Research at Michigan State University is focused on teaching robots to use colors to perceive, visualize, and interpret interactions when manipulating objects. A force-interpreting optical system is being developed so robots can distinguish and manipulate soft and fragile objects—which will be particularly helpful for medical and other assistive robots.
From search-and-rescue missions to orthopedic therapy and many other applications, soft robots and wearable electronic devices show great promise for many fields. However, designing them to be functional and practical to use has proved challenging.
A team of roboticists at the German Aerospace Center's Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics finds that combining traditional internal force-torque sensors with machine-learning algorithms can give robots a new way to sense touch.
Cornell University researchers have created microscale robots less than 1 millimeter in size that are printed as a 2D hexagonal "metasheet," but with a jolt of electricity, morph into preprogrammed 3D shapes and crawl.
Researchers at Rolls-Royce University Technology Centre (UTC) in Manufacturing and On-Wing Technology at the University of Nottingham have developed ultra-thin soft robots, designed for exploring narrow spaces in challenging built environments. The research is published in the journal Nature Communications.
Researchers from the University of Hertfordshire have developed a new algorithm that will allow robots to function more intuitively—that is, make decisions using their environment for guidance.
Inventors and researchers have been developing robots for almost 70 years. To date, all the machines they have built—whether for factories or elsewhere—have had one thing in common: They are powered by motors, a technology that is already 200 years old. Even walking robots feature arms and legs that are powered by motors, not by muscles as in humans and animals. This in part suggests why they lack the mobility and adaptability of living creatures.
Honesty is the best policy… most of the time. Social norms help humans understand when we need to tell the truth and when we shouldn't, to spare someone's feelings or avoid harm. But how do these norms apply to robots, which are increasingly working with humans? To understand whether humans can accept robots telling lies, scientists asked almost 500 participants to rate and justify different types of robot deception.
A new study has found that U.K. hotels and restaurants using humanlike service robots can make solo guests feel more comfortable in engaging with these robots by providing comfortable ambient conditions—including lighting, scents and sounds—and adding local cues like British flag designs on the robot's body.
Children giggle as young people flash their smartphones to film robots carrying plates of freshly prepared meals on their inbuilt trays to deliver to diners in a busy eatery in Kenya's capital.
A swarm of self-coordinating drones for firefighting, as part of an effort to develop cost-effective early mitigation strategies for wildfires has been developed.
Automating food is unlike automating anything else. Food is fundamental to life—nourishing body and soul—so how it's accessed, prepared and consumed can change societies fundamentally.
On a remote patch of the windy, frozen Beaufort Sea north of Alaska, engineers from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California huddled together, peering down a narrow hole in a thick layer of sea ice. Below them, a cylindrical robot gathered test science data in the frigid ocean, connected by a tether to the tripod that had lowered it through the borehole.
Motor impairments currently affect about 5 million people in the United States. Physically assistive robots not only have the potential to help these individuals with daily tasks, they can significantly increase independence, well-being and quality of life.
Ukraine has unveiled a new long-range weapon, a mix of drone and missile technology that Kyiv believes will significantly boost its ability to combat Russian military attacks.