Casually sitting with his legs crossed, Philip K. Dick openly stared at visitors entering the small room.
He was wearing a casual button-down shirt and slacks. At first glance he looked no different than any other living and breathing person, but upon further inspection, it was clear that while he was human-like, the wires protruding from his faux skull proved he wasn't human at all.
While the real Philip K. Dick, a famed science fiction author has been dead for nearly four decades, PKD was seemingly alive and well. He was one of several social robots demonstrated Monday at University of Louisville's new home for the Louisville Automation and Robotics Research Institute (LARRI). The 10,000-square-foot space, made possible by the estate of Shih-Chung Chen, is located within the J.B. Speed School Innovation Center on Arthur Street and is the only robotics research center in Kentucky.
The institute, which got its start virtually in 2020, is a collaboration of researchers and students working to provide solutions for manufacturing, health care and logistics challenges. LARRI has 12 dedicated faculty members, postdoctoral staff, affiliated faculty and more than 50 student researchers that are investigating human-robot interaction, automation and robotics for industry, networked robots and autonomous vehicles, planning and control for mechatronic systems and other areas.
The total investment in the new facility was about $400,000. You can see a few photos of the space and its high-tech robots in the gallery below.
UofL LARRI
Although it can appear scary or dystopian, robotics and automation science together can be a very powerful combination, said Dan Popa, director of LARRI and professor of electrical and computer engineering at the J.B. Speed School of Engineering. He said right now, LARRI's theme of research is human and robot collaboration.
"The role of humans in the future of robotics and automation is critical," Popa continued. "Robots aren't replacing humans, but rather robots are helping humans with monotonous or dangerous work. In the future, we envision greater assistance capabilities, more intelligence, more viability and more ethical applications for robots to make us healthier, less stressed and more productive."
Coming on the heels of UofL's record $201.5 million secured to support research, President Neeli Bendapudi called the LARRI's new facility a "game changer" for not only the university, but the city, Kentucky and the country as a whole.
"It makes me proud that we are not content to just create new knowledge and be in our ivory tower," she said. "We want to work side by side with you to tackle the problems of today and the problems of tomorrow that we may not know exist."
Several key research projects at LARRI focus on health care, such as interactive robots to help individuals on the autism spectrum, a rocking chair with sensors designed to improve function in children with spinal cord injuries and an automated nursing assistant. Other demonstrated innovations included robots for advanced manufacturing, including a bin-picking industrial robot and a robot that can be taught to do assembly tasks via human interaction.
LARRI already has hosted the robotics competition team from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) during the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency competition in the new space. The JPL team used the space as a base of operations for testing and preparation for the competition and demonstrated its robots for LARRI faculty, students and staff.
