Robotics news
Robotics
Armored caterpillars offer robot designers lessons in crossing slippery glass
Animals have long been one of the primary sources of inspiration for robotics researchers. This is because they rely on sophisticated biological mechanisms and locomotion strategies that could be artificially reproduced in ...
Oct 30, 2026
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Fast Feature Field: The missing link between event cameras and robot vision
For decades, event cameras, which emulate the biological retina by continuously monitoring changes in light intensity, have promised to revolutionize how robots perceive the world by allowing them to react faster and operate ...
Oct 30, 2026
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Insect-inspired flying robot bounces back after collisions
Flying insects, such as fruit flies, bees, dragonflies and mosquitoes, can dart through narrow spaces and survive collisions with various objects. In contrast, many flying robots fall, suffer damage or even break down when ...
A new flexible foot pad enables this one-legged, hopping robot to go where few robots have gone before
A team of University of Toronto Engineering researchers has developed a flexible foot pad for the "Hopcopter"—a one-legged, hopping robot they developed—significantly enhancing its performance on sand, ice and other difficult ...
Oct 28, 2026
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Robotics
Self-adjusting drone controls could make for smoother formation flying
A new method for controlling groups of drones, technically known as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), could make formation flying smoother and reduce energy consumption and mechanical wear, according to research in the International ...
Oct 28, 2026
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Robotics
Artificial skin helps robots grasp pencil lead and pull away from needles
Researchers have covered robotic fingers with a new artificial skin that allows the hand to grasp fragile pencil lead and pull away from a needle before it punctures the covering. Both actions depend on more than sensitive ...
Oct 27, 2026
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Robotics
Wearable system captures human activity data for robot training
Humanoid robots, robotic systems with a body shape that resembles that of humans, could tackle various chores and everyday manual tasks. To successfully complete these tasks, however, the robots should be able to reliably ...
Robotics
Flexible robot arms learn to predict their next move
A robot arm that bends like an elephant's trunk can slip into tight spaces and handle fragile objects. Controlling it is harder because its smooth bending makes its next move hard to predict. Researchers have now developed ...
Oct 23, 2026
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Robotics
Lab-grown mouse muscles enable tiny robots to jump, swim, walk and grasp
Lab-grown skeletal muscle tissue can contract, but the movement is often so slight that it is barely visible. This poses a problem for biohybrid robots designed to move using living muscles. Researchers at ETH Zurich have ...
Oct 22, 2026
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Robotics
Wheeled, flying and six-legged robots stay on track with new learning method
It's important for a robot not just to learn a task optimally, but to complete it without going off the rails of reasonable expectations. Until now, roboticists could have one or the other. Aerospace engineering researchers ...
Oct 21, 2026
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Robotics
Secret trigger words could make AI-powered robots dangerous
Large language models (LLMs) like OpenAI's ChatGPT, Anthropic's Claude and Google Gemini are increasingly being used to help robots perform tasks, but what if LLMs could be exploited to turn helpful robots into harmful robots?
Oct 20, 2026
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Robotics
Robot AI predicts future scenes to guide its next moves
A robot artificial intelligence (AI) system has been developed that can understand human instructions, predict what a scene will look like after an action and then carry out the task. Rather than simply translating instructions ...
Oct 19, 2026
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Robotics
From wombat burrows to Noah's Ark: Robot joins search
Technology developed by an Australian engineer to explore wombat burrows has been sent to eastern Türkiye to join in the search for the biblical Noah's Ark.
Oct 19, 2026
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Robotics
Team develops embodied robotic arm 'EmArm' with human-like touch sensing
A research team at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) has developed an Embodied Sensorimotor Robotic Arm (EmArm) capable of whole-arm tactile sensing and adaptive manipulation. By embedding a soft ...
Oct 17, 2026
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Robotics
Cleaning a giant ship: Roomba-like robots walk on magnetic feet to scrub giant ships
Timothy Wong didn't suspect it at the time, but his dives off the coast of Rockport and the hours he spent studying the wheels and gears of robotics were leading to one mission: figuring out a way to get unwanted sea matter ...
Oct 15, 2026
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Robotics
AI drone outpaces former world champions using one camera and no GPS
What does it take for an autonomous robot to be faster around a course than human drone pilots? At these dizzying speeds, humans need lightning-fast reflexes. Researchers at Delft University of Technology (the Netherlands) ...
Oct 14, 2026
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Robotics
Can you trust a robot in charge?
From monitoring public spaces to responding to requests for help, security robots are beginning to take on roles once held by people. As they gain authority, researchers are asking what it might take for the public to trust ...
Oct 14, 2026
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Robotics
Soft robotic fish combines high-speed swimming with 3D maneuverability
Researchers from the Shenyang Institute of Automation (SIA) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences have developed an electrohydraulically actuated soft robotic fish that can swim at high speeds and perform agile three-dimensional ...
Oct 13, 2026
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Robotics
Beetle-inspired soft robot follows finger commands to walk, grip and relay sensory information
Researchers have developed a technology that lets a user move a small robot by bending and straightening a finger. The user can also pick up and move objects while checking the images and contact information that the robot ...
Oct 13, 2026
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Robotics
Two-armed robot throws and catches balls with human-like movements
Humans can move their limbs very rapidly and coordinate their movements with high precision to tackle specific manual tasks. While robots have become increasingly advanced in recent years, many of them remain less agile than ...
Robotics
PhoneBot gives old smartphones a new job on two legs
Smartphones combine cameras, motion sensors and powerful processors in devices that fit inside a pocket. These features could also make them useful components for robots, reducing the need to buy and connect separate sensors, ...
Robotics
How automation is shaping the future of American manufacturing
Labor shortages, supply-chain volatility and growing demand for customized products are forcing a fundamental rethink of how work gets done in U.S. manufacturing. To remain competitive, manufacturers must produce increasingly ...
Oct 8, 2026
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Robotics
Threadlike motor uses sliding fibers to drive flexible robotic devices without gears
In 2023, researchers in the Soft Transducers Laboratory in EPFL's School of Engineering presented the world's first pump in the form of a fiber. The pump's flexible tubing can generate its own fluid pressure and flow rate ...
Oct 7, 2026
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Robotics
Feather star-inspired underwater robot gets 3D maneuverability from only two actuators
Researchers have created an aquatic soft robot inspired by marine invertebrates called feather stars. The feather star robot is able to move through the water in all three dimensions, powered by only two actuators. The paper, ...
Oct 7, 2026
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