Researchers at Worcester Polytechnic Institute recently created OmniWheg, a robotic system that can adapt its configuration while navigating its surrounding environment, seamlessly changing from a wheeled to a legged robot. This robot, introduced in an IEEE IROS 2022 paper, pre-published on arXiv, is based on an updated version of the so-called "whegs," a series of mechanisms design to transform a robot's wheels or wings into legs.
Researchers used deep reinforcement learning to steer atoms into a lattice shape, with a view to building new materials or nanodevices.
A team of scientists at EPFL have built a new neural network system that can help understand how animals adapt their movement to changes in their own body and to create more powerful artificial intelligence systems.
A small city in the east of Czechia called Hranice harbors a unique natural wonder that is not (yet) trending on Instagram. The Hranice Abyss is the deepest underwater cave pit in the world, and a team of researchers recently beat a record by revealing more about its depth.
Drones are already shaping the face of our cities—used for building planning, heritage, construction and safety enhancement. But, as studies by the UK's Department of Transport have found, swathes of the public have a limited understanding of how drones might be practically applied.
As an integral part of modern life, sensors are now almost ubiquitous. They measure physical input from the environment and convert it into data that can be interpreted by humans or machines. A new six-dimensional force/torque sensor has been developed by a research team from the Hefei Institutes of Physical Science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Wearing an exosuit could help people rehab from an injury or even give them extra oomph if they're carrying something heavy.
Controlling microscopic processes is inherently challenging. The everyday tools we use to manipulate matter on the macroscale can't simply be shrunk down to the size of cell, and even if they could, the physical forces they rely on work differently when their targets are measured in nanometers.
The Utah Bionic Leg, a motorized prosthetic for lower-limb amputees developed by University of Utah mechanical engineering associate professor Tommaso Lenzi and his students in the HGN Lab, is on the cover of the newest issue of Science Robotics.
Soft robots, or those made with materials like rubber, gels and cloth, have advantages over their harder, heavier counterparts, especially when it comes to tasks that require direct human interaction. Robots that could safely and gently help people with limited mobility grocery shop, prepare meals, get dressed, or even walk would undoubtedly be life-changing.
Caregiving robots would be transformative for people with disabilities and their caretakers, but few research groups are working in this space. A new robotic simulation platform developed by Cornell researchers may help more people enter the field.
Supervisors in San Francisco voted Tuesday to give city police the ability to use potentially lethal, remote-controlled robots in emergency situations—following an emotionally charged debate that reflected divisions on the politically liberal board over support for law enforcement.
Imagine a team of humans and robots working together to process online orders—real-life workers strategically positioned among their automated coworkers who are moving intelligently back and forth in a warehouse space, picking items for shipping to the customer. This could become a reality sooner than later, thanks to researchers at the University of Missouri, who are working to speed up the online delivery process by developing a software model designed to make "transport" robots smarter.
In early November, the Commonwealth Department of Infrastructure invited public comment on proposed Australia-wide "drone delivery guidelines" it has been quietly developing with industry stakeholders. A slick new website—drones.gov.au—boasts of the supposed benefits of delivery drones. It claims they will create jobs, provide cost-efficiency and be environmentally sustainable.
Researchers at Paderborn University in Germany have built a robot that can knock a ball into a hole using a club on a putting green on most attempts. Annika Junker, Niklas Fittkau, Julia Timmermann and Ansgar Trächtler have published a paper on the arXiv preprint server describing their robot and its performance.