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A new 3D printing technique can create paper-thin "magnetic muscles," which can be applied to origami structures to make them move.

In a simulated natural disaster, robotic drones from the University of Maryland's RoboScout Team arrived first, scanning the area for survivors. They beamed patients' locations to robot dogs and medics on the ground to quickly find, triage and treat the most critically injured people first.

Could tiny magnetic objects, that rapidly clump together and instantly fall apart again, one day perform delicate procedures inside the human body? A new study from researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Stuttgart and at ETH Zurich introduces a wireless method to stiffen and relax small structures using magnetic fields, without wires, pumps, or physical contact.

Researchers have invented a new super agile robot that can cleverly change shape thanks to amorphous characteristics akin to the popular Marvel anti-hero Venom.

Microrobots, small robotic systems that are less than 1 centimeter (cm) in size, could tackle some real-world tasks that cannot be completed by bigger robots. For instance, they could be used to monitor confined spaces and remote natural environments, to deliver drugs or to diagnose diseases or other medical conditions.

Researchers have created a class of robots made from thin sheets of material that can snap into hundreds of stable shapes, allowing them to execute a wide variety of actions despite the fact that they have no motor and are made of a single, flat material. These "metabots" essentially resemble animated sheets of plastic, capable of moving around a surface or grasping objects.

Researchers have developed a soft robotic skin that enables vine robots that are just a few millimeters wide to navigate convoluted paths and fragile environments. To accomplish this, the researchers integrated a very thin layer of actuators made of liquid crystal elastomer at strategic locations in the soft skin. The robot is steered by controlling the pressure inside its body and temperature of the actuators.

From sorting objects in a warehouse to navigating furniture while vacuuming, robots today use sensors, software control systems, and moving parts to perform tasks. The harder the task or more complex the environment, the more cumbersome and expensive the electronic components.

Introducing X1: The world's first multirobot system that integrates a humanoid robot with a transforming drone that can launch off the humanoid's back, and later, drive away.

Tech investment giant SoftBank Group said Wednesday it will buy Swiss-Swedish firm ABB Robotics for nearly $5.4 billion as part of its plans to bring artificial intelligence into the physical realm.

Drones have become a more common sight in our skies and are used for everything from consumer hobbies like aerial photography to industrial applications such as farming, surveillance and logistics. However, they are not without their shortcomings, and one of those is landings. Almost half of all drone accidents occur when these uncrewed aerial vehicles attempt to touch down, especially in challenging environments or on fast-moving objects. But that could be a thing of the past as researchers have developed a system that can land smoothly on vehicles traveling at speed.

Identifying cracks is critical for the monitoring of civil infrastructure. To enhance inspection efficiency, a proposed autonomous crack segmentation and exploration system enables the agent to navigate itself without human operation, and the agent successfully captures more than 85% of cracks in the training dataset and achieves 82% crack coverage in the testing dataset.

Flying manipulator robots have shown themselves to be useful in many applications, such as industrial maintenance or construction. Their utility in hard to reach or hazardous locations makes them particularly promising in applications that put humans at risk. While these machines have been continuously improving over the years, they are still lacking in certain areas.

It's been a goal for as long as humanoids have been a subject of popular imagination—a general-purpose robot that can do rote tasks like fold laundry or sort recycling simply by being asked.

When multiple people work together, things sometimes turn out better than doing the same task alone. Then, there are other times, when cooperation actually seems to hinder progress, making things much more inefficient.