Individual ants are relatively simple creatures and yet a colony of ants can perform really complex tasks, such as intricate construction, foraging and defense.
Exploring a new way to teach robots, Princeton researchers have found that human-language descriptions of tools can accelerate the learning of a simulated robotic arm lifting and using a variety of tools.
What if the U.S. placed a tax on robots? The concept has been publicly discussed by policy analysts, scholars, and Bill Gates (who favors the notion). Because robots can replace jobs, the idea goes, a stiff tax on them would give firms incentive to help retain workers, while also compensating for a dropoff in payroll taxes when robots are used. Thus far, South Korea has reduced incentives for firms to deploy robots; European Union policymakers, on the other hand, considered a robot tax but did not enact it.
Simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) is a promising technology that can be used to improve the navigation of autonomous systems, helping them to map their surrounding environment and track other objects within it. So far, it has primarily been applied to terrestrial vehicles and mobile robots, yet it could also potentially be expanded to spacecraft.
EPFL researchers have developed a method that allows a flapping-wing robot to land autonomously on a horizontal perch using a claw-like mechanism. The innovation could significantly expand the scope of robot-assisted tasks.
It's not always easy to make sense of the complex environmental diplomacy taking place at a UN summit billed as humanity's last hope to save nature.
Researchers at Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT—Italian Institute of Technology) have recently realized a new prototype robotic platform for space applications. The new robot, called MARM, has three limbs that can be used to walk, move, grasp and transport payload modules while self-relocating itself on the space infrastructure under a microgravity environment.
A small, self-driven vehicle heads across a sidewalk to a person and stops. Then the individual reaches down, opens the hatch and gets out the food he or she ordered. This isn't a scene in a science fiction movie, rather Uber Eats' newest mode of food delivery coming for Miami-Dade residents.
A trio of researchers at Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, working with a colleague at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, has designed and built a working quadruped robot with magnetized feet that can climb on the walls and ceilings of metal buildings and structures.
A new gelatinous robot that crawls, powered by nothing more than temperature change and clever design, brings "a kind of intelligence" to the field of soft robotics.
Jarvis moves slowly, yet meticulously, from one station to another to make a cup of cappuccino. Jarvis makes the espresso, pours the milk, steams the foam and puts it all together, topping it off with a carefully drawn foam leaf.
Stringent security requirements mean that the inspection and maintenance of infrastructure such as tunnels, oil refineries and bridges are becoming expensive and time-consuming.
A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
Light-weight and flying robots the size of small insects could have highly valuable real-world applications, for instance supporting search & rescue missions, inspections of hazardous sites, and even space exploration.
Cornell University engineers have created a soft robot capable of detecting when and where it was damaged—and then healing itself on the spot.