https://techxplore.com/rss-feed/robotics-news/ en-us The latest news on robotics, robots, robotics sciences and technology science. How many times have you asked someone to hold open a door while carrying something, or fumbled with your front-door keys with your arms full of groceries? Wouldn't it be great if you could give yourself the extra hand you need? https://techxplore.com/news/2026-09-wearable-robotic-limbs.html Robotics Wed, 23 Sep 2026 16:20:01 EDT news709396047 A four-legged robot that can complete a marathon on a single battery charge has been demonstrated by a team from KAIST. The robot, which completed the Sangju Marathon in South Korea in 4 hours and 19 minutes alongside human runners, traveled three times as far per charge than existing robots and could pave the way for improved battery life in legged robots. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-09-robot-dog-marathon-battery.html Robotics Wed, 23 Sep 2026 16:00:16 EDT news709395301 As our skies increasingly crowd with buzzing, hovering, flitting drones, spare a thought for the humble hopping robot. Hopping, a popular form of locomotion in the insect and amphibian worlds, is nearly two orders of magnitude more energy-efficient than flying. Unlike a mosquito that must constantly expend energy to stay aloft, a flea only works out when it jumps. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-09-tiny-robot-precisely-height.html Robotics Wed, 23 Sep 2026 15:20:08 EDT news709394701 For many of us, the last—and only—time we've seen a walking hand was Thing in "The Addams Family" movies or TV series. Now there's another. Engineers from the Soft Robotics Lab at ETH Zurich have adapted an off-the-shelf detached robotic hand so it can crawl across different surfaces, balance and interact with its environment. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-09-robotic-keys.html Robotics Wed, 23 Sep 2026 13:30:01 EDT news709387524 A simple pattern of black-and-white stripes could cause an autonomous vehicle or robot to misjudge how far away an obstacle is, potentially triggering an unexpected maneuver or even a collision, according to new University of Florida research. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-09-simple-visual-patterns-ai-powered.html Robotics Wed, 23 Sep 2026 10:00:04 EDT news709372295 Humanoid robots, robotic systems with a human-like body structure, could assist people in homes, offices, health care facilities, public spaces and various other environments. Before they can be reliably deployed in these settings, however, robots should be able to safely navigate cluttered and dynamic environments. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-09-humanoid-robots-narrow-gaps-obstacles.html Robotics Wed, 23 Sep 2026 06:20:01 EDT news709302867 Cornell University physics researchers have made robots that can, for the first time, sense the temperature of their surroundings and react together to change it. "Little things can have a large impact," said Itai Cohen, a leader in developing microscopic robots and a corresponding author on the study. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-09-microrobots-environment.html Robotics Wed, 23 Sep 2026 05:00:12 EDT news709293086 Chinese street dancer Wu Yufei has spent most of his 13-year career performing solo, but this year, he found some new partners—a crew of robots with sleek moves. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-09-china-robot-dancers-limber-america.html Robotics Tue, 22 Sep 2026 05:00:03 EDT news709270601 Roboticists at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering and the University of Michigan have shown that elastic rods can be bent and twisted to repeatedly snap between shapes, releasing built-up energy that enables small robots to hop, flip and swim. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-09-snapping-rods-frog-robot-outrun.html Robotics Mon, 21 Sep 2026 15:40:09 EDT news709223821 A flying robot with just one moving part may sound simple. Controlling one precisely is anything but. Most conventional drones rely on several rotors to control how they rise, turn and move. A robot with only one actuator has far fewer ways to correct itself when it drifts off course, encounters a disturbance or reaches the physical limits of what its motor can achieve. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-09-maple-seed-robot-flies-accurately.html Robotics Fri, 18 Sep 2026 11:00:08 EDT news708946441 With the rapid rise of artificial intelligence in daily life, software coding has become increasingly automated, with powerful AI systems known as coding agents able to write and revise computer programs almost autonomously. But what happens when an AI agent must contend not just with digital command lines, but with the physical world of robotics? https://techxplore.com/news/2026-09-source-benchmark-ai-agents-robots.html Robotics Fri, 18 Sep 2026 10:40:13 EDT news708946262 Rats and mice can scurry through dark, tight spaces with ease—in caves, underground burrows, buildings or sewers. Their superpower is their whiskers. Now, tiny autonomous drones could soon navigate through darkness, dust and smoke using artificial whiskers inspired by these animals. Their small size limits the use of large or heavy sensors for navigation. That's why researchers at Delft University of Technology (The Netherlands) have developed a lightweight whisker-based tactile sensor that enables drones to navigate and explore their surroundings through gentle touch. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-09-bio-whiskers-enable-tiny-drones.html Robotics Fri, 18 Sep 2026 08:40:04 EDT news708939423 Drones have many uses in surveillance and surveying, industrial inspection, aerial photography and filmmaking, package delivery and even dynamic light shows. Their fundamental ability to carry cameras, sensors and other equipment has opened up these diverse applications. Now, research published in the International Journal of Intelligent Machines and Robotics has explored another: the safe removal of moss and lichen from sloping roofs, an otherwise hazardous job for a worker. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-09-autopilot-drone-zigzag-routes-moss.html Robotics Thu, 17 Sep 2026 21:00:01 EDT news708868457 A robot meant to inspect a coastline, a flooded street or a wetland can't count on one kind of ground. It might need to crawl over a hard surface, climb a bank, scale a curb or a step, then slide into open water, often within the same few feet. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-09-robot-shifts-weight.html Robotics Thu, 17 Sep 2026 13:00:25 EDT news708868077 Robots no longer exist only in popular culture or science fiction. While we might be familiar with the likes of WALL-E, Baymax, the Terminator and Ultron from the big screen, versions of them are increasingly entering everyday life. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-09-robot-creepiness-highly-personal-subjective.html Consumer & Gadgets Thu, 17 Sep 2026 07:40:06 EDT news708847981 A research team led by Professor Daehee Park of the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at DGIST, in collaboration with a research team from KAIST, has developed a learning technique that enables a single compact AI model to simultaneously predict the movements of nearby people and plan safe navigation paths for robots while reducing performance degradation in both tasks. The research was presented at the 19th European Conference on Computer Vision (ECCV 2026) held in Malmö, Sweden, Sept. 8–12. The paper is available on the arXiv preprint server. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-09-compact-ai-method-conflicts-crowded.html Robotics Wed, 16 Sep 2026 18:00:03 EDT news708769389 Researchers at Durham University have developed a new drone navigation system that enables autonomous aircraft to fly faster, more smoothly and more safely through crowded and obstacle-filled environments. This leads to new possibilities for applications such as search and rescue, infrastructure inspection and environmental monitoring. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-09-flexible-flight-corridors-drones-cluttered.html Robotics Wed, 16 Sep 2026 16:10:01 EDT news708791541 As a child, you likely saw a few Disney movies depicting inanimate objects, such as clocks, cups and toys, as interactive companions to humans—an act of pure magic, seemingly. But scientists at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) are now doing something similar: transforming stationary items into self-aware tools that perceive and respond to human motion to complete a task. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-09-software-reimagines-everyday-aware-devices.html Software Mon, 14 Sep 2026 12:00:07 EDT news708604981 Humans are difficult to simulate. We are quick, complex thinkers, and our exact actions aren't predictable. So how can we sufficiently train robots to collaborate with us? https://techxplore.com/news/2026-09-future-robot-human-collaboration.html Robotics Thu, 10 Sep 2026 10:00:08 EDT news708252181 Humanoid robots, robotic systems with body shapes and limbs resembling those of humans, could potentially assist people with manual tasks in various real-world settings. So far, however, most of these robots can reliably perform only a limited set of movements. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-09-humanoid-robot-sprint-ai-human.html Robotics Thu, 10 Sep 2026 08:00:10 EDT news708178412 Humanoid robots, robotic systems with limbs and body structures that resemble those of humans, could tackle various manual tasks in homes, workspaces and other settings. Yet teaching these robots to reliably perform different humanlike movements is typically challenging and time-consuming. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-09-ai-vr-video-language-humanoid.html Robotics Wed, 09 Sep 2026 10:40:13 EDT news708165653 A research group comprising Associate Professor Yoshihiro Nakata and Taisei Mogi from the Graduate School of Informatics and Engineering at The University of Electro-Communications (UEC), Japan, and Mari Saito of Sony Corporation has developed MOFU (MOrphing Fluffy Unit), a mobile robot capable of whole-body expansion and contraction. The group investigated how whole-body expansion-contraction affects perceived animacy, or the extent to which the robot is perceived as lifelike. In addition to expansion-contraction and locomotion, MOFU was designed with features including quiet operation and a soft, fluffy exterior. The study was published in PLOS ONE. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-09-body-expansion-robot-alive.html Robotics Tue, 08 Sep 2026 15:00:12 EDT news708096841 Waving flags, "chanting" slogans and marching in circles, around 30 robots took to the streets of Warsaw on Monday to campaign for AI regulation in front of the Polish digital affairs ministry. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-09-robots-protest-rampant-ai-poland.html Robotics Mon, 07 Sep 2026 13:40:03 EDT news708007130 AI-powered robots briefly took over the European Parliament this week to showcase the continent's creators as the bloc races to compete in a field dominated by China and the United States. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-09-europe-robot-superpower-china.html Robotics Thu, 03 Sep 2026 13:00:08 EDT news707657217 Drones often hover in the air, noisy and whining. They can already be used for many tasks, but not when you need some quiet. Their batteries would also last longer if they could take a "rest" from time to time. But when a drone is monitoring a rainforest, its cluttered surroundings and its own gripper arm become too tricky for its camera-based vision. Until now. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-08-bird-drone-rest.html Robotics Mon, 31 Aug 2026 17:20:03 EDT news707414642 You might naturally expect a wide, open path to be faster and easier to navigate than a narrow one, just as birds fly freely through the open sky, cars move quickly on empty roads, and a wide hallway seems easier when trying to exit a building. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-08-worms-narrow-paths-faster-wide.html Robotics Mon, 31 Aug 2026 12:00:02 EDT news707395801 Giving robot companions animal-like or anime-style faces and voices could maximize their emotional appeal to users, according to new research that could help guide the growing field of social robotics. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-08-animal-anime-boost-social-robots.html Consumer & Gadgets Mon, 31 Aug 2026 10:20:05 EDT news707390161 Cats, dogs, wolves and other agile four-legged animals can easily jump and squeeze through tight spaces while moving at high speed. Reproducing similar agile motions and skills in quadrupedal robots has so far proved challenging. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-08-legged-robot-dog-movements-tight.html Robotics Mon, 31 Aug 2026 09:20:09 EDT news706953395 3D printers that once could only produce rigid objects can now create products as soft and stretchable as rubber. A team of Korean researchers used AI to identify the optimal "recipe" for a material that can be printed into complex shapes while stretching to more than six times its original length. The material is expected to expand the range of applications for 3D printing, from robotic hands to form-fitting wearable devices and custom medical devices. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-08-soft-3d-robotic-gently-eggs.html Robotics Mon, 31 Aug 2026 09:00:08 EDT news707385292 Researchers from North Carolina State University have created teardrop-shaped soft robots that leap upward or forward when exposed to infrared light—and will keep jumping as long as the light is present. The work demonstrates a new mechanism for self-resetting jumping behavior in soft robotics. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-08-powered-soft-robots.html Robotics Fri, 28 Aug 2026 10:00:02 EDT news707128436