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 take inspiration from insects to track targets

The way insects visualise and hunt their prey could help improve autonomous robotic technology, according to a pioneering new study conducted by a team of engineers and neuroscientists from The University of Adelaide and ...

Robotics

Research makes robots better at following spoken instructions

A new system based on research by Brown University computer scientists makes robots better at following spoken instructions, no matter how abstract or specific those instructions may be. The development, which was presented ...

Robotics

Engineers design a robotic gripper for cleaning up space debris

Right now, about 500,000 pieces of human-made debris are whizzing around space, orbiting our planet at speeds up to 17,500 miles per hour. This debris poses a threat to satellites, space vehicles and astronauts aboard those ...

Robotics

Giving robots a sense of touch

Eight years ago, Ted Adelson's research group at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) unveiled a new sensor technology, called GelSight, that uses physical contact with an object to provide ...

Robotics

How to hold AI accountable for its actions

(Tech Xplore)—A trio of academics has written and published a Focus piece in the journal Science Robotics on the need to hold artificial intelligence systems accountable for their actions. Sandra Wachter, Brent Mittelstadt ...

Robotics

Meet the most nimble-fingered robot ever built

Grabbing the awkwardly shaped items that people pick up in their day-to-day lives is a slippery task for robots. Irregularly shaped items such as shoes, spray bottles, open boxes, even rubber duckies are easy for people to ...

Robotics

An artificial Venus flytrap that operates on light

(Tech Xplore)—A trio of researchers with Tampere University of Technology in Finland has designed and built a simple robot that mimics the actions of a Venus flytrap plant. In their paper published in the journal Nature ...