The National Science Foundation (NSF), in partnership with NASA, the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Department of Agriculture awarded nearly $50 million to grantees for the development and use of robots that cooperatively work with people to enhance individual human capabilities, performance and safety. These awards mark the first round of awards of the Obama administration's National Robotics Initiative (NRI), a federal program established in 2011 to spur innovative robotics research and applications emphasizing the realization of co-robots acting in direct support of and in a symbiotic relationship with human partners. Awardees represented universities from across the country including Arizona State University, Carnegie-Melon University, Georgia Institute of Technology, Idaho State University, Michigan State University, Stanford University and the University of Utah. Read the press release...