Bioinspired soft robotics investigates compliant robotic systems that emulate the mechanics, morphology, and control strategies of animals and other biological organisms. The field develops artificial muscles, soft actuators, and mechanical metamaterials using polymers, hydrogels, liquid crystal elastomers, and textile or origami-based structures to achieve muscle-like motion, shape morphing, and adaptive stiffness. It spans scales from sub-millimeter microrobots to larger soft-bodied platforms, integrating sensing, flexible electronics, and biohybrid components for autonomous locomotion, manipulation, and interaction in complex environments, particularly in aquatic and terrestrial settings.
Robotics
Consider the marvelous physics of the human knee. The largest hinge joint in the body, it has two rounded bones held together by ligaments that not only swing like a door, but also roll and glide over each other, allowing ...
Feb 2, 2026
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Robotics
As the new robot called Sprout walks around a Manhattan office, nodding its rectangular head, lifting its windshield wiper-like "eyebrows" and offering to shake your hand with its grippers, it looks nothing like the sleek ...
Jan 27, 2026
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Robotics
Researchers are continuing to make progress on developing a new synthetic material that behaves like biological muscle, an advancement that could provide a path to soft robotics, prosthetic devices and advanced human-machine ...
Jan 27, 2026
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Robotics
Collaborative robots, or cobots, are required to maintain compliant interaction while delivering rapid response performance when subjected to sudden, strong forces, such as during impact riveting, resistance spot welding, ...
Jan 27, 2026
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Robotics
A research team from the Visual Perception and Cognition Laboratory and the Cognitive Neurotechnology Unit at Toyohashi University of Technology investigated how the movements of autonomous mobile robots influence human emotional ...
Jan 26, 2026
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Robotics
Humanoid robots look impressive and have enormous potential to change our daily lives, but they still have a reputation for being clunky. They're also heavy and stiff, and if they fall, they can easily break and injure people ...
Robotics
Nature is, of course, the master engineer—been there, seen it, solved it. While we struggle to design buildings that don't overheat or feel like concrete cages, nature has been perfecting comfortable living structures for ...
Robotics
McGill University engineers have developed new ultra-thin materials that can be programmed to move, fold and reshape themselves, much like animated origami. They open the door to softer, safer and more adaptable robots that ...
Jan 23, 2026
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Electronics & Semiconductors
Researchers at UNSW have developed a new type of motor that spins, not with rigid components, but with a droplet of liquid metal. The breakthrough could transform soft robotics, flexible electronics, and medical devices.
Jan 19, 2026
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Robotics
Underwater robots face many challenges before they can truly master the deep, such as stability in choppy currents. A new paper published in the journal npj Robotics provides a comprehensive update of where the technology ...
