Tapomayukh "Tapo" Bhattacharjee, Cornell - Talk Abstract

Abstract: 

How can we build robots that meaningfully assist people with mobility limitations in their daily lives? To support complex caregiving tasks such as robot-assisted feeding, bathing, transferring, and meal preparation, robots must physically interact with people and objects in dynamic, unstructured environments while maintaining safety. In this talk, I will present selected projects from the EmPRISE Lab that illustrate stakeholder-informed design, personalized contact-rich control, and physical assistance that accounts for users’ functional abilities and behavior. I will also share lessons from deploying these systems with users in real-world settings. Together, these efforts highlight a central challenge for robotics in the age of AI: building caregiving robots that are not only technically capable but also safe, deployable, and responsive to the needs of people receiving and providing care.