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At the top of many automation wish lists is a particularly time-consuming task: chores.

To be deployed in a broad range of real-world dynamic settings, robots should be able to successfully complete various manual tasks, ranging from household chores to complex manufacturing or agricultural processes. These manual tasks entail grasping, manipulating and placing objects of different types, which can vary in shape, weight, properties and textures.

Dutch scientists have unveiled the country's first laboratory to research how autonomous miniature drones can mimic insects to accomplish tasks ranging from finding gas leaks in factories to search-and-rescue missions.

Haptic feedback stands as a cornerstone for the authenticity and depth of engagement in virtual reality and teleoperation systems. Yet, existing haptic devices have grappled with the fidelity of replicating tactile properties, hindered by the constraints on their degrees of freedom and expressive range. This limitation has ignited an urgent quest for innovative solutions that can augment the responsiveness and adaptability of haptic systems.

The future deployment of AIs and robots in our everyday work and life, from fully automated vehicles, to delivery robots, and AI assistants, could either be done by making increasingly capable agents that can do many tasks, or simpler more narrow agents that are designed for specific tasks.

Fish fins and insect wings are amazing pieces of natural engineering capable of efficiently moving their owners through water or air. People creating machines to swim or fly have long looked to animals as their models, designing airplanes with wings and boats with fin-shaped rudders. Over the past decades, researchers at Caltech and elsewhere have been exploring bioinspired engineering to see if other natural forms of motion might inform mechanical engineering.

LIG Nex1, a South Korean maker of electronic warfare and communications equipment, says it has paid $240 million for a 60% controlling stake in Ghost Robotics, a Philadelphia-based developer of the Vision 60 dog-like four-legged robots used by the military and law enforcement.

Yuichi Hirose has a dream—a dream that someday everyone will have access to a machine capable of knitting furniture.

Connecting multiple AIs together and putting them in the body of a robot, similar to Star Wars' C-3PO or R2-D2, is the most likely way AI will become as intelligent as humans, according to a scientist from the University of Sheffield.

Using only on-board sensors and cameras, researcher Julián Estévez, from the Computational Intelligence Group (GIC) of the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) has developed low-cost, autonomous, navigation technology to prevent two or more drones whose paths cross in mid-air from colliding with each other. He has achieved positive, encouraging results.

Researchers at Binghamton University, State University of New York have developed a self-powered "bug" that can skim across the water, and they hope it will revolutionize aquatic robotics.

Inspired by the paper-folding art of origami, North Carolina State University engineers have discovered a way to make a single plastic cubed structure transform into more than 1,000 configurations using only three active motors. The findings could pave the way for shape-shifting artificial systems that can take on multiple functions and even carry a load—like versatile robotic structures used in space, for example.

A team of computer scientists and roboticists with members from Texas A&M University in the U.S., and the Mohamed Bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence in Abu Dhabi, working with a colleague from Boston Dynamics, has configured a robot made by Boston Dynamics to seek out and stun weeds using a small blowtorch. The team has posted a paper describing their efforts to the arXiv preprint server.

A new type of valve that makes soft robots more resilient to damage, has been developed by engineers at the University of Sheffield.

Self-amputation may seem like a drastic move, but it's a survival tactic that's proved particularly handy for numerous creatures. Yale roboticists have drawn inspiration from lizards, crabs, and other animals who shed parts of themselves without looking back, all for the purpose of moving forward.