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 are getting more social. Are humans ready?

Personal home robots that can socialize with people are starting to roll out of the laboratory and into our living rooms and kitchens. But are humans ready to invite them into their lives?

Robotics

Soft, multi-functional robots get really small

Roboticists are envisioning a future in which soft, animal-inspired robots can be safely deployed in difficult-to-access environments, such as inside the human body or in spaces that are too dangerous for humans to work, ...

Robotics

Neato robot vacuum will not tread on dog's bowl

Want to bring personalized robot cleaning to the next level? The promotional message from California-based Neato Robotics believes it has the answer. Neato has announced that its robot vacuum has some updates.

Robotics

An insect-inspired drone deforms upon impact

In recent years, robotics experts have taken a page from the traditional Japanese practice of origami and come up with light, flexible, and highly innovative robots and drones. Two types of origami-inspired structures have ...

Robotics

DARPA has competition plans for insect-scale robots

Earlier this month, DARPA announced it is launching a new SHort-Range Independent Microrobotic Platforms (SHRIMP) program. SHRIMP will develop and demonstrate micro-to-milli robotic platforms for scenarios brought on by ...

Robotics

A better way to control a swarm of drones

A team of researchers from Hungary, Norway and the Netherlands has found a way to better control a large swarm of drones—give them more autonomy. In their paper published in the journal Science Robotics, the group describes ...

Robotics

An underwater pokeball for capturing sea creatures

The open ocean is the largest and least explored environment on Earth, estimated to hold up to a million species that have yet to be described. However, many of those organisms are soft-bodied—like jellyfish, squid, and ...

Robotics

New creepy, crawly search and rescue robot developed

A new highly maneuverable search and rescue robot that can creep, crawl and climb over rough terrain and through tight spaces has been developed by Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) researchers.