Led by Olivier Stasse, director of the Robotics Department, and Ludovic Righetti, a professor at NYU and researcher at the ANITI Institute, this project builds on more than ten years of fruitful collaboration between the GEPETTO and Machines-in-Motion (NYU) teams, reinforced by existing partnerships such as the NSF-ANR NERL project and the ANITI Reinforcement Learning for Robotics Chair.

Nicolas Mansard, head of the GEPETTO team and co-PI of the chairs held by Ludovic Righetti and Olivier Stasse (C3PO—Cobots with Conversation, Cognition & Perception), is also a key player in this collaboration.

The inauguration was attended (some remotely) by:

Adeline Nazarenko, Director of CNRS Computer Sciences,

Jan Matas, Director of the CNRS Office in Washington,

Jérôme Durand-Lose, Deputy Scientific Director for Europe and International Affairs at CNRS Computer Sciences,

Mohamed Kaâniche, Director of LAAS-CNRS,

Daniela Dragomirescu, Professor at INSA Toulouse and Deputy Director of LAAS-CNRS,

Juan De Pablo, Executive Dean of the NYU Tandon School of Engineering and Anne and Joel Ehrenkranz Executive Vice President for Global Science and Technology,

Sundeep Rangan, Co-Director of the NYU Wireless Center.

Their presence symbolizes a shared commitment to autonomous, intelligent, and connected robotics. The scientific exchanges highlight the project’s transatlantic dynamic, as evidenced by Didier Henrion’s (LAAS-CNRS) visit to NYU and Nana Obayashi’s visit to LAAS-CNRS.

With CNRS funding of 12,000 euros per year to support travel by researchers and doctoral students, the IRP Jorowila aims to transform embedded AI by integrating hybrid methods (reinforcement learning, predictive control, large generative AI models) and multimodal sensors (RF, tactile, vision) for robots capable of operating in partially observable environments.

The robotic platforms at LAAS-CNRS (TIRREX-RENOIR, H1v2) and NYU (G1, Fauna), along with NYU’s wireless infrastructure, will serve as test beds for these innovations. The long-term goal is to develop autonomous robots capable of interpreting natural language commands and leveraging distributed computing resources.

The IRP also embodies a sustainable and inclusive vision, with initiatives dedicated to gender parity—currently, only 25% of supervisors and doctoral students are women, a percentage the project aims to increase—and to reducing the carbon footprint by prioritizing extended stays and videoconferencing.

Finally, the Jorowila IRP strengthens ties between academic research and industry, with partners such as Airbus, PAL Robotics, and New York-based and international startups like Fauna Robotics, Ultra, KyberLabs, and Wandercraft, whose U.S. office is based in New York.