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

Sony's Aibo seemed tough act to follow but stay tuned

Remember Aibo? This was Sony's iconic robot dog that it started selling in 1999. And look who is jumping back into robotics. Sony. With all the advances in artificial intelligence since the, their new entry will be interesting.

Robotics

Women are less likely to trust robots who stare at them

Research by Dr Chris Stanton, a roboticist at the MARCS Institute for Brain, Behaviour and Development, (Western Sydney University) investigated if the same physical elements that made humans trust one another could be applied ...

Robotics

Personalizing human-robot interaction may increase patient use

Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) researchers have begun to discover preferences in human-robot interactions and the need to personalize those encounters to fit both the human's preferences and the designated task.

Robotics

MIT CSAIL explores virtual reality control room

(Tech Xplore)—If we clear our heads of all the anxious chatter about robots marching into a factory and humans marching out, we get our arms around the likely scenario: manufacturing will adopt systems that involve robots ...

Robotics

Handshake team is focused on human-robot interactions

(Tech Xplore)—Applause goes out to all those scientists, developers and engineers who put together robots who can grip tools, lift packages, sling pingpong balls, deliver pizzas and cut into fabric. If we are winning the ...

Robotics

Startup pioneers human-centric urban travel

For city dwellers, life without an automobile can be filled with daily headaches and frequent inconveniences. Everyday tasks, like lugging a few grocery bags from the nearest market to a walk-up apartment, become a pain in ...

Robotics

Burger robots to appear at 50 locations

(Tech Xplore)—We have been treated to a generous amount of stories announcing new advances in assembly-line robots and home-assistant robots. Smartened up with cameras and artificial intelligence, it looks like time to ...

Robotics

New soft robots really suck

EPFL scientists have created the first functional robot powered entirely by vacuum: made up of soft building blocks, it moves by having air sucked out of them. The robot can be reconfigured to perform different tasks, like ...

Robotics

New robot rolls with the rules of pedestrian conduct

Just as drivers observe the rules of the road, most pedestrians follow certain social codes when navigating a hallway or a crowded thoroughfare: Keep to the right, pass on the left, maintain a respectable berth, and be ready ...

Robotics

Researchers develop origami-inspired robot

New research from a team of University of Illinois Mechanical Science and engineering professors and students, published as an invited paper in Smart Materials and Structures, details how origami structures and bio-inspired ...

Robotics

Designing custom robots in a matter of minutes

Even as robots become increasingly common across different parts of our world, they remain incredibly difficult to make. From designing and modeling to fabricating and testing, the process is slow and costly: even one small ...

Robotics

New soft rubber for creating self-healing robots

(Tech Xplore)—A team of researchers at Vrije Universiteit Brussel has developed a type of rubber that can be used with robots to allow them to self-heal when cut. In their paper published in the journal Science Robotics, ...