Humans are social creatures and learn from each other, even from a young age. Infants keenly observe their parents, siblings or caregivers. They watch, imitate and replay what they see to learn skills and behaviors.
Over the past decade, robotic systems have revolutionized numerous sectors, including the agricultural and farming sector. Many tasks that were traditionally performed manually can now be potentially automated, boosting efficiency and reducing the workload of farmers and other agricultural workers.
Sea turtles can glide majestically through ocean waters and maneuver like armored vehicles over rocks and sand on land. Their locomotive adaptability makes them particularly interesting to robotics experts, who seek to learn the secrets of their gait and propulsion.
Insects in nature possess amazing flying skills and can attach to and climb on walls of various materials. Insects that can perform flapping-wing flight, climb on a wall, and switch smoothly between the two locomotion regimes provide us with excellent biomimetic models. However, very few biomimetic robots can perform complex locomotion tasks that combine the two abilities of climbing and flying.
A research article exploring the use and interaction of automation technologies and robotics in the environment including in engineering nature has been published in Geoforum.
Researchers have found that robots can have a 'U-shaped' effect on profits: causing profit margins to fall at first, before eventually rising again.
Researchers at North Carolina State University have developed a robotic gripping device that is gentle enough to pick up a drop of water, strong enough to pick up a 6.4 kilogram (14.1 pound) weight, dexterous enough to fold a cloth, and precise enough to pick up microfilms that are 20 times thinner than a human hair.
Recent advances in the fields of robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) have opened exciting new avenues for teleoperation, the remote control of robots to complete tasks in a distant location. This could, for instance, allow users to visit museums from afar, complete maintenance or technical tasks in spaces that are difficult to access or attend events remotely in more interactive ways.
A research team has shown for the first time that reinforcement learning—i.e., a neural network that learns the best action to perform at each moment based on a series of rewards—allows autonomous vehicles and underwater robots to locate and carefully track marine objects and animals.
A new soft robotic gripper is not only 3D printed in one print, it also doesn't need any electronics to work. The device was developed by a team of roboticists at the University of California San Diego, in collaboration with researchers at the BASF corporation, who detailed their work in Science Robotics.
In a study published in special issue of the journal IET Cyber-Systems and Robotics, researchers from Zhejiang University experienced in legged robot motion and control, pre-trained the neural network (NN) using data from a robot operated by conventional model-based controllers.
Achieving human-level dexterity during manipulation and grasping has been a long-standing goal in robotics. To accomplish this, having a reliable sense of tactile information and force is essential for robots. A recent study, published in IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, describes the L3 F-TOUCH sensor that enhances the force sensing capabilities of classic tactile sensors. The sensor is lightweight, low-cost, and wireless, making it an affordable option for retrofitting existing robot hands and graspers.
Researchers from MIT and Stanford University have devised a new machine-learning approach that could be used to control a robot, such as a drone or autonomous vehicle, more effectively and efficiently in dynamic environments where conditions can change rapidly.
Geckos' unique ability to climb across anything from a dry desert floor to a cold mountain top without leaving any sticky residue behind is the inspiration for many wall crawling robots, but for the first time researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have introduced it to water.
With the fierce debate broiling over the promise versus perceived dangers of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and autonomous robots, Nicole Moore of the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) has had a study published that is especially timely.