Robotics news

Business

Sidewalk robots are teaming with drones for Dallas food deliveries

Sidewalk robots are set to help some of their airborne counterparts with deliveries in Dallas under an agreement between key players in the industry.

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

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

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

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

Dubai displays tech reputation with global robotics contest

Seeking to bolster its image as a forward-looking metropolis, Dubai hosted the largest-ever international robotics contest this week, challenging young people from 190 countries to find solutions to global ocean pollution.

Robotics

Two-legged robot mimics human balance while running and jumping

Rescuing victims from a burning building, a chemical spill, or any disaster that is inaccessible to human responders could one day be a mission for resilient, adaptable robots. Imagine, for instance, rescue-bots that can ...

Robotics

Chameleon's tongue strike inspires fast-acting robots

Chameleons, salamanders and many toads use stored elastic energy to launch their sticky tongues at unsuspecting insects located up to one-and-a-half body lengths away, catching them within a tenth of a second.

Robotics

System prevents speedy drones from crashing in unfamiliar areas

Autonomous drones are cautious when navigating the unknown. They creep forward, frequently mapping unfamiliar areas before proceeding lest they crash into undetected objects. But this slowdown isn't ideal for drones carrying ...

Robotics

Robotics, coding become child's play: KOOV Trial Kit

Earlier this month, Sony Electronics announced an abbreviated take on the KOOV robotics kit that it showed in a 2017 video as a robotics and coding educational kit, made up of blocks, sensors, motors, actuators, and a companion ...

Robotics

Micromotors push around single cells and particles

A new type of micromotor—powered by ultrasound and steered by magnets—can move around individual cells and microscopic particles in crowded environments without damaging them. The technology could open up new possibilities ...

Robotics

Swarm of tiny drones explores unknown environments

Researchers have presented a swarm of tiny drones that can explore unknown environments completely by themselves. This work, presented in Science Robotics on 23 October, is a significant step in the field of swarm robotics. ...

Robotics

AR platform for improving the efficiency of automated tasks

When Tesla failed to hit weekly production targets in the first quarter of 2018, chief executive Elon Musk blamed it on "excessive automation." The robots were slowing things down and "underrated" humans could do better.

Robotics

Pushy robots learn the fundamentals of object manipulation

MIT researchers have compiled a dataset that captures the detailed behavior of a robotic system physically pushing hundreds of different objects. Using the dataset—the largest and most diverse of its kind—researchers ...