In recent years, roboticists have developed a wide range of systems designed to tackle various real-world tasks, ranging from completing household chores to delivering packages or finding target objects in delineated environments.
Using mechanisms inspired by nature to create new technological innovations is a signature of one Virginia Tech research team. The group led by Associate Professor Michael Bartlett has created an octopus-inspired adhesive, inspired by the shape of octopus suckers, that can quickly grab and controllably release challenging underwater objects.
Researchers at the University of Science and Technology of China have developed a soft robotic "finger" with a sophisticated sense of touch that can perform routine doctor's office examinations, including taking a patient's pulse and checking for abnormal lumps. This work was published October 9 in Cell Reports Physical Science.
Engineers have worked out how to give robots complex instructions without electricity for the first time, which could free up more space in the robotic 'brain' for them to 'think.'
Researchers from Tampere University in Finland and Anhui Jianzhu University in China have made a significant breakthrough in soft robotics. Their study introduces the first toroidal, light-driven micro-robot that can move autonomously in viscous liquids, such as mucus. This innovation marks a major step forward in developing micro-robots capable of navigating complex environments, with promising applications in fields such as medicine and environmental monitoring.
The growing use of collaborative robots in the workplace may pose significant psychosocial risks to workers' mental health and their job security, but there are ways for organizations to smooth the transition, according to research from the Monash University Business School.
A robot pangolin designed to plant trees is the winner of the 2023 Natural Robotics Contest, which rewards robot designs inspired by nature. As the winning entry, the pangolin—dubbed "Plantolin"—has been brought to life by engineers at the University of Surrey in the United Kingdom.
A team of robotics engineers at ETH Zurich, Robotics Systems Lab, has modified an ANYbotics ANYMal quadruped robot to allow it to easily and effectively climb a standard ladder. The group has written a paper describing their efforts and results and has posted it on the arXiv preprint server.
Sidewalk robots are set to help some of their airborne counterparts with deliveries in Dallas under an agreement between key players in the industry.
A combined team of bio researchers and roboticists from Brigham and Women's Hospital, in the U.S., and the iPrint Institute, in Switzerland, has developed a tiny swimming robot using human motor neurons and cardiomyocytes grown to emulate muscle tissue.
Imagine having to straighten up a messy kitchen, starting with a counter littered with sauce packets. If your goal is to wipe the counter clean, you might sweep up the packets as a group. If, however, you wanted to first pick out the mustard packets before throwing the rest away, you would sort more discriminately, by sauce type. And if, among the mustards, you had a hankering for Grey Poupon, finding this specific brand would entail a more careful search.
According to a recent study in Scientific Reports, Turing patterns can be used to develop a new method for designing and producing fabric-based soft pneumatic actuators (FSPAs).
Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), commonly known as drones, have proved to be highly effective systems for monitoring and exploring environments. These autonomous flying robots could also be used to create detailed maps and three-dimensional (3D) visualizations of real-world environments.
Robotic grippers have become essential across many industries, including manufacturing, packaging, and logistics, mainly for pick-and-place tasks. Recently, the demand for robotic grippers has also expanded into agriculture, where they are used for harvesting and packaging tasks.
While engineers have developed increasingly advanced bio-inspired systems over the past decades, the sensing capabilities of these systems are typically far less advanced than those observed in humans and other animals.