Friday, March 13, 2026 - 3:00pm
Event Calendar Category
Other LIDS Events
Speaker Name
Oussama Khatib
Affiliation
Stanford University
Building and Room number
45-230
"Shaping the Future of Human-Robot Collaboration"
Distancing humans from hazardous, unreachable spaces while leveraging their skills and intuition is fundamentally transforming remote operations. OceanOneK exemplifies this paradigm. Serving as a robotic avatar, it allows divers to explore extreme environments from the safety of a ship. Its autonomous physical interaction skills merge with human cognitive expertise via an intuitive haptic/stereo-vision interface. Using our OpenSAI architecture, the robot learns compliant strategies from human demonstrations to perform delicate tasks. Following rigorous experimental validation, OceanOneK reached a record-breaking depth of 1,000 meters in the Mediterranean, successfully recovering fragile archaeological artifacts. These breakthroughs in collaborative synergy expand our capacity to deliver medical care, maintain infrastructure, and conduct disaster recovery-from the deep ocean to outer space.
Oussama Khatib received his PhD from Sup'Aero, Toulouse, France, in 1980. He is Professor of Computer Science at Stanford University and Director of the Stanford Robotics Center (SRC). He is a recipient of an honorary doctorate from the University of Montpellier. His research focuses on methodologies and technologies in human-centered robotics, haptic interactions, artificial intelligence, and human motion synthesis. Professor Khatib is President of the International
Foundation of Robotics Research (IFRR) and an IEEE Fellow. He is Editor of the Springer STAR and SPAR series, Springer Handbook of Robotics, and Springer Encyclopedia of Robotics. He is a recipient of the IEEE Robotics and Automation, Pioneering Award, the George Saridis Leadership Award, and the Distinguished Service Award. Professor Khatib is recipient of the Japan Robot Association (JARA) Award, the Rudolf Kalman Award, and the IEEE Technical Field Award. He is Knight of the French National Order of Merit and a member of the United Sates National Academy of Engineering. Professor Khatib is recipient of the 2024 Great Arab Minds Award.