The mission of the Developmental Robotics Laboratory at Iowa State University is to create autonomous robots that are more intelligent, more adaptable, and more useful than the robots of today which can only function in very limited domains and situations. We approach this problem from the point of view of Developmental Robotics which is a new field that blends the boundaries between Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Developmental Psychology, Developmental Neuroscience, and Philosophy.

Our basic research hypothesis is that truly intelligent robot behavior cannot be achieved in the absence of a prolonged interaction with a physical or a social environment. In other words, robots must undergo a developmental period similar to that of humans and animals. We are interested in discovering the fundamental processes and principles that drive human cognitive development and applying them on robots. Generally speaking, modeling the developmental trajectory for almost any intelligent task that a 2-year-old child can perform on a robot is a potential research topic for us.

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