Robotics news

Robotics

Biohybrid swimming robot uses motor neurons and cardiomyocytes to emulate muscle tissue

A combined team of bio researchers and roboticists from Brigham and Women's Hospital, in the U.S., and the iPrint Institute, in Switzerland, has developed a tiny swimming robot using human motor neurons and cardiomyocytes ...

Robotics

New method enables robots to map a scene, identify objects in order to complete a set of tasks

Imagine having to straighten up a messy kitchen, starting with a counter littered with sauce packets. If your goal is to wipe the counter clean, you might sweep up the packets as a group. If, however, you wanted to first ...

Robotics

Researchers design platypus-inspired bionic multi-receptor skin

While engineers have developed increasingly advanced bio-inspired systems over the past decades, the sensing capabilities of these systems are typically far less advanced than those observed in humans and other animals.

Robotics

Neural Motion Planning approach helps robots navigate challenging obstacles in unfamiliar environments

Humans can grab a book from a shelf with little obvious thought. But it's a complex process for the brain that involves planning and navigating around obstacles, like other books or knickknacks. Robotics researchers have ...

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

Bioinspired micro-robot based on white blood cells

A team of scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems (MPI-IS) in Stuttgart invented a tiny micro-robot that resembles a white blood cell traveling through the circulatory system. It has the shape, the ...

Robotics

Researchers build a fast-moving jumping soft robot

Buckling, the sudden loss of structural stability, is usually the stuff of engineering nightmares. Mechanical buckling means catastrophic failure for every structural system from rockets to soufflés. It's what caused the ...

Hardware

A soft touch for robotic hardware

Robots can be made from soft materials, but the flexibility of such robots is limited by the inclusion of rigid sensors necessary for their control. Researchers created embedded sensors, to replace rigid sensors, that offer ...

Robotics

SILVER2 aquatic robot walks around on the seabed

A team of Italian researchers from the BioRobotics Institute, Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna and Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn has developed a new and improved version of its Seabed Interaction Legged Vehicle for Exploration ...

Robotics

Researchers develop real-time physics engine for soft robotics

Motion picture animation and video games are impressively lifelike nowadays, capturing a wisp of hair falling across a heroine's eyes or a canvas sail snapping crisply in the wind. Collaborators from the University of California, ...

Robotics

Inspired by cheetahs, researchers build fastest soft robots yet

Inspired by the biomechanics of cheetahs, researchers have developed a new type of soft robot that is capable of moving more quickly on solid surfaces or in the water than previous generations of soft robots. The new soft ...

Robotics

Study finds stronger links between automation and inequality

Modern technology affects different workers in different ways. In some white-collar jobs—designer, engineer—people become more productive with sophisticated software at their side. In other cases, forms of automation, ...