Welcome to Human-inspired Robotics (HiRo) Lab!

We develop Human-Robot Interface and Shared Autonomy to enable the efficient, intuitive and effortless control of mobile humanoid robots for nursing and living assistance. Our research focuses on:

• Shared Autonomous Robot Manipulation Control
• Adaptive Human-Robot Interaction and Interfaces
• Augmented Reality and Multimodal Human-Robot Communication
• Novel Approaches for Training Robot Teleoperators

We are located on 200A at Unity Hall. Come to meet our nursing robot!

Lab Director: Jane Li

• I am an Associate Professor with the Robotics Engineering Department of Worcester Polytechnic Institute, with an affiliation in Mechanical Engineering, Computer Science, and Biomedical Engineering Department. Before I joined WPI in Jan 2017, I was a Postdoctoral Associate with the Duke University 2015-2016. I received my M.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering from University of Victoria (BC, Canada) in 2009, and Ph.D. degree in Computer Engineering from the University of California, Santa Cruz (CA, USA) in 2014.
• My research focuses on the human-robot collaboration in the control of remote robot manipulation, and the application on mobile humanoid robots for nursing and living assistance. I am particularly interested in the design of human-robot interaction and interface for tele-manipulation, the assessment of human factors related to usability (e.g., workload, learning efforts, situational awareness), and human motor control and adaptation essential to the training the skills and workforce for robot teleoperation. I collaborate with the faculty of WPI Social Science Department and the Nursing Department of Worcester State University to develop nursing assistance robots, and study the technological and social impacts of nursing robots on current and future healthcare workers.

Prospective Students

• We have several projects open to perspective PhD students and MS students who are looking for thesis topics. Please refer to the current projects in our lab and recent publications.

Grants

• Analytical Framework for AI/AA — “Testing & Evaluation for Soldier-Device Teaming Compatibility, Vulnerability, and Durability in Emergent Situations”; Role: PI; WPI collaborator: Jing Xiao, Soussan Dja-masbi; Funded by US Army, DEVCOM Analysis Center; Awarded funds: $1,664,871 for 5 years; 2022/01/15-2027/01/14.
• SEMI-FlexTech #FT19-21-215 — “Soft Robotic Haptic Gloves as Intuitive Human-Machine Interfaces to Augment Human Performance”; Role: Co-PI; WPI Collaborator: Pratap Rao (ME, PI), Cagdas Onal (RBE); UMass-Lowell Collaborators: Joey Mead, Chris Hansen, Jay Park, Jinde Zhang; Funded by SEMI-FlexTech and Massachusetts Manufacturing Investment Initiative (M2I2); Awarded funds: $1,764,938; 2021/11/01-2023/04/40.
• NSF Award#2024802 — “Collaborative Research: NRI: INT: Transparent and Intuitive Teleoperation Interfaces for the Future Nursing Robots and Workers“, PI: Jane Li, Co-PI: Cagdas Onal, Jie Fu, Jeanine Skorinko and Yunus Telliel; $731,329, 2020/09/01-2023/08/31, in collaboration with the Nursing Department of Worcester State University,. The three year project is jointly funded by NSF and NIOSH/CDC. (see the CDC media release).
• NSF Award#1922761 — “NRT-FW-HTF: Robotic Interfaces and Assistants for the Future of Work”, PI: Cagdas Onal, Co-PI: Jing Xiao, Zhi Li, Pratap Rao and Yunus Telliel; $2,999,998.00, 2019/09/01-2024/08/31.

News

• 2023-06-30 Congratulations on the acceptance of papers for IROS 2023:
  • Nikita Boguslavskii*, Zhuoyun Zhong*, Lorena Maria Genua* and Zhi Li, “Shared Autonomous Nursing Robot Assistant with Dynamic Workspace for Versatile Mobile Manipulation.”, Accepted by IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 2023.
  • Achyuthan Unni Krishnan, Tsung-Chi Lin, and Zhi Li, “Human Preferred Augmented Reality Visual Cues for Remote Robot Manipulation Assistance: from Direct to Supervisory Control.”, Accepted by IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 2023.
• 2022-06-30 Congratulations on the acceptance of a paper for IROS 2022:
  • Achyuthan Unni Krishnan, Tsung-Chi Lin, and Zhi Li. “Design Interface Mapping for Efficient Free-form Tele-manipulation.” In IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS 2022). 2022.
• 2022-01-31 Congratulations on the acceptance of a paper for ICRA 2022:
  • Tsung-Chi Lin, Achyuthan Unni Krishnan and Zhi Li. “Comparison of Haptic and Augmented Reality Visual Cues for Assisting Tele-manipulation.” In 2022 International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), pp. 9309-9316. IEEE, 2022.
• 2021-03-01 Congratulations on the acceptance of papers for ICRA 2021:
  • Tsung-Chi Lin, Achyuthan Unni Krishnan and Zhi Li, “How People Use Active Telepresence Cameras in Tele-manipulation”, accepted by IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2021. [paper abstract]
  • Alexandra Valiton, Hannah Baez, Naomi Harrison, Justine Roy, and Zhi Li, “Active Telepresence Assistance for Supervisory Control: A User Study with a Multi-Camera Tele-Nursing Robot”, accepted by IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2021. [paper abstract]

• 2020-08-18 Congratulations to Achyuthan Krishnan’s Master thesis defense!
• 2020-06-30 Congratulations on the acceptance of a paper for IROS 2020:
  • Samuel White, Keion Bisland, Michael Collins, and Zhi Li,  “Design of a High-level Teleoperation Interface Resilient to the Effects of Unreliable Robot Autonomy“, In 2020 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), pp. 11519-11524, IEEE, 2020.
• 2020-06-01 Congratulations on the acceptance of papers for ICRA 2020:
  • Tsung-Chi Lin, Achyuthan Unni Krishnan and Zhi Li, “Shared Autonomous Interface for Reducing Physical Effort in Robot Teleoperation via Human Motion Mapping“, in 2020 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2020.
  • Alexandra Valiton and Zhi Li, “Perception-Action Coupling in Usage of Telepresence Cameras“,  in 2020 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA),  pp. 3846-3852. IEEE, 2020,  Finalist of Best Paper for Human-Robot Interaction PDF
• 2020-01-12 Congratulations to Mike Twardowski‘s defense! First PhD student from HiRo Lab.
• 2019-11-26 Congratulations to Hideyuki Kimpara and Kenechukwu Mbanisi’s journal publication:
  • Hideyuki Kimpara, Kenechukwu Mbanisi, Zhi Li, Karen Troy, Danil Prokhorov, Michael Gennert, “Force anticipation and its potential implications on feedforward and feedback human motor control“, in Human Factors: The Journal of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, 2020. PDF
• 2019-06-20 Congratulations on the acceptance of a paper for IROS 2019:
  • Tsung-Chi Lin, Achyuthan Unni Krishnan and Zhi Li, “Physical Fatigue Analysis of Assistive Robot Teleoperation via Whole-body Motion Mapping“, in 2019 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS). IEEE, 2019, pp. 2240–2245. PDF
• 2019-04-26 Congratulations to Heramb Nemlekar‘s thesis defense!
• 2019-01-25 Congratulations on the acceptance of a paper for ICRA 2019:
  • Heramb Nemlekar, Dharini Dutia, Zhi Li, “Object Transfer Point Estimation for Fluent Human-Robot Handovers”, in 2019 International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), pp. 2627-2633. IEEE, 2019. PDF
• 2018-06-29 Congratulations on the acceptance of a paper for IROS 2018:
  •  Kenechukwu C. Mbanisi, Hideyuki Kimpara, Tess Meier, Michael Gennert and Zhi Li “Learning Coordinated Vehicle Maneuver Motion Primitives from Human Demonstration”, In 2018 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), pp. 6560-6565. PDF