The objective of this award is to organize the annual principal investigator meeting for the National Robotics Initiative (NRI). The NRI was launched in the summer of 2011 and there is a clear need to bring together the researchers of the awarded projects to provide cross-project coordination in terms of common intellectual challenges, methods for education and training, best practice in terms of transition of results and opportunities for broader dissemination of project status, activities and results. The meeting will be organized as a two-day meeting in the vicinity of Washington DC which broadens the impact to other governmental agencies, as members will be invited due to proximity. The meeting will include all the PIs for the NRI initiative, and invitations to all the program managers for robotics related programs in DC in addition to organizers of the Robotics-VO (Virtual Organization). Finally, the meeting is organized to take place during fall of 2014 to allow the first three cohorts of NRI projects to participate, allowing cross-fertilization of topics and ideas.
