Daigo Shishika, an assistant professor in George Mason University’s Department of Mechanical Engineering, received a National Science Foundation CAREER award on Apr. 28 to advance research into how autonomous systems communicate intent through motion. The five-year, $549,000 grant will support his work on enabling robots to interact with each other and humans without using traditional signals.
The project is significant because it addresses the challenge of making robots more intuitive and predictable in their interactions with people and other machines. Shishika said that people often understand each other’s intentions by observing movement rather than explicit signals, such as when drivers or pedestrians anticipate actions based on subtle cues.
“There’s a lot of information that comes from pure observation of movement. So how can robots take that into account? If I move in this way, how would that be perceived?” Shishika said. He gave the example of Starship food-delivery robots on campus: “When you walk near one, you kind of have to guess what it’s trying to do based on what you see it doing.”
Shishika’s background includes studying aerospace engineering at the University of Tokyo and researching bumblebee flight dynamics before moving into drone swarms inspired by insect behavior during graduate studies at the University of Maryland. His postdoctoral work at the University of Pennsylvania focused on multi-agent systems for defense applications.
A key aspect of his current research is exploring the balance between transparency and deception in robot motion—deciding when robots should clearly signal their intentions versus when they might need to obscure them for security reasons. “If a system moves in a certain way, it may unintentionally reveal what it’s trying to do,” he said. “So the question becomes, how much information are you giving away through your actions, and can you control that?”
The project will use both theoretical models and experiments through Shishika’s RoboGame Arena platform to study real-world behaviors and human interpretations. The findings could impact areas such as delivery logistics or public safety by improving coordination between autonomous systems and people.
According to the National Science Foundation website, its Faculty Early Career Development Program is considered its most prestigious award for early-career faculty who show potential as academic role models in research and education.
Shishika described this award as both recognition for his work so far and an opportunity for collaboration across disciplines within his lab.
