Computing Professor Receives NSF CAREER Award to Advance Human-Robot Collaboration

While robotics play an increasingly significant role in manufacturing systems and tasks, the next industrial revolution will require a personal human touch to be as central to operations as automation and efficiency.

New research led by Montclair State University School of Computing faculty Weitian Wang explores this not-so-distant “Industry 5.0” by leveraging the unique value of human capabilities and robotics technologies for collaborative manufacturing.

This project is supported by a 2024 National Science Foundation (NSF) Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award. It is the Foundation’s most prestigious award in support of early-career faculty who have the potential to serve as academic role models in research and education and to lead advances in the mission of their department or organization.

The project builds on previous awards from the Foundation to the Collaborative Robotics and Smart Systems Laboratory (CRoSS Lab) at the University, of which Wang is the founder and director. Wang, IEEE and ACM Senior Member, has longstanding and extensive research on collaborative robotics, smart systems, and their synergistic CRoSS-disciplinary applications in smart manufacturing and remanufacturing, sustainabilities, healthcare, intelligent transportation, smart agriculture, daily assistance, data science, cybersecurity, and interactive learning. His research has been supported by over $2.2 million in funding from different federal agencies and organizations. Wang is the founder of Montclair Robotics and AI Seminar Series. He is the recipient of Montclair Advising Excellence Faculty Advisor Award and Montclair Social Justice and Diversity Vanguard of the Year Award for recognizing his education and service contributions to the university. Wang is the Chair of IEEE North Jersey Section Systems, Man, and Cybernetics Chapter and the Advisor of IEEE Montclair State University Student Branch. He is awarded as IEEE STEM Champion for his contributions to pre-university communities.

“This grant will greatly support us in exploring and creating new knowledge and understanding of human factors, task scheduling, and robot autonomy in manufacturing systems integration by leveraging interdisciplinary perspectives from robotics, AI, automation, manufacturing, engineering, and cognitive ergonomics,” says Wang. “We expect to democratize manufacturing sectors moving toward fulfilling dynamic customer demands with high variability through the strengths of human-robot collaboration to improve the well-being for both human workers and customers.”

“Thanks to my students for their great contributions to building our vibrant research team,” says Wang.

Research supported by this CAREER award will also be complemented by a scalable educational program in the areas of robotics, AI, and manufacturing for both college students and pre-university communities to foster and empower the next generation of scientists and engineers, especially those from underrepresented groups. In addition, this project will create potential opportunities for the university to develop new science and engineering programs/certificates to broaden students’ career pipelines.

“Dr. Wang is an academic role model who is committed to both research and education,” says College of Science and Mathematics Dean Lora Billings. “His ambitious project will guide us in designing interdependent human-robot partnerships that will improve our efficiency in manufacturing tasks. By including students in his research, Wang sets a wonderful example of how Montclair State University leads the way in providing hands-on experiences that prepares the future STEM workforce.”

This research is supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 2338767.

For more information about Montclair’s School of Computing, visit montclair.edu/school-of-computing.