The ocean covers more than 70% of the planet's surface and its expansive depths represent the largest living space on Earth. To understand the massive marine environment, scientists need research tools that can travel far and wide. Research vessels provide a critical platform for exploring the ocean. But going to sea on a research ship requires substantial resources. Institutions must invest in their own fleet and crew or rely on shared vessels, where demand greatly exceeds capacity.
Robotic systems have become increasingly sophisticated over the past decades, improving both in terms of precision and capabilities. This is gradually facilitating the partial automation of some surgical and medical procedures.
"Excuse me, coming through," a four-wheeled robot chirps as it dodges pedestrians on a street outside Tokyo, part of an experiment businesses hope will tackle labor shortages and rural isolation.
Carnegie Mellon University's Robotics Institute has a new artist-in-residence. FRIDA, a robotic arm with a paintbrush taped to it, uses artificial intelligence to collaborate with humans on works of art. Ask FRIDA to paint a picture, and it gets to work putting brush to canvas.
Humans naturally perform numerous complex tasks. These include sitting down, picking something up from a table, and pushing a cart. These activities involve various movements and require multiple contacts, which makes it difficult to program robots to perform them.
When completing missions and tasks in the real-world, robots should ideally be able to effectively grasp objects of various shapes and compositions. So far, however, most robots can only grasp specific types of objects.
Underwater structures that can change their shapes dynamically, the way fish do, push through water much more efficiently than conventional rigid hulls. But constructing deformable devices that can change the curve of their body shapes while maintaining a smooth profile is a long and difficult process. MIT's RoboTuna, for example, was composed of about 3,000 different parts and took about two years to design and build.
Drones are operating increasingly in areas out of sight of the person controlling them. However, conventional remote controls have a limited range, which makes them unsuitable for these flights. On the other hand, simple mobile network-based systems have so far been unable to guarantee a reliable connection when mobile network loads are high or where there is a lack of network coverage. Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Telecommunications, Heinrich-Hertz-Institut, HHI have joined forces with partners in the SUCOM project to develop a new mobile network system that can be used to control drones even over long distances and over difficult terrain.
Technological advances have opened exciting possibilities for space exploration, which could potentially lead to new discoveries about the celestial bodies in our galaxy. Robots have proved to be particularly promising tools to explore other planets, particularly Mars, a terrestrial planet in the solar system that is known to host some similar elements to those found on Earth.
Humans are less forgiving of robots after multiple mistakes—and the trust is difficult to get back, according to a new University of Michigan study.
Scientists at the University of Bristol have drawn on the design and life of a mysterious zooplankton to develop underwater robots.
A group of robot engineers at the University of California Santa Barbara has designed and built a robot that mimics the way roots and vines move toward moisture sources. They describe their approach and robot prototype in a paper uploaded to the arXiv preprint server.
With generative artificial intelligence (AI) systems such as ChatGPT and StableDiffusion being the talk of the town right now, it might feel like we've taken a giant leap closer to a sci-fi reality where AIs are physical entities all around us.
Eight humanoid robots will be the star attractions when the United Nations hosts its first summit since the start of the pandemic on the benefits of artificial intelligence, it said Wednesday.
When it comes to the evolution of mobile robots, it may be a long time before legged robots are able to safely interact in the real world, according to a new study.