This award funds an NSF-US/Europe Research Planning Workshop on Personal Robotics, to be held in Toulouse, France, May 14 and 15, 1998. The workshop will bring together leading researchers from the US and Europe to examine a new center of convergence in robotics research, centered on "human in the loop" problems. The meeting will undertake to identify the research needed to improve the connectivity of people and computers to the real physical world. This presents new challenges and opportunities for the emergence of robotics as a "personal" technology. Personal robotics applies to robots that can serve people directly in professional, domestic, human-assistance, and public-oriented use, and includes new and emerging concepts such as haptic interfaces, telepresence, wearable and interface robotics that enrich and support the connection of people to the world. The results and conclusions of the workshop will be presented at a panel session the following week at the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation in Leuven, Belgium, and a report will later be posted on the World Wide Web.
