All posts by Robotics News - Robot News, Robotics, Robots, Robotics Sciences

It speaks two languages, gives math lessons, tells jokes and interacts with children through the tablet screen in its chest—China's latest robot is the babysitter every parent needs.

From slithering and walking to flying or swimming, animals are able to move and interact with their environment with relative ease. However, building a robot with the same capabilities is much more difficult.

With the push of a button, months of hard work were about to be put to the test. Sixteen teams of engineers convened in a cavernous exhibit hall in Nagoya, Japan, for the 2017 Amazon Robotics Challenge. The robotic systems they built were tasked with removing items from bins and placing them into boxes. For graduate student Maria Bauza, who served as task-planning lead for the MIT-Princeton Team, the moment was particularly nerve-wracking.

An international team of researchers, led by Professor Hongsoo Choi, Director of DGIST-ETH Microrobot Research Center, has developed capsule-type microrobots that can encapsulate cells and drugs and deliver them to targeted parts of the human body. Unlike conventional methods that install cells or drugs outside of micro robots, the lids of these microrobots can be open and closed.

It's the hands-free experience you never knew you needed—a Japanese company has developed a drone-powered parasol it says can hover over users, protecting them from the sun.

World, meet Harmony. Completely artificial and programmed by computer chips, the somewhat lifelike sex robot is marketed by sex doll maker Realbotix for $15,000. According to The Guardian, she's equipped for intimate relations but is also "the perfect companion," Realbotix says—able to quote Shakespeare and remember your birthday.

It's never been clear whether robotics company Boston Dynamics is making killing machines, household helpers, or something else entirely.

If you've ever watched a YouTube video of a Boston Dynamics robot , you probably remember it. But you may not know what the videos leave out.

Over the past 30 years, researchers have studied actuating materials that can reversibly change their volume under various stimuli in order to develop micro- and biomimetic robots, artificial muscles and medical devices.

A research team of Seoul National University has developed a skin-like electronic system that is soft, thin, lightweight and can wirelessly activate soft robots through a simple lamination process.

European consumers expect a clean supply chain and biodiversity to be conserved. Therefore, reducing the inputs of pesticides and chemical fertilisers to a minimum and/or replacing them by agro-ecological or robot solutions is required. Furthermore, the average age of European farmers is among the highest of all sectors, thus farming needs to attract young people with attractive working opportunities.

A research team is helping robot developers design machines less likely to injure the humans they work with. How? With their novel 'safety map."

A robotics company known for its widely shared videos of nimble, legged robots opening doors or walking through rough terrain is preparing to sell some after years of research.

The path from university lab to commercialization is especially complex in the biotech industry. Challenges range from long lead times, sometimes measured in decades, to the costs of transforming ideas into innovations, as well as issues of intellectual property, patenting and licensing.

Touching and grasping objects are surprisingly complex processes, an area where contemporary robots are still clumsy. Principal investigator Jukka Häkkinen, Ph.D., and post-doctoral researcher Jussi Hakala, D.Sc. (Tech), have developed an imaging method for measuring human touch.