Robotics news

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

ROSE: A gentle and versatile robotic gripper for efficient crop harvesting

Robotic grippers have become essential across many industries, including manufacturing, packaging, and logistics, mainly for pick-and-place tasks. Recently, the demand for robotic grippers has also expanded into agriculture, ...

Robotics

Google DeepMind unveils two new AI-based robot hand systems—ALOHA Unleashed and DemoStart

Engineers working on Google's DeepMind project have announced the development of two new AI-based robot systems. One called ALOHA Unleashed was developed to advance the science of bi-arm manipulation. The other, called DemoStart, ...

Robotics

Sky high—Europe's first drone cargo airline gets ready to take off

Drones can make air freight cheaper and remote areas more connected. But tracking them will be key.

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

A gecko-inspired twist on robotic handling

The subtle adhesive forces that allow geckos to seemingly defy gravity, cling to walls and walk across ceilings have inspired a team of researchers in South Korea to build a robotic device that can pick up and release delicate ...

Robotics

How human faces can teach androids to smile

Robots able to display human emotion have long been a mainstay of science fiction stories. Now, Japanese researchers have been studying the mechanical details of real human facial expressions to bring those stories closer ...

Robotics

A centimeter-scale quadruped leverages curved-crease origami

Centimeter-scale walking and crawling robots are in demand both for their ability to explore tight or cluttered environments and for their low fabrication costs. Now, pulling from origami-inspired construction, researchers ...

Robotics

Spider-inspired, shape-changing robot now even smaller

This shape-changing robot just got a lot smaller. In a new study, engineers at the University of Colorado Boulder debuted mCLARI, a 2-centimeter-long modular robot that can passively change its shape to squeeze through narrow ...

Robotics

Assessing permanent damage to self-healing polymers in soft robots

A new study assesses the maximum number of damage and healing cycles a self-healing actuator can endure. The study, which presents a method to automatically and autonomously assess the repeatable healability of a soft self-healing ...