Texas AI Docket

National Science Foundation funds a five year human and robot co-adaptation center at UT Austin

Research and scienceUnited States National Science FoundationTravisWrite to the decider

The National Science Foundation made award 2535195 to the University of Texas at Austin on August 25th, 2026. It funds a Science and Technology Center on human and robot co adaptation. The award record carries an estimated total for the full five years in the agency's own award service. It records the fiscal year 2026 obligation as $5,999,999.00. The project runs from September 1st, 2026 to August 31st, 2031. Joydeep Biswas is the principal investigator. The stated problem is that robots leaving the laboratory for homes and hospitals and workplaces have to understand and adapt to people over time. The university names the places the work runs in. They are houses and dorms and cafes and a public museum and a rehabilitation hospital and elder care and assisted living residences. It also states that an internal ethics board will oversee the research and develop the consent and opt out procedures. The rooms are named and the rules for the people in them are not written yet.

How to take part

No comment window attaches to a made award. The agency publishes the award record and its abstract and its funding figures through its own awards service. The university is the reachable party for questions about the center itself.

Where to do it

Where

1 county. In Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos.

Timeline

  1. decided

    Award date recorded on the agency's own award record

  2. effective

    Project start date on the award record

  3. Today

How this decision moved

One dated line per check, oldest first. A line that says nothing changed means somebody looked and it had not.

  1. 2026-08-27

    Admitted. The agency's award record carries the center, the institution, the dates and the money, and the abstract states what the work is for.

  2. 2026-08-28

    Checked and unchanged. The award for the human and robot co adaptation center still stands on the agency's record, with the same fiscal year obligation and the same project period.

  3. 2026-08-29

    Checked and unchanged. The award to the University of Texas at Austin still funds a center on how robots and the people beside them adapt to each other. The director named on the award record has not changed.

  4. 2026-08-29

    The university published its own account of the award and it names the places the research runs in. The agency's award record does not name them. They are ordinary rooms rather than laboratories, among them houses and dorms and cafes and a rehabilitation hospital and assisted living residences. The same account says an internal ethics board will develop the consent and opt out procedures.

  5. 2026-08-30

    The five year award still stands. The consent and opt out procedures its own abstract leaves to be developed are still not published.

  6. 2026-09-01

    The federal award for UT Austin's human-and-robot co-adaptation center remains active.

  7. 2026-09-02

    Checked and unchanged. The decision still stands as decided.

  8. 2026-09-05

    The five year human and robot co-adaptation center at Austin still stands as funded and its award is unchanged.

The evidence

Every fact above rests on one of these. The words are the source's own.

For robots to transition from research laboratories to effective collaborators in homes, hospitals, workplaces, and public spaces, they must be able to understand, interact with, and adapt to people over time.
National Science Foundation awards service, award 2535195, abstract Primary source, official · api.nsf.gov
STC: Center for Human and Robot Co-Adaptation
National Science Foundation awards service, award 2535195, title field Primary source, official · api.nsf.gov
"estimatedTotalAmt":"29999998","expDate":"08/31/2031"
National Science Foundation awards service, award 2535195, funding fields Primary source, official · api.nsf.gov
"fundsObligatedAmt":"5999999","histAwd":"false","id":"2535195"
National Science Foundation awards service, award 2535195, obligation and identifier fields Primary source, official · api.nsf.gov
"awardeeName":"University of Texas at Austin"
National Science Foundation awards service, award 2535195, awardee field Primary source, official · api.nsf.gov
"date":"08/25/2026"
National Science Foundation awards service, award 2535195, award date field Primary source, official · api.nsf.gov
"startDate":"09/01/2026"
National Science Foundation awards service, award 2535195, start date and title fields Primary source, official · api.nsf.gov
FY 2026 = $5,999,999.00
National Science Foundation awards service, award 2535195, funds obligated Primary source, official · api.nsf.gov
The research will be grounded in findings from the Human Environment with Robots (HERO) Facility Network, a set of real-world deployment sites hosted at UT and the partner institutions: houses, dorms, cafés, a public museum, a rehabilitation hospital, and elder-care and assisted-living residences.
UT News, UT to lead NSF center that will study how robots and people learn to live and work together Primary source, official · news.utexas.edu
An internal ethics board will oversee the research and develop consent and opt-out procedures.
UT News, UT to lead NSF center that will study how robots and people learn to live and work together Primary source, official · news.utexas.edu
The five-year, $30 million award will bring together researchers from disciplines spanning artificial intelligence, robotics, cognitive science and social science to not just build better robots, but also to understand how humans and robots can coexist.
UT News, UT to lead NSF center that will study how robots and people learn to live and work together Primary source, official · news.utexas.edu
Industry collaborators include Amazon, Apptronik, Diligent Robotics, Google DeepMind, Hello Robot, MassRobotics, NVIDIA and Robust AI.
UT News, UT to lead NSF center that will study how robots and people learn to live and work together Primary source, official · news.utexas.edu
It is enabling robots to understand the people around them: their needs, preferences, values and constraints, while recognizing that people also adapt their behavior when they integrate robots into their environment.
UT News, UT to lead NSF center that will study how robots and people learn to live and work together Primary source, official · news.utexas.edu
Partner universities are the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Yale University, Indiana University Bloomington, the University of Utah, and Tufts University.
UT News, UT to lead NSF center that will study how robots and people learn to live and work together Primary source, official · news.utexas.edu

Questions about this decision

Answered from the record itself. Every answer is assembled from stored fields, so an answer the record has no basis for is left out rather than guessed.

What is this decision?

The National Science Foundation made award 2535195 to the University of Texas at Austin on August 25th, 2026. It funds a Science and Technology Center on human and robot co adaptation. The award record carries an estimated total for the full five years in the agency's own award service. It records the fiscal year 2026 obligation as $5,999,999.00. The project runs from September 1st, 2026 to August 31st, 2031. Joydeep Biswas is the principal investigator. The stated problem is that robots leaving the laboratory for homes and hospitals and workplaces have to understand and adapt to people over time. The university names the places the work runs in. They are houses and dorms and cafes and a public museum and a rehabilitation hospital and elder care and assisted living residences. It also states that an internal ethics board will oversee the research and develop the consent and opt out procedures. The rooms are named and the rules for the people in them are not written yet.

Who decides it?

United States National Science Foundation decides. The record names the deciding body for every entry it carries.

Can the public take part?

No comment window attaches to a made award. The agency publishes the award record and its abstract and its funding figures through its own awards service. The university is the reachable party for questions about the center itself. No dated public window is on the record. The deciding body is named and reachable.

Where in Texas does it apply?

It covers Travis County.

Has it been decided?

It has been decided. The dates on the item page carry when.

What happens next?

No future date is on the record. The last dated step on it was effective on September 1st.

When did it start?

The earliest date on its record is August 25th, 2026.

What kind of decision is it?

It is filed under research and science.

What sources back it?

Two sources back it. Two of them are primary.

Is it on the ERCOT grid?

Yes. It sits inside the ERCOT interconnection.

When was it last checked?

Every fact on it was last verified against its source on September 5th, 2026.

Cite this

Texas AI Docket, National Science Foundation funds a five year human and robot co-adaptation center at UT Austin. Tracked since August 25th, 2026. Last verified September 5th, 2026. https://texasaidocket.com/item/tx-2026-0104/. Reuse permitted under CC BY 4.0 with attribution. The same entry is in the docket JSON as item tx-2026-0104.

Beat

Filed under Research and science, with every other decision on that beat.

Last checked 2026-09-05