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

Robots enable bees and fish to talk to each other

Through an imaginative experiment, researchers were able to get two extremely different animal species located far apart to interact with each other and reach a shared decision with the help of robots.

Robotics

'Particle robot' works as a cluster of simple units

Taking a cue from biological cells, researchers from MIT, Columbia University, and elsewhere have developed computationally simple robots that connect in large groups to move around, transport objects, and complete other ...

Robotics

New robot hand is soft and strong

50 years ago, the first industrial robot arm called Unimate assembled a simple breakfast of toast, coffee, and champagne. While it might have looked like a seamless feat, every movement and placement was coded with careful ...

Robotics

Researchers create nano-bot to probe inside human cells

University of Toronto Engineering researchers have built a set of magnetic 'tweezers' that can position a nano-scale bead inside a human cell in three dimensions with unprecedented precision. The nano-bot has already been ...

Robotics

A robotic leg, born without prior knowledge, learns to walk

For a newborn giraffe or wildebeest, being born can be a perilous introduction to the world—predators lie in wait for an opportunity to make a meal of the herd's weakest member. This is why many species have evolved ways ...

Robotics

How to train your robot (to feed you dinner)

About 1 million adults in the United States need someone to help them eat, according to census data from 2010. It's a time-consuming and often awkward task, one largely done out of necessity rather than choice.

Robotics

New cell-sized micro robots might make incredible journeys

Researchers have harnessed the latest nanofabrication techniques to create bug-shaped robots that are wirelessly powered, able to walk, able to survive harsh environments and tiny enough to be injected through an ordinary ...

Robotics

Ultra-low power chips help make small robots more capable

An ultra-low power hybrid chip inspired by the brain could help give palm-sized robots the ability to collaborate and learn from their experiences. Combined with new generations of low-power motors and sensors, the new application-specific ...

Robotics

Researchers explore what makes robots 'persuasive' to humans

A new study by researchers at the University of Toronto's Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering explores how robots persuade and build trust with humans. The research could guide the development of artificial intelligence ...

Robotics

A new robot for artistic grayscale painting

A team of researchers at St. Petersburg Electrotechnical University (ETU-LETI) and Ural Federal University (URFU) has recently created a new robotic setup for realistic grayscale painting. The project's lead developer, Dr. ...