The CRAI Lab, within the College of Aeronautics and Engineering, Kent State University, aims to conduct a cutting-edge cognitive robotics research -– designing the “Mind” for robotic and AI systems for seamless cooperation with humans. Robot mind is cognitive models based on AI algorithms and theory in cognitive science, psychology and neuroscience. We envision that with cognitive models, robots have self-awareness and self-behavior diagnosis, understand human attention and environmental risk, and build a trustworthy relation with humans and other robotic systems. The applications include daily assistive robots, UAV teaming and deployment, medical AI systems, and intelligent manufacturing.  Research directions in CRAI include i). Trustworthy Humans-Robots Mixed Teaming, ii). Multi-Robot/UAV Adaptability, iii). Safe/Secured AI Systems, iv). Robot Behavior Transparency.
Research: Meta Human Preference Learning
​- Chao Huang, IROS 2021
Research: Trust Learning in Interaction
​-Yijiang Pang, ROMAN 2021
CRAI Lab Research Summary 2021
News​​​​​​​​
  • [service] 2022.08, Dr. Liu is serving program committee for top-tier AI conference AAAI2023.
  • [paper acceptance] 2022.06, Zhenting Bowei's paper about bio-inspired collective condition reflex has been simutaneously accepted by both top-tier journal IEEE RAL and top conference IROS! 
  • [paper acceptance] 2022.03, Chao's paper about attention awareness has been accepted by IEEE ARSO 2022, congratulations! 
  • ​[service] 2022.03, Dr. Liu is serving an NSF panel.
  • ​[research accomplishment] 2022.01, CRAI students finished UAV power agility research and emergency response research, please see our latest papers for details. Congratulations to Yanze, Zhenting, Bowei!
  • [service] 2021.12, Dr. Liu accepted the invite to be the Associate Editor for IEEE RO-MAN 2022.
  • [seminar] 2021.11, Dr. Liu gave a talk in University of Cincinnati, talking about lab's latest research meta human perference learning.
  • [Award] 2021.11, Dr. Liu received KSU Faculty Incentive Award from the Sponsored Program Office. 
  • [Funding Award] 2021.10, our collaborative research "UAV Power & Data dock station" received a funding grant from US Air Force!!
  • [Funding Award] 2021.10, our collaborative research "intelligent robotic construction" received a funding grant from CAED!!
  • [service] 2021.10, Dr. Liu is serving an NSF panel.
  • [event] 2021.09.27, CRAI lab and friend labs successfully hosted workshop in IROS2021, check full content at here.
  • [service] 2021.09, Dr. Liu accepted the invite to serve as programme Committee member in prestigious AI conference AAAI2022.
  • [paper acceptance] 2021.09, Yijiang's paper about UAV emergency response got accepted by IEEE SSRR 2022! Congratulations! 
  • [service] 2021.08, Dr. Liu accepted the invite to serve as Associate Editor in the prestigious conference IEEE ICRA 2022! 
  • [service] 2021.07, Dr Liu is serving session chair for IEEE CASE conference. 
  • [paper acceptance] 2021.07, our paper about "meta human preference learning" got accepted by top conference IEEE IROS. Congratulations to Chao!
  • [paper acceptance] 2021.07, our computer vision paper about "3D object recognition" got accepted by IEEE Sensor journal. 
  • [New Student] 2021.06, welcome New PHD student Yibei joning our lab! He gradauted from Northeastern and will do Trust research.
  • [paper acceptance] 2021.06, one papers about trust learning get accepted by top conference IEEE RO-MAN 2021! Congradulations to Yijiang and Chao!
  • [paper acceptance] 2021.05, three papers about UAV-UGV mix teaming, trust, attention sharing get accepted by high-impact conference IEEE CASE (flagship of IEEE RAS)! Congradulations to Ruijiao, Yuntao, Boyi, Chao; Qifei, Zhexin, Yijiang!
  • [service] 2021.05, CARI and friend labs in CMU, Boston U, Inha U, U New South Wales, Shanghai Jiao Tong U will organize a workshop "Cognitive and Social Aspects in Human Multi Robot/Swarm Interaction" at the prestigious robotics conference IEEE IROS! Welcome to join our workshop, or submit papers.
  • [First Graduates] 2021.04, Congratulations on Master Yijiang's graduation!! He led the trust research in CRAI with significant research output! 
  • [Service] 2021.04, Dr. Liu is serving an NSF panel for proposal review.
  • [Funding Award] 2021.03, our multi UAVs social security system gets funding award from US Air Force.
  • [New Research] 2021.03, the new research on trust, robot attack defense, emergent response have been finished and submitted to IEEE RO-MAN 2021! We will release them soon on arXiv! Congratulations to Yijiang, Sicong, Ruoyu, Zhenting, Bowei!
  • [New Research] 2021.03, the new research on trustworthy robot and robot attention have been finished and submitted to IEEE CASE 2021! We will release them soon on arXiv! Congratulations to Ruijiao, Yuntao, Boyi, and Chao!
  • [New Research] 2021.03, the new research on MRS adaptation of human and MRS emergency response have been finished and submitted to IEEE IROS! We will release them soon on arXiv! Congratulations to Chao and Yijiang!
  • [service] 2021.03, Dr. Liu serves as the Associate Editor for the leading robotics/AI conference IEEE RO-MAN2021.
  • [service] Staring from 2021, Dr. Liu serves as the Associate Editor for the prestigious journal IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters!
  • [new member] Welcome new member Max joining our CRAI lab! He will lead the research of Human-UAV cooperation!
  • [paper acceptance] 2021.01, our AI for metal 3D Printing research, collaborated with Mines ADAPT additive manufacturing center, has been published on prestigious journal IJAMT!  Read the draft here.
  • [CRAI Youtube Channel] Dear all, we lunched our lab Youtube Channel, to provide the public all the academic talks given by CRAI members, the Robot and UAV demos, and Experiment illustrations.  Subscribe it here
  • [new member] Welcome new members Yibei and Yu join our lab!
  • [Talk] 2020.10, Dr. Liu gave a talk of "Emerging Uses of AI for Health Screening at Airports" on ATMAE 2020.
  • [new research released] 2020.09, our latest research of using attention model to rebuild trust between human and robot during grasping has been released. Please check our latest arXiv draft. Thanks Ruijiao and Chao!
  • [service] 2020.08, Dr. Liu serves Program Committee for 2020 AAAI Symposium Artificial Intelligence for Human-Robot Interaction. 
  • [Talks] 2020.07, CRAI graduate students Chao and Yijiang give spotlight talks about attention and trust in multi-robot teaming on the prestigious robotics conference Robotics Science and Systems (RSS2020). Check the links for details. [attention, trust]
  • [paper acceptance] 2020.06, our latest research of using attention and trust for human-multi UAV teaming in natural disaster rescue has been accepted by the prestigious robotics conference RSS2020 as workshop papers. Congratulations to Chao and Yijiang!​
  • [Funding Award] 2019.12, collaborating with NASA, AFRL and ARL, the UAV Power System research conducted by CRAI and other friend labs get funding award from OFRN with $1.24 million amount.
  • [Best Paper Nomination] 2019.09, Dr. Liu's paper on repairing human trust on UAV has been nominated as "Best Paper Award" in  the leading human-robot interaction conference IEEE RO-MAN 2019. #Trust on UAVs#
  • [paper] 2019.07, Dr. Liu's paper on repairing human trust on UAV has been accepted by the leading human-robot interaction conference IEEE RO-MAN 2019. #Trust on UAVs#
  • [paper] 2019.07, Dr. Liu gave a talk about "trust  for UAV swarm self healing (poster)" on the leading AI confeence AAMAS2019. #supported by US Air Force Research Lab#
  • Read More ...​ ​
Cooperation​​​​​
Funding Sponsor
Room AEB225 | College of Aeronautics and Engineering | Kent State University
Kent City, Ohio USA