Spring 2025 Director Updates
As we enter 2025, we are proud to reflect on an incredible year of innovation at the Minnesota Robotics Institute. In 2024, our robotics extended family achieved several significant milestones:
We conducted groundbreaking research in many areas of robotics and AI, including medical robotics, field robotics, computer vision, underwater robotics, machine learning for robotic systems, agricultural robotics, and autonomous vehicles. We also continued to support the growth of the NSF AI-LEAF Institute (AI Institute for Land, Economy, Agriculture & Forestry).
We expanded our innovative MS program in robotics, reaching more than 135 students. Our students come from all over the world, including, among others, the U.S., Bolivia, Ecuador, Azerbaijan, and India. The 2024/2025 cohort includes more than 41 students; we expect the 2025 numbers to be similar. Our agreement with ECE to offer the MS degree in Robotics as part of a new 4+1 program is going through the steps for approval.
Our faculty has published many peer-reviewed papers in leading journals. For example, Suhasa Kodandaramaiah and his team published “Brain-wide Neural Recordings in Mice Navigating Physical Spaces Enabled by Robotic Neural Recording Headstages” in Nature Methods. The paper describes a robotic exoskeleton for rodents that facilitates neuroscience research. This is extraordinary research!!!
We received a solid response to this year’s seed grant initiative. These proposals are being reviewed using a process modeled after the National Science Foundation’s established evaluation framework. Each submission is assessed by a panel of five expert reviewers using standardized criteria that examine intellectual merit, broader impacts, and potential for attracting funding.
We took significant steps in creating innovative partnerships with companies like PAR Systems, Honeywell, and Medtronic, as well as creating an Industrial Advisory Board. The Industrial Board has the following founding members: Dana Lonn (Emeritus, The Toro Company), David Bustamante (PAR Systems), Mark Wehde (Mayo Clinic), Datta Godbole (Edge2Cloud IoT LLC), Vibhor Bageshwar (Honeywell Aerospace Technologies), Emily Mulhall (Govini), and Bill Peine (Medtronic). Special thanks to Tariq Samad and Saad Bedros for helping us set up this board and organizing its inaugural meeting in late 2024.
In 2024, we organized multiple school tours and summer camps for K-12 students. Over 200 students from across the state participated, and we extend our heartfelt gratitude to all the staff members and student volunteers who facilitated these camps.
Our program is ranked among the top 10 robotics programs in the world (https://csrankings.org/#/fromyear/2014/toyear/2024/index?robotics&world). Among the top 10 institutions, we have the smallest core faculty.
None of this would have been possible without our dedicated faculty and staff, supportive partners, and enthusiastic students. Your commitment to pushing the boundaries of robotics has been genuinely inspiring.
Looking ahead to 2025, we wish you all a New Year full of health.
Nikos Papanikolopoulos
Minnesota Robotics Institute Director