Physical systems may be engineered to operate automatically. Examples from our daily lives include: temperature control systems in homes; elevator control systems at work; and automotive control systems such as traction control, braking control, adaptive cruise control, and lane keeping control. All these systems combine sensing, computation, and actuation in feedback loops to achieve stable behavior and provide high performance. The Robotics and Autonomous Systems thread prepares students to apply this basic concept in diverse areas—such as space, air and ground vehicles, and robots of various types—to safely automate tasks, or work in hazardous and hostile environments, without human input.

Sample of related career paths:

• Industrial robots (Amazon Robotics, Boston Dynamics, KUKA, Yaskawa, FANUC, Universal)
• Medical robots (Intuitive Surgical, Stryker, Accuray, Medtronic)
• Assistive robots (Kinova, Ekso Bionics, iRobot)
• Autonomous vehicles (Tesla, GM, Ford, Chrysler, Waymo, Argo AI, Aptiv)
• Automation (Siemens, ABB, Emerson, Rockwell, Honeywell, Schneider Electric, Omron)
• Aerospace industry (SpaceX, NASA, Aerospace Corp, Boeing, Airbus, General Electric)
• Defense industry (Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics)
• Microcontroller industry (Texas Instruments, NXP, Renesas, Microchip, Infineon)
• Research labs (SWRI, GTRI, Battelle, SRI, MIT Lincoln Lab, NASA, DoE National Labs)