Robotics news

Robotics

Engineers teach a quadruped robot to climb standard ladders

A team of robotics engineers at ETH Zurich, Robotics Systems Lab, has modified an ANYbotics ANYMal quadruped robot to allow it to easily and effectively climb a standard ladder. The group has written a paper describing their ...

Robotics

Meet Plantolin, the tree-planting robot pangolin built by student

A robot pangolin designed to plant trees is the winner of the 2023 Natural Robotics Contest, which rewards robot designs inspired by nature. As the winning entry, the pangolin—dubbed "Plantolin"—has been brought to life ...

Robotics

Using Turing patterns to enhance soft pneumatic technology

According to a recent study in Scientific Reports, Turing patterns can be used to develop a new method for designing and producing fabric-based soft pneumatic actuators (FSPAs).

Robotics

LiDAR-based system allows unmanned aerial vehicle team to rapidly reconstruct environments

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), commonly known as drones, have proved to be highly effective systems for monitoring and exploring environments. These autonomous flying robots could also be used to create detailed maps and ...

Robotics

Q&A: Teaching robots to touch and interact like humans

Robots are widely used in the automotive industry and have started entering new application domains such as logistics in the last few years. However, current robots still face many limitations. They typically perform a single ...

Robotics

Team develops versatile knee exoskeletons for safer lifting

A set of knee exoskeletons, built with commercially available knee braces and drone motors at the University of Michigan, has been shown to help counteract fatigue in lifting and carrying tasks. They helped users maintain ...

Robotics

Teaching robots to use color in moving objects

Research at Michigan State University is focused on teaching robots to use colors to perceive, visualize, and interpret interactions when manipulating objects. A force-interpreting optical system is being developed so robots ...

Robotics

Versatile microscale robots can fold into 3D shapes and crawl

Cornell University researchers have created microscale robots less than 1 millimeter in size that are printed as a 2D hexagonal "metasheet," but with a jolt of electricity, morph into preprogrammed 3D shapes and crawl.

Robotics

When an exosuit becomes even more wearable

(Tech Xplore)—Menlo Park, California-based SRI International has news about its robotics project known as Superflex, which is a suit to enhance the human musculoskeletal system.

Robotics

Beyond Asimov: how to plan for ethical robots

As robots become integrated into society more widely, we need to be sure they'll behave well among us. In 1942, science fiction writer Isaac Asimov attempted to lay out a philosophical and moral framework for ensuring robots ...

Robotics

Teaching robots to feel pain to protect themselves

A pair of researchers with Leibniz University of Hannover has demonstrated the means by which robots might be programmed to experience something akin to pain in animals. As part of their demonstration at last week's IEEE ...

Robotics

Data-collecting quadrotor perch progress at Stanford

Researchers at Stanford's Biomimetics and Dexterous Manipulation Lab investigate robots at the boundary of airborn and surface locomotion. They have made a drone that, like insects, can land on vertical walls and even ceilings. ...

Robotics

Control algorithm for teams of robots factors in moving obstacles

Planning algorithms for teams of robots fall into two categories: centralized algorithms, in which a single computer makes decisions for the whole team, and decentralized algorithms, in which each robot makes its own decisions ...

Robotics

World split on how to regulate 'killer robots'

Diplomats from around the world met in Geneva last week for the United Nations' third Informal Expert Meeting on lethal autonomous weapons systems (LAWS), commonly dubbed "killer robots".

Robotics

EMIEW3 robot will go on duty in customer service role

(Tech Xplore)—EMIEW3—the name does not easily roll off the tongue but it is the name of a people-friendly robot. Hitachi showed the robot along with its associated customer service platform earlier this month. The red ...