Extended Reality Technology Center
The Extended Reality Technology Center (XRTC) aims to boost research and development of augmented and virtual reality technologies, catalyzing their adoption in industry and society at large. Key applications include health care, industrial training, entertainment and communication.
XR presents the next paradigm in how humans communicate with each other and interact with and experience digital information. With mainframe computers in the 1950s, few users had access to limited machines at fixed locations. Desktop computers in the 1990s democratized access to information, but only enabled users to access information at fixed locations. With smartphones around 2010, we overcame this challenge and enabled users to access information everywhere.
XR will enable integrating digital information into users' everyday lives and remove the restrictions and barriers of current devices. Achieving these goals will require innovation and joint efforts across all sectors of computing, including computer vision, natural language processing, computer graphics, systems, networking, human-computer interaction, psychology, the humanities and the arts.
Carnegie Mellon is world-renowned for its innovations in the technologies driving the evolution of XR — mobile computing, new AR-chipsets, lower development costs, wireless broadband, computer vision, machine learning and user interfaces. Our advanced position in basic and applied research in XR is fostered by our inherent multidisciplinary nature and the critical mass of researchers working in this field. Let's pioneer the next transformation in human computing together.