamental research should dominate.

Proposers focused on developmental work are encouraged to consider submission to the Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) or Small Technology Transfer Research (STTR) programs ( https://seedfund. nsf. gov ).

All proposals submitted to NRI-2. 0 should support the research themes, listed in Section II. A.

1, that are the primary foci of the NRI-2. 0 program. Section II.

A. 2 defines the two classes of proposals – Foundational and Integrative – that will be supported by the program. Proposals to this solicitation may be selected for funding by any of the sponsoring agencies, although all proposals will go through a uniform review process.

Proposals of special relevance to sponsoring agencies listed in this solicitation should address the domain-specific interests listed in Section II. A. 3, Sponsoring Agency Mission-Specific Research.

Within NSF, the NRI-2. 0 program is administered jointly by the Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) and the Directorate for Engineering (ENG). Supporting directorates include the Directorate for Education and Human Resources (EHR) and the Directorate for Social, Behavioral & Economic Sciences (SBE).

Within USDA, the program is led by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA). Contacts for these and related activities at other sponsoring agencies can be found in Section VIII of this solicitation.

Those proposals that are targeting a specific agency sponsorship should indicate so in the last line of the last box of the Project Summary, e.g., "Requested funding agency:" followed by that agency's abbreviated name ("NSF," "USDA," "NASA,” or "NIOSH"), but only if they have previously communicated with a program officer from that agency and received permission or instruction to do so .

Those not so designated will be considered for funding by all of the joint sponsoring agencies. This section presents the main research themes that are fundamental for achieving the overall program goals. While this list of themes and subthemes is not exhaustive, proposers are encouraged to incorporate one or more of the subthemes into their proposals.

In all cases, proposers are reminded that NRI-2. 0 proposals must show a compelling connection to the overall goal of enabling ubiquitous co-robots.

Enable robots to collaborate and coordinate effectively with multiple other agents, either people or robots whose number is significantly larger than the current state of the art; Enable robotic systems to reliably perceive, act, plan, and learn, especially in a distributed fashion; Enable shared learning among co-robots and through digital media; Investigate approaches to managing data produced/consumed by robots, especially data shared among agents; Enable transparent, explainable, and legible robot behavior; Investigate designs and controls for facilitating ubiquitous interaction and for making co-robots inherently safe (e.g., soft robots); and Investigate hardware and software approaches to enhance robustness and reliability, and enable robots to fail, recover, and resume safely and gracefully.

Investigate approaches for robots achieving a variety of tasks in a variety of situations, with minimal changes to hardware and software; Enable robots to learn efficiently from direct experience with people or other robots, especially to personalize interactions; Enable natural interaction with users, including use of language and non-verbal communication (e.g., gesture, visual, movement, tactile); Enable effective interaction with experts, including through remote operation; Enable robots to reliably recognize and predict the behavior and activities of others; Investigate social intelligence in robots, including use of mental models, perspective taking, and joint attention; and Facilitate physical collaboration, including physical human-robot interaction and augmentation of human capabilities.

Lowering Barriers to Entry: Develop robust, easy-to-use infrastructure for software, hardware, and systems; Investigate composable hardware or software that supports the development of ubiquitous co-robots; Investigate innovative programming languages/paradigms for robots; Develop techniques that would facilitate shareable physical testbeds, especially techniques to make existing testbeds easily available communally (see also Section II.

B); and Develop shareable resources, such as software and data.

Investigate the impact of ubiquitous co-robots on social and economic equality; Investigate possible economic and governance policies; Investigate the impact of ubiquitous co-robots on human, economic and data security; Investigate ethical and legal issues related to ubiquitous co-robots; Investigate issues of trust with respect to ubiquitous co-robots; Investigate issues related to teamwork and integration, partnerships, and worker training for collaboration with robots; Investigate worker safety issues related to integration of co-robots into the workplace; and Develop innovative uses for co-robots in education (see also Section II.

C). Note: while security and privacy are also important issues for ubiquitous co-robots, proposals in such areas, that are not specific to robotics, should be sent to other relevant NSF programs, such as Secure and Trustworthy Cyberspace (SaTC, https://www. nsf.

gov/funding/pgm_summ. jsp? pims_id=504709 ).

II. A. 2.

Classes of Projects There are two classes of NRI-2. 0 projects, with differing requirements and budget ranges. While there will not be a separate competition for the two classes, they will be evaluated using somewhat different criteria.

Foundational (FND) projects focus on fundamental research into technologies that directly support the vision of the NRI-2. 0 program. Such projects should lead to transformative approaches that address scientific or technology gaps that currently limit the development, use, or acceptance of co-robots in society.

Proposals should clearly explain how the proposed results will further the overall program vision of ubiquitous co-robots. Foundational projects will be in the range of $250,000 to $750,000 in total project budget, with durations of up to three years. Integrative (INT) projects focus on research in the innovative integration of technologies leading to complete co-robotic systems that support the vision of the NRI-2.

0 program. Integrative projects must include rigorous evaluation on physical robots, preferably in real-world settings. This evaluation should follow the scientific methodology, including statement of the formal hypotheses, controlled experiments, evaluation metrics, and statistical analyses of the results.

Integrative projects should have a longer-term vision, with objectives that could not be attained simply by a collection of smaller projects provided with similar resources. The overall impact to the science of the NRI-2. 0 program should be greater than the sum of each individual investigator contributions.

Integrative projects should include multiple PIs, preferably from different disciplines. Integrative projects will be in the range of $250,000 to $1,500,000 in total project budget, with durations of up to four years. II.

A. 3. Sponsoring Agency Mission-Specific Research NSF will consider for funding proposals addressing any of the research themes described above in Section II.

A. 1, as well as those described below and in Sections II. B and II.

C. NASA seeks research and technology development that will significantly increase the performance of robots to collaboratively support deep space human exploration and science missions. NASA’s latest Exploration Campaign highlights objectives to establish a long-term presence in the vicinity of and on the Moon, and to invest in technologies needed for the exploration of Mars and other deep-space destinations.

NASA environments present unique challenges for human-robot collaboration, including high communication latencies and limited bandwidth between non-collocated robots and humans, operation in reduced (or zero) gravity environments, and operation on other worlds (with associated issues due to radiation, temperature, illumination, dust, etc.).

Proposals should focus on research and technology development that contribute to the seamless integration and operation of non-collocated human-robot teams. These teams will experience communication latencies from seconds to hours round-trip, with network bandwidths ranging from a few hundred bits per second to a few megabits per second. Additionally, these teams may intermittently be unable to communicate.

Robot team members may be located in habitats (both in-orbit and surface), on planetary surfaces, and underground/underwater on icy and ocean worlds. Human team members may be on Earth, or in orbiting habitats. Research and technology development should focus on being customizable to both the human and robot, preventing single-system or “one-off” solutions.

Robotic systems will be of varying archetypes and modalities – it is expected that many of these systems will be mobile and include manipulation capabilities. Some systems may operate with rich data (from sensors, models, etc.), while others may operate with minimal data derived from limited on-board sensors.

NASA’s current technology roadmap cites critical technologies needed to enable and advance Human-Systems Interaction, which includes human-robot teams (Technology Area 4. 4).

In addition, some example research and technology areas include, but are not limited to, the following: Strategies to decrease data needed between human and robot while not impacting team performance; Remote operator interfaces that increase situational awareness and robotic intent understanding, and that optimize operator workload; Autonomous performance monitoring; and Autonomous command planning and sequencing.

It is desired that research and technology development include testing to assess human-robot team performance. NASA’s Exploration Campaign is described here: https://www. nasa.

gov/feature/nasas-exploration-campaign-back-to-the-moon-and-on-to-mars . NASA's Technology Roadmaps are available here: https://www. nasa.

gov/offices/oct/home/roadmaps/index. html . NASA’s Human and Automation/Robotic Integration Risk and Gaps are identified here: https://humanresearchroadmap.

nasa. gov/risks/risk. aspx?

i=163 . NIOSH seeks fundamental and applied research on collaborative robotics for reducing workplace risk exposures, research to identify potential risks of collaborative robots to workers, and research to evaluate different control strategies.

NIOSH seeks research in industry sectors likely to deploy and benefit from collaborative robots (e.g., agriculture, construction, healthcare, mining, public safety, retail and wholesale trade, services, transportation, warehousing and utilities).

NIOSH seeks research using modeling and simulation to evaluate in a simulated environment potential hazards to humans from collaborative robotic operations and to test collaborative robot and human interactions using simulated test beds. This would enable engineered solutions to the identified hazards before the technology is deployed in the physical world.

Simulations may include incorporation of humans into the simulated workspace using a virtual reality interface. NIOSH has identified research priorities to address knowledge gaps related to collaborative robotics and worker safety and health. The research needs are in the four areas of basic/etiologic, intervention, translation, and surveillance.

Basic/etiologic research builds a foundation of scientific knowledge on which to base future interventions.

Specific research topics include the following: Risk factors involving human worker’s cognitive, physical, physiological, and emotional capability and limitations when working with collaborative robots; Refinement and development of science-based human pain and injury thresholds for collaborative and wearable robots; Robotics technologies and engineering features for safe, intuitive, and useful collaborative and co-existing robot systems; Risk factors involving human-robot interface and safety communication; Task-related and environmental risk factors that are specific to each industrial sector, particularly for the industries in which collaborative robotics technology has high potential for improving workplace safety; and Risk factors associated with adaptability of robots in dynamically changing work environments or situations outside normal operating conditions.

Intervention research involves development and evaluation of interventions to reduce injury incidents among human workers working with collaborative robot systems, and also evaluates collaborative robotics technologies as preventive measures for existing workplace hazards. Specific research topics include the following: