RI Seminar: Charlie Kemp : Human-scale mobile manipulators happily used in homes?

30Likes

1,139Views

Apr 192025

What will it take for human-scale mobile manipulators to be happily used in homes? Charlie Kemp Cofounder, Chief Technology Officer Hello Robot Inc. April 18, 2025 https://www.ri.cmu.edu/event/human-sc... Link to Google Slides: https://docs.google.com/presentation/... PDF of Slides: https://charliekemp.com/wp-content/up... Link to RI Seminar from 2008 referenced during the talk: • Charlie Kemp's 2008 Robotics Institut... Abstract: It is easy to underestimate the challenges associated with human-scale home robots. Homes are personal spaces that often contain what people value most, including family members and guests of all ages and abilities, pets, and sentimental objects. For long-term success, the robot has to earn its place in the home by being useful and easy to use, but also safe and affordable. In this talk, I discuss the challenges ahead, present a robot design that attempts to address these challenges, and show promising results from people with mobility impairments using robots in their homes. Bio: Dr. Charlie Kemp is a cofounder and the chief technology officer (CTO) of Hello Robot. Hello Robot sells Stretch, a novel mobile manipulator designed to work closely with people that is being used by hundreds of developers across 22 countries for diverse projects, including pioneering work on embodied AI, human-robot interaction, and assistive applications. Until 2023, Dr. Kemp was a tenured faculty member at Georgia Tech, where he founded the Healthcare Robotics Lab in 2007. Dr. Kemp’s research has focused on enabling intelligent mobile manipulators to assist older adults and people with disabilities. He is passionate about open communities to advance robotics and has won awards for teaching biomechanics and a project-based robotics class. He earned a doctorate in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, an MEng, and BS from MIT. He is a co-author of over 120 peer-reviewed publications. His awards include a 3M Non-tenured Faculty Award, a Google Faculty Research Award, a Hesburgh Award Teaching Fellowship, and an NSF CAREER award. Hello Robot’s awards include the 2025 RBR50 Robots for Good Award, the 2024 IEEE Spectrum Technology in the Service of Society Award, the 2021 RBR50 Robotics Innovation Award, and the 2020 Silicon Valley Robotics Innovation Award.