There are many everyday tasks---recognizing objects, loading/unloading a dishwasher, cooking simple meals, arranging a disorganized house, assembling an object from kit of parts---that, while simple for humans, are extremely challenging for robots, as they involve detailed, tightly-coordinated perception and manipulation abilities. Our goal is to do breakthrough research on fundamental problems in robotics perception and manipulation, in order to enable personal robots to be truly useful in common household and office environments.
See some recent projects that use learning to grasp novel objects, place objects, understand scenes, and detecting human activities.
Since Cornell's mascot is a bear, three of the robots have been named Blue, Panda (for PersonAl Non-Deterministic Arm), Polar (for PersOnaL Assistant Robot) and Kodiak.