Robotics

High-tech robotics center coming to North Campus

A new $54 million robotics center at the University of Michigan will help advance the field as researchers say it’s reaching a tipping point — poised to deliver autonomous technologies that are woven into our everyday lives.


Graduate degrees in Robotics at the College of Engineering

The Robotics program at Michigan offers MS and PhD engineering degrees that will integrate knowledge from across a range of technical fields for applications to robotics.

This program focuses on three core disciplines essential to robotics: Sensing of the environment, external agents, and internal body information to determine state information, Reasoning with that information to make decisions for guidance, control, and localization, and Acting upon the body and environment to produce motion or other outputs that enable the robot to locomote or interact with the environment. Each of these areas may be considered a sub-plan for coursework and research study. The Robotics program trains students as independent researchers and engineers, and as future leaders in robotics research in academia, industry, and government.

The interdisciplinary field of robotics holds enormous potential for scientific exploration, human efficiency, and improved quality of life. Applications for robotic systems can be found in the exploration of uninhabitable environments, automated transportation, manufacturing, search and rescue, safety systems, microsurgery, and for neural-controlled prosthetics and restored mobility, among others.

The University of Michigan provides excellence across the broad range of disciplines related to robotics, including computer science, mechanical engineering, artificial intelligence, computer vision, electrical engineering, control systems, psychology, human-robot interaction, sociology, philosophy, ethics, law, biomedical engineering, medicine, business, economics, public policy, and many others. Of particular prominence is an unusually broad yet strong College of Engineering, with top-ranked programs in traditional areas such as Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, and Computer Science, but also with specializations such as Aerospace Engineering, Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering, and Atmospheric, Oceanic, and Space Sciences. Robotic applications are increasingly important in all of these fields, as well as in Medicine, where the University has a world-class program.