Mission & Vision

Our mission is to bring national and international visibility to UB, serve as a mechanism for facilitating multidisciplinary research, and educate students in a holistic fashion, all by uniting faculty groups working on robotics and autonomy-related topics across multiple departments and decanal units.  

1. Advance the disciplinary core of robotics and autonomy particularly in the thrust areas of swarm robotics, human-robot partnership, robot learning, and robot communication and networking.
2. Spawn collaborative cross-disciplinary research with faculty from different decanal units, especially bringing together developers and end users of autonomy methods/technologies.
3. Kick-start and nurture a culture of technology transfer specifically in robotics and autonomy, and support new student and faculty-driven start-ups in the area.
4. Develop strategic partnerships with industry and government labs to promote research that spans a wider range of Technology Readiness Level (TRL) than is currently viable.
5. Design innovative educational programs and training mechanisms to prepare students and retool the workforce for the robotics and autonomy era.

To meet these goals, CEAR will facilitate interaction among UB faculty and alumni and local industry stakeholders who have a vested interest in advancing core robotics and autonomy technologies. Industries include aerospace, manufacturing, logistics, defense and healthcare.

We will use the center to drive funded research through targeted workshops and seed funding to address specific high-impact problems of interest to our members. The center will also bring in external experts to present seminar talks and work with program managers, funding agencies and industry affiliates with a vested interest in our ideas.