A new type of soft robot can crawl like a worm, climb cables, and suddenly snap into a completely different shape to move in a new direction—all controlled by a single air input. This breakthrough, developed by researchers at Seoul National University, introduces a fundamentally new way for soft robots to move and adapt to their surroundings. The work is published in the journal Cell Reports Physical Science.
While exploring how best to design robots that use tails to reorient their bodies in midair, a team of researchers at the University of Michigan and University of California San Diego found that mammals had already figured out how to do more with less.
A team of engineers at Westlake University, Zhejiang Normal University and Shaoxing University, all in China, has tested the possibility of making some robot parts biodegradable. In their project, published in the journal Science Advances, the group made some robot components using cotton cellulose films and pork gelatin.
Imagine a swarm of tiny robots, each about the size of the palm of your hand, spreading out over a wildfire-ravaged community, mapping areas contaminated by toxic materials, searching for survivors, identifying areas of rapid wildfire spread. Or picture the robots being used to clear battlefields of mines, conduct search and rescue missions after earthquakes, or deployed on farms to fend against pests and track soil conditions.
More than 2 million adults living in the United States rely on a caregiver's assistance to eat daily meals. In addition to human caregivers, technology has been developed to provide assistance. For example, tabletop and wheelchair-mounted robotic arms have been programmed to pick up foods and bring them to the human operator.
A team of engineers at Apple Computer has developed an expressive table lamp that interacts with a user rather than simply carrying out instructions. The group has posted a paper on the arXiv preprint server describing the factors that went into the development of the lamp and its current features. They have also posted several videos showing the robot lamp in action.
A team of AI and robotics researchers at Carnegie Mellon University, working with a pair of colleagues from technology company NVIDIA, has developed a new model for training robots to move like human athletes.
Recent advances in the fields of human-infrastructure interaction, electronic engineering, robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) have opened new possibilities for the development of assistive and medical technologies. These include devices that can assist individuals with both physical and cognitive disabilities, supporting them throughout their daily activities.
Drone shows are an increasingly popular form of large-scale light display. These shows incorporate hundreds to thousands of airborne bots, each programmed to fly in paths that together form intricate shapes and patterns across the sky. When they go as planned, drone shows can be spectacular. But when one or more drones malfunction, as has happened recently in Florida, New York, and elsewhere, they can be a serious hazard to spectators on the ground.
A team of engineers and roboticists at the University of Hong Kong have designed, built and tested an aerial robot capable of navigating unknown environments safely at high speeds while avoiding obstacles. In their paper published in the journal Science Robotics, the group describes how they overcame problems encountered by others attempting to build similar robots and how well their quadcopter robot, called SUPER, performed during testing.
A humanoid robot gyrates to pulsing music at a shopping mall in Beijing, part of an exhibition harnessing artificial intelligence to enhance the flavor of China's biggest annual festival.
Inspired by the movement of insects gliding on the surface of water, University of Waterloo researchers have designed tiny robots controlled by light, offering promising possibilities for environmental remediation and biomedical applications. Their work is published in Advanced Functional Materials.
Artificially engineered biological processes, such as perception systems, remain an elusive target for organic electronics experts due to the reliance of human senses on an adaptive network of sensory neurons, which communicate by firing in response to environmental stimuli.
A research team has taken inspiration from principles found in nature and developed the "hyperelastic torque reversal mechanism" (HeTRM), which enables robots made from rubber-like soft materials to perform rapid and powerful movements. This study is published in Science Robotics, and the researchers were led by Professor Kyu-Jin Cho from Seoul National University's Department of Mechanical Engineering.
At UC Berkeley, researchers in Sergey Levine's Robotic AI and Learning Lab eyed a table where a tower of 39 Jenga blocks stood perfectly stacked. Then a white-and-black robot, its single limb doubled over like a hunched-over giraffe, zoomed toward the tower, brandishing a black leather whip.