Robotics researchers unite!

11 universities are joining forces to develop a national roadmap for robotics research , the sort of effort they say other nations doing advanced robotics work already have. The effort is being backed by the NSF's Computing Community Consortium.

Participating schools are: Georgia Institute of Technology, Carnegie Mellon University and the universities of Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, California- Berkeley, Southern California, Utah and Illinois, as well as Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Stanford University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. A series of workshops are planned this spring and a more ambitious conference will take place in the fall in Washington, D.C.

The roadmap will be reported to the year-old Congressional Robotics Caucus, which is headed by U.S. Rep. Mike Doyle (D-Pa.) and U.S. Rep. Zach Wamp (R-Tenn.).

Matthew Mason, director of Carnegie Mellon’s Robotics Institute, says U.S. robotics researchers and the industry have missed opportunities by not previously cooperating more fully. “The technology is finding wider application, but its full potential is not fully appreciated by policy makers,” he said in a statement. “We need to develop a common vision so that we can work effectively with the Congressional Robotics Caucus and with funding agencies.”