A team of researchers at Yale University has developed a new kind of algorithm to improve the functionally of a robot hand. In their paper published in the journal Science Robotics, the group describes their algorithm and then demonstrate, via videos, how it can be used.
The models that robots use to do tasks work well in the structured environment of the laboratory. Outside the lab, however, even the most sophisticated models may prove inadequate in new situations or in difficult to model tasks, such as working with soft materials like rope and cloth.
Using a robotic 'Third Thumb' can impact how the hand is represented in the brain, finds a new study led by UCL researchers.
The rhythmic motions of hair-like cilia move liquids around cells or propel the cells themselves. In nature, cilia flap independently, and mimicking these movements with artificial materials requires complex mechanisms. Now, researchers reporting in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces have made artificial cilia that move in a wave-like fashion when a rotating magnetic field is applied, making them suitable for versatile, climbing soft robots and microfluidic devices.
Research focusing on swarm robotics typically uses theoretical approaches to describe robotic systems in an abstract way. A theoretical model that is often used in robotics studies is OBLOT, an approach that represents robots as simple systems, all identical, without a memory and unable to communicate with each other.
On May 14, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) ship Okeanos Explorer will depart from Port Canaveral in Florida on a two-week expedition led by NOAA Ocean Exploration, featuring the technology demonstration of an autonomous underwater vehicle. Called Orpheus, this new class of submersible robot will showcase a system that will help it find its way and identify interesting scientific features on the seafloor.
Sometimes, one robot isn't enough.
Robots are becoming more and more omnipresent in our lives, even though we may not notice. New research shows that when a boxy motorized hospital robot can talk, people find it funny and engaging. And that may help people be more willing to accept new technologies, like robots, in their everyday lives.
A team of researchers at Yale University's Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science, has developed a robot hand that employs a caging mechanism. In their paper published in the journal Science Robotics, the group describes their research into applying a caging mechanism to robot hands and how well their demonstration models worked.
You might call it "zoobotics." Jessica Burgner-Kahrs, the director of the Continuum Robotics Lab at U of T Mississauga, and her team are building very slender, flexible and extensible robots, a few millimeters in diameter, for use in surgery and industry. Unlike humanoid robots, so-called continuum robots feature a long, limbless body—not unlike a snake's—that allows them to access difficult-to-reach places.
Deep underground in eastern France, a four-legged bundle of energy named Scar steps gingerly through vast caverns, loaded with sensors for taking measures in places where humans might fear to tread.
To best assist human users while they complete everyday tasks, robots should be able to understand their queries, answer them and perform actions accordingly. In other words, they should be able to flexibly generate and perform actions that are aligned with a user's verbal instructions.
A group of researchers from Osaka University developed a quadruped robot platform that can reproduce the neuromuscular dynamics of animals (Figure 1), discovering that a steady gait and experimental behaviors of walking cats emerged from the reflex circuit in walking experiments on this robot. Their research results were published in Frontiers in Neurorobotics.
Researchers from AMOLF's Soft Robotic Matter group have shown that a group of small autonomous, self-learning robots can adapt easily to changing circumstances. They connected these simple robots in a line, after which each individual robot taught itself to move forward as quickly as possible. The results were published today in the scientific journal PNAS.
Computer scientists at the University of California San Diego have developed a more accurate navigation system that will allow robots to better negotiate busy clinical environments in general and emergency departments more specifically. The researchers have also developed a dataset of open source videos to help train robotic navigation systems in the future.