To promote community development and relationship building, the RoboBusiness Conference and Exposition provides a number of special events both on and off the exposition floor that are open to RoboBusiness conference attendees.

On Thursday morning, June 22, 2006, the Technology Collaborative and Carnegie Mellon University will host a site visit to the Carnegie Mellon University's Robotics Institute. The site visit begins with an 8:45am pick up at Sheraton Station Square hotel and returns at 11:15am.

About the Robotics Institute
Even when robotics technologies were relatively primitive, their potential role in boosting the productivity and competitiveness of the United States was foreseen in the evolving global marketplace. The Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University was established in 1979 to conduct basic and applied research in robotics technologies relevant to industrial and societal tasks. Seeking to combine the practical and the theoretical, the Robotics Institute has diversified its efforts and approaches to robotics science while retaining its original goal of realizing the potential of the robotics field.

RI People (current headcount)
Faculty = 49
Adjunct Faculty = 25
Postdoctoral Fellows = 17
Visitors = 50
Research Staff = 186
Support Staff = 24
PhD Students = 96
MS & MSIT Students = 32
Graduate students from affiliated departments also participate.

Sponsored Project Expenditures
Total sponsored project expenditures for FY04 (ending June 30, 2004) were $40 million. Funding was provided by the Department of Defense, DARPA, Air Force, Army, Marines, Office of Navel Research, NASA, the National Science Foundation, as well as other federal and industry sources.