News

[May 2021] Keynote at CHI2021 Workshop on Explainable and Trustworthy Physical Systems

Presented our work on human-in-the-loop validation and explaining autonomous vehicle behavior in critical scenarios.


[March 2021] Featured in IEEE Robotics and Automation Magazine on Robotics Teaching Practices

Dr. Shawna Thomas summarized our discussion on robotics education in “Best Practices in Robotics Education: Perspectives from an IEEE RAS Women in Engineering Panel.”


[December 2020] Keynote at C3.ai Workshop on Safe Autonomy

Presented our recent work in designing robust systems, by identifying failures in simulation with adaptive stress testing and online via anomaly detection.


[December 2020] Awarded NRI Grant on Increasing the Level of Autonomy in Ag Robots

Katie received a $1M grant from USDA/NIFA to improve the autonomy of field robots, improve interaction and adoption, and develop software tools to make programming fleets of agbots easier.


[December 2020] Featured on Robotics Education Panel with IEEE WIE-RAS

The IEEE Women in Engineering – Robotics and Automation Society (WIE-RAS) hosted an online panel on best practices for teaching robotics.


[October 2020] Keynote on Autonomy at RV2020

Presented our work on robust decision-making and control for autonomous vehicles, adaptive stress testing, and anomaly detection for field robots.


[August 2020] New Joint Research Center with ZJU and UIUC on Flexible Manufacturing Announced!

The Center for Adaptive, Resilient Cyber-Physical Manufacturing Networks (AR-CyMaN) will create tools and technology to help manufacturers more quickly meet new consumer demands. CyMaN is led by Katie Driggs-Campbell and Placid Ferreira at UIUC.


[July 2020] Introducing Levels of Autonomy for Field Robots

We present a framework that will enable engineers, users, and decision makers to systematically evaluate the autonomy of real-world robotics systems and decide how they can best benefit from this rapidly improving technology. This effort is in conjunction with the Center for Digital Agriculture.


[June 2020] Collaboration with Hexagon | AutonomouStuff brings big changes to the classroom and research!

The AutonomouStuff Polaris Gem e2 platform has impacted teaching, lead to new proposals, and publications.


[May 2020] HCA Lab joins C-NICE to advance collaborative manufacturing

Foxconn Interconnect Technology (FIT) partners with Illinois on a new $100 million Center for Networked Intelligent Components and Environments (C-NICE). The center serves as a hub for the smart, reconfigurable technology that will drive the manufacturing plants of the future.