Making group decisions is no easy task, especially when the decision makers are a swarm of robots. To increase swarm autonomy in collective perception, a research team at the IRIDIA artificial intelligence research laboratory at the Université Libre de Bruxelles proposed an innovative self-organizing approach in which one robot at a time works temporarily as the "brain" to consolidate information on behalf of the group.
Researchers at the University of Washington have developed small robotic devices that can change how they move through the air by "snapping" into a folded position during their descent. The team published these results in Science Robotics.
Large language models (LLMs) are advanced deep learning techniques that can interact with humans in real-time and respond to prompts about a wide range of topics. These models have gained much popularity after the release of ChatGPT, a model created by OpenAI that surprised many users for its ability to generate human-like answers to their questions.
In a virtual reality study that sheds light on the intricacies of human-robot interactions, researchers have discovered that humans are capable of experiencing empathic embarrassment when witnessing robots go through embarrassing situations.
In fried-chicken-obsessed South Korea, restaurants serving the nation's favorite fast-food dish dot every street corner. But Kang Ji-young's establishment brings something a little different to the table: a robot is cooking the chicken.
Researchers who created a soft robot that could navigate simple mazes without human or computer direction have now built on that work, creating a "brainless" soft robot that can navigate more complex and dynamic environments. The paper, "Physically Intelligent Autonomous Soft Robotic Maze Escaper," was published Sept. 8 in the journal Science Advances.
A newly developed robotic driving seat will be showcased at the British Science Festival by UCL researchers, as part of ongoing efforts to increase public trust in highly automated vehicles.
A Japanese city plans to use robots to enable pupils to attend classes virtually, as truancy rates surge due to anxiety and bullying, officials said Wednesday.
Recently published research assessed human trust when collaborating with eyed and non-eyed robots of the same type. The data suggest that humans might not need human-like machines to trust and work with them. Instead, they even seem to collaborate better with machine-like, eyeless machines.
The current crop of AI robots has made giant leaps when it comes to tiny activities.
Robots made of metal and other solid materials are already widely used in industry. But they are too rigid and cumbersome for fine-motor activities and interaction with people, such as in nursing or medicine. Intensive research is therefore already being carried out into robots made of soft materials: inspiration from nature, such as jellyfish, earthworms, fish or the human body should enable "soft robots" that can move flexibly and adapt to their environment.
Evolutionary robotics is a sub-field of robotics aimed at developing artificial "organisms" that can improve their capabilities and body configuration in response to their surroundings, just as humans and animals evolve, adapting their skills and appearance over time. A growing number of roboticists have been trying to develop these evolvable robotic systems, leveraging recent artificial intelligence (AI) advances.
To assist humans during their day-to-day activities and successfully complete domestic chores, robots should be able to effectively manipulate the objects we use every day, including utensils and cleaning equipment. Some objects, however, are difficult to grasp and handle for robotic hands, due to their shape, flexibility, or other characteristics.
Robots based on soft materials are often better at replicating the appearance, movements and abilities of both humans and animals. While there are now countless soft robots, many of these are difficult to produce on a large-scale, due to the high cost of their components or their complex fabrication process.
A small team of mechanical engineers at Carnegie Mellon University, working with a colleague from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, has designed and built what they describe as the simplest walking robot ever. They have written a paper describing the ideas they used to build the robot and the factors that have led to its simplicity and have posted it on the arXiv preprint server.