Japan's SoftBank has suspended production of its humanoid robot Pepper, a company spokeswoman said Tuesday, seven years after the conglomerate unveiled the signature chatty white android to much fanfare.
A team of researchers working at Johannes Kepler University has developed an autonomous drone with a new type of technology to improve search-and-rescue efforts. In their paper published in the journal Science Robotics, the group describes their drone modifications. Andreas Birk with Jacobs University Bremen has published a Focus piece in the same journal issue outlining the work by the team in Austria.
Without GPS, autonomous systems get lost easily. Now a new algorithm developed at Caltech allows autonomous systems to recognize where they are simply by looking at the terrain around them—and for the first time, the technology works regardless of seasonal changes to that terrain.
Farming robots that can move autonomously in an open field or greenhouse promise a cleaner, safer agricultural future. But there are also potential downsides, from the loss of much-needed jobs to the safety of those working alongside the robots.
The team at Amazon-owned Zoox has released an in-depth safety report detailing the safety features engineers have built into the company's autonomous vehicle, a robo-taxi, and have published it online.
Imagine flexible surgical instruments that can twist and turn in all directions like miniature octopus arms, or how about large and powerful robot tentacles that can work closely and safely with human workers on production lines. A new generation of robotic tools are beginning to be realized thanks to a combination of strong 'muscles' and sensitive 'nerves' created from smart polymeric materials. A research team led by the smart materials experts Professor Stefan Seelecke and Junior Professor Gianluca Rizzello at Saarland University is exploring fundamental aspects of this exciting field of soft robotics.
Toyota Research Institute (TRI) has announced on its press blog that engineers with the company have developed new capabilities for its line of domestic robots. The new capabilities include recognizing and manipulating transparent objects and wiping down counters and tables. In the video accompanying the announcement, a robot grabs a smartphone off a table and uses it to take a selfie video as it carries on with cleaning a kitchen.
Humans and robots may be sharing some of the same goals and manufacturing spaces soon as autonomy and robot technology continue to advance. Researchers at Texas A&M University are analyzing how they can work in unison to allow for one party to step up where the other may temporarily lack.
Humans and robots may be sharing some of the same goals and manufacturing spaces soon as autonomy and robot technology continue to advance. Researchers at Texas A&M University are analyzing how they can work in unison to allow for one party to step up where the other may temporarily lack.
How the brain lets us perceive and navigate the world is one of the most fascinating aspects of cognition. When orienting ourselves, we constantly combine information from all six senses in a seemingly effortless way—a feature that even the most advanced AI systems struggle to replicate.
Cardiac surgeons may be able to better plan operations and improve their surgical field view with the help of a robot. Controlled through a virtual reality parallel system as a digital twin, the robot can accurately image a patient through ultrasound without the hand cramping or radiation exposure that hinder human operators. The international research team published their method in IEEE/CAA Journal of Automatica Sinica.
Do you remember the time when self-driving cars were upon us? It was almost a decade ago when the Autonomous Vehicle division at Google (now Waymo) promised a world where people would be chauffeured around by self-driving robot cars.
In the early weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic, clinics and patients alike began canceling all non-urgent appointments and procedures in order to slow the spread of the coronavirus. A boom in telemedicine was borne out of necessity as healthcare workers, administrators, and scientists creatively advanced technologies to fill a void in care.
An innovative underwater robot known as Mesobot is providing researchers with deeper insight into the vast mid-ocean region known as the "twilight zone." Capable of tracking and recording high-resolution images of slow-moving and fragile zooplankton, gelatinous animals, and particles, Mesobot greatly expands scientists' ability to observe creatures in their mesopelagic habitat with minimal disturbance. This advance in engineering will enable greater understanding of the role these creatures play in transporting carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to the deep sea, as well as how commercial exploitation of twilight zone fisheries might affect the marine ecosystem.
Robots began handing out bottles of sacred water in Mecca this week in preparation for a socially distanced Hajj pilgrimage in Islam's holiest city, due to the coronavirus pandemic.