Although robotics has reshaped and even redefined many industrial sectors, there still exists a gap between machines and humans in fields such as health and elderly care. For robots to safely manipulate or interact with fragile objects and living organisms, new strategies to enhance their perception while making their parts softer are needed. In fact, building a safe and dexterous robotic gripper with human-like capabilities is currently one of the most important goals in robotics.
A team of researchers from the University of Edinburgh and Zhejiang University has developed a way to combine deep neural networks (DNNs) to create a new type of system with a new kind of learning ability. The group describes their new architecture and its performance in the journal Science Robotics.
Northwestern University researchers have developed a first-of-its-kind life-like material that acts as a soft robot. It can walk at human speed, pick up and transport cargo to a new location, climb up hills and even break-dance to release a particle.
When your robot vacuum cleaner does its work around the house, beware that it could pick up private conversations along with the dust and dirt. Computer scientists from NUS have demonstrated that it is indeed possible to spy on private conversations using a common robot vacuum cleaner and its built-in Light Detection and Ranging (Lidar) sensor.
When danger approaches, the Moroccan flic-flac spider takes the shape of a ball and rolls away to safety. Just as the trick of shape-shifting to one's environment has proved invaluable for many creatures, Yale researchers say it could be equally useful for robots.
A pair of researchers at Konkuk University has designed a miniaturized micro air vehicle (MAV) capable of recovering from midair collisions. In their paper published in the journal Science, Hoang Vu Phan and Hoon Cheol Park describe their study of collision recovery in rhinoceros beetles and how they applied their findings to the design of a new kind of MAV.
Over the past decade or so, roboticists and computer scientists have tried to use reinforcement learning (RL) approaches to train robots to efficiently navigate their environment and complete a variety of basic tasks. Building affordable robots that can support and manage the exploratory controls associated with RL algorithms, however, has so far proved to be fairly challenging.
The Shadow Robot Dexterous Hand is a robot hand, with size, shape and movement capabilities similar to those of a human hand. To give the robotic hand the ability to learn how to manipulate objects researchers from WMG, University of Warwick, have developed new AI algorithms.
Sometimes you need to get human knowledge and skills to places that are hazardous or difficult to access for people. The project entitled Predictive Avatar Control and Feedback (PACOF) is creating a robotic system that allows the robot operator to experience the location just as the robot does. Three researchers representing the three different disciplines of the University of Twente's EEMCS faculty are working together in this project.
What would the world look like if socially skilled robots stepped into the roles normally reserved for humans?
So you need a robot that climbs stairs. What shape should that robot be? Should it have two legs, like a person? Or six, like an ant?
A new type of energy-generating synthetic skin could create more affordable prosthetic limbs and robots capable of mimicking the sense of touch, scientists say.
Researchers at ETH Zurich have developed a technique for manufacturing micrometer-long machines by interlocking multiple materials in a complex way. Such microrobots will one day revolutionize the field of medicine.
When robots and humans interact in a shared environment, it is important for them to move in ways that prevent collisions or accidents. To reduce the risk of collisions, roboticists have developed numerous of techniques that monitor an environment, predict the future actions of humans moving in it, identify safe trajectories for a robot and control its movements accordingly.
Every backyard gardener knows how hard it can be to tell when to water the plants. Multiply that by tens or hundreds of acres and it's easy to see the challenges growers face keeping their crops healthy while managing water resources wisely.