Stanford University’s robotics researchers, once dispersed in labs across campus, now have a unified, state-of-the-art space for groundbreaking research, education, and collaboration.
The basement beneath the Packard Electrical Engineering Building, once a hallway with researchers working behind closed doors, is now a bustling hub for collaboration. After many years of planning, fundraising, and development, the all-new Stanford Robotics Center officially opened its doors with a reception on November 1st.
The new facility is a bright, open, and vibrant space with a number of research bays arranged side-by-side. In one corner, a dancer pirouettes as her movements are digitized and projected on a nearby monitor.
Next door, a pair of robotic arms makes a bed while others prepare a meal. Not far away, a medical student gazes into stereoscopic lenses manipulating hand tools while a machine across the room performs a mock surgery.
“I came to Stanford in 1981 and this idea – this dream – was always there, even then,” says Oussama Khatib, director of the new Stanford Robotics Center and mastermind of the design and transformation of the space.
“Robotics cannot really be successful unless we bring all the different research areas of robotics together: mechanical engineering, computer science, materials science, electrical engineering, artificial intelligence. There are so many connections between what we all do that we really needed one place to call home.”
Khatib, a professor of computer science, has made headlines with several robots in his more than four decades at Stanford. The best known is perhaps his humanoid OceanOne submersible robot that helped explore shipwrecks and deep-sea coral reefs without risk to human divers.
All in one
Stanford University has been at the forefront of robotics since the 1960s, with groundbreaking efforts like the “Stanford Cart”, an early robotic rover prototype for lunar missions; “Shakey”, one of the world’s first artificially intelligent robots with computer vision; and early robotic arms that would eventually transform factory floors.
“Oussama and I have been dreaming about a center like this for at least fifteen years,” says Mark Cutkosky, a professor of mechanical engineering and inventor of the Stickybot, among other notable achievements.
Stickybot is able to scale vertical, glass-like faces using feet inspired by the gripping ability of a gecko’s toes. Back then, the two imagined a large, central robotics center that would unify individual labs to be better able to organize itself for larger projects.
“Currently, everything’s bottom up,” Cutkosky says. “You get the clusters of one, two, or three faculty who may get together and propose something, but this is something totally different that will allow us to pursue large projects that bring together all our different skills in a single effort. There will be many new opportunities.”
Domestic bliss
Jeannette Bohg, assistant professor of computer science, is one researcher who has already seen the advantages in action. She specializes in domestic robots that might someday clean homes and apartments or even help seniors live independently longer.
Bohg directs the Interactive Perception and Robot Learning Lab and is a key contributor to the multi-university effort TidyBot.
TidyBot is domestic robot that uses computer vision and artificial intelligence to recognize everyday objects lying around the house, grab them and put them away in their proper place – dishes in the dishwasher, clothes in the hamper, books on the bookshelf, and so forth.
The key challenge is knowing where that right place is, she says, a decision that is personal to each user. The robots must therefore learn their owner’s preferences.
Bohg’s team works on TidyBot’s grasping arm and hand components. For her, the new robotics center literally means space to spread out. The new domestic suite is like a small home where her robots can practice their many tasks.
“In 2017, when I came to campus and set up my lab space, it was very small for the type of work we do. The lab was basically a forest of robot arms with everyone sitting in each other’s space as they do experiments,” Bohg recalls.
Proximity’s potential
Allison Okamura, a professor of mechanical engineering, runs the Collaborative Haptics and Robotics in Medicine (CHARM) Lab. The tools and principles she and her team develop enable advanced touch interaction, especially in biomedical applications.
Okamura has developed tools for teleoperation of robotic surgical equipment, designed robots for prosthetics and physical rehabilitation, and made bio-inspired robots for inspection and search-and-rescue in high-risk environments.
For Okamura, the major advantage of the proximity the new Robotics Center will provide is collaboration – often in unexpected ways. She anticipates chance meetings where one lab will see what another is doing and pursue opportunities to work together.
“These chance encounters are already happening,” she says, describing a recent meeting when her team was testing and preparing a demonstration of a “soft, snake-like robot that might be used for rescue operations in earthquake zones.”
A student from another lab approached and said they been looking to apply machine learning to just this sort of snake-like robot.
“I didn’t know it until I saw it, but that’s exactly what I need,” Okamura recalled the student saying. A collaboration was born. Okamura’s student will now be writing a full thesis chapter about the work resulting from that chance encounter.
Unexpected delights
Another collaborator with insights into all that it takes to put together a space like the new Stanford Robotics Center is Brian Carilli, Stanford Engineering’s associate director of facilities and planning. Carilli helped design the new space and managed the buildout.
He has watched the center grow from a mere concept in the minds of Khatib and a few close collaborators into a remarkable hive of activity unlike any other robotics center in the world.
Carilli was responsible for suggesting the center’s unique lights that make the recessed ceiling panels look like real windows with clouds against an azure sky, transforming an otherwise dark basement into a bright and vibrant space.
He is likewise proud of efforts made to accommodate the unique needs of the center’s various champions. The medical suite hosts a working surgical robot – one of the most advanced in the world today. The domestic suite includes a washer/dryer and a fully functioning kitchen.
And still, the center will continue to grow, Khatib says, pointing to an empty research bay. Here he imagines a unique feature: an aquarium walled with thick, clear glass, holding thousands of gallons of churning seawater in which swimming robots can fine-tune their underwater exploration skills.
While budget and technical challenges persist, Khatib hopes to someday test his OceanOne robot in such a realistic underwater setting.
With help from the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Khatib and Carilli are working on plans to install pumps that could move massive amounts of seawater – 30,000 gallons per minute – through the tank, mimicking the ocean’s powerful currents.
Until then, the labs and researchers already in the center are realizing its potential and savoring the shared space designed just for their needs.
“The Stanford Robotics Center today is so beautiful,” Khatib said. “Everyone – the dean, the faculty, the students, our partners in industry and academia – is really excited to see it come to life.”
