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Using autonomous vehicle guidelines, a team of UBC Okanagan researchers has developed a system to improve interactions between people and robots.

Researchers from North Carolina State University have come up with a new design for thermal actuators, which can be used to create rapid movement in soft robotic devices.

Psychologists use mazes to assess the learning capacity of mice or rats. But how about robots? Can they learn to navigate the twists and turns of a labyrinth? Now, researchers at the Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) in the Netherlands and the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research in Mainz, Germany, have proven they can. Their robot bases its decisions on the very system humans use to think and act: the brain. The study, which was published in Science Advances, paves the way to exciting new applications of neuromorphic devices in health and beyond.

Engineers at Caltech, ETH Zurich, and Harvard are developing an artificial intelligence (AI) that will allow autonomous drones to use ocean currents to aid their navigation, rather than fighting their way through them.

When you think of a robot, images of R2-D2 or C-3PO might come to mind. But robots can serve up more than just entertainment on the big screen. In a lab, for example, robotic systems can improve safety and efficiency by performing repetitive tasks and handling harsh chemicals.

As robots become increasingly advanced, they are being trained to complete a wide variety of tasks. Some roboticists have been specifically exploring the potential of robotic systems that can assembly items without much human supervision, as this could significantly speed up industrial and production processes.

A team at Swiss-Mile, a spinoff of ETH Zurich has improved upon its ANYmal robot by giving it wheels—the result is known as the Swiss-Mile Robot. And by giving it wheels, the robot is now classified as a car, a quadruped and a humanoid robot, depending on its activity at any given time. Like the original ANYmal, the Swiss-Mile has a cartoonish look about it, as if it rolled out of one of the Pixar "Cars" movies.

Scientists from the Division of Mechanical Science and Engineering at Kanazawa University developed a prototype pipe maintenance robot that can unclog and repair pipes with a wide range of diameters. Using a cutting tool with multiple degrees of freedom, the machine is capable of manipulating and dissecting objects for removal. This work may be a significant step forward for the field of sewerage maintenance robots.

Let's say you wanted to build the world's best stair-climbing robot. You'd need to optimize for both the brain and the body, perhaps by giving the bot some high-tech legs and feet, coupled with a powerful algorithm to enable the climb.

Engineered Arts, a robot maker based in the U.K., is showing off its latest creation at this year's CES 2022. Called Ameca, the robot is able to display what appears to be the most human-like facial expressions by a robot to date. On its webpage, the company calls Ameca "The Future Face of Robotics."

How can humans instantly estimate the slipperiness of a surface and adjust their grip, for instance, when picking up a wet glass? Researchers from Delft University of Technology have, together with French and Australian colleagues, demonstrated that a (radial) strain of the skin of the fingertip is involved in the perception of slipperiness during initial contact. Robotics could use this information, for instance to improve prosthetics and grippers. The results have been been published in PNAS.

Inspired by how birds land and perch on branches, a team of engineers at Stanford University has built robotic graspers that can fit on drones, enabling them to catch objects and grip various surfaces.

Over the next few decades, robots could be introduced into human environments, including homes, offices and retail spaces. Among other things, robotic systems could be used to tidy up spaces and make them safer for humans.

Afloating, robotic film designed at UC Riverside could be trained to hoover oil spills at sea or remove contaminants from drinking water.

Impressions of a robot's personality can be influenced by the way it looks, sounds and feels. But now, researchers from Japan have found specific causal relationships between impressions of robot personality and body texture.