A new study challenges the conventional approach to designing soft robotics and a class of materials called metamaterials by utilizing the power of computer algorithms. Researchers from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and Technical University of Denmark can now build multimaterial structures without dependence on human intuition or trial-and-error to produce highly efficient actuators and energy absorbers that mimic designs found in nature.
Driving in eco mode can reduce fuel consumption and is good for both the environment and your wallet. In practice, however, it often causes immense frustration among drivers, causing them to quickly switch off the function. The mode prevents drivers from accelerating when they really need to, for example, when entering a motorway. Together with Renault, Delft robot engineers developed the Proactive Eco Mode, a new system that enables drivers to reach the desired speed faster, based on predictions of the future. They have successfully demonstrated the system on French roads.
In recent years, roboticists and computer scientists have been developing a wide range of systems that can detect objects in their environment and navigate it accordingly. Most of these systems are based on machine learning and deep learning algorithms trained on large image datasets.
In a paper published on February 23, 2022 in Nature Machine Intelligence, a team of scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems (MPI-IS) introduce a robust soft haptic sensor named "Insight" that uses computer vision and a deep neural network to accurately estimate where objects come into contact with the sensor and how large the applied forces are. The research project is a significant step toward robots being able to feel their environment as accurately as humans and animals. Like its natural counterpart, the fingertip sensor is very sensitive, robust, and high-resolution.
Innovative airborne radars could soon be used to measure snow depth in New Zealand's alpine areas, helping to predict avalanche risk and monitoring the impacts of climate change.
If faced with the choice of sending a swarm of full-sized, distinct robots to space, or a large crew of smaller robotic modules, you might want to enlist the latter. Modular robots, like those depicted in films such as "Big Hero 6," hold a special type of promise for their self-assembling and reconfiguring abilities. But for all of the ambitious desire for fast, reliable deployment in domains extending to space exploration, search and rescue, and shape-shifting, modular robots built to date are still a little clunky. They're typically built from a menagerie of large, expensive motors to facilitate movement, calling for a much-needed focus on more scalable architectures—both up in quantity and down in size.
Socially assistive robots (SARS) are a class of robotic systems specifically designed to help vulnerable or older users to complete everyday activities. In addition to increasing their independence, these robots could stimulate users mentally and offer basic emotional support.
To interact with elements in the virtual world, common VR headsets usually come with controllers. Users hold these in their hands as they interact with all elements of the virtual user interface. However, the controllers usually do not feel like they look in virtual space. This reduces immersion, i.e., the feeling of how realistic the VR world is perceived.
At Arla's dairy in Taulov, Denmark, apron-clad dairy workers have been joined by a shiny silver and red-eyed colleague—a robot that helps them produce delicious Danish Havarti, Danbo and Maribo cheeses.
A team of researchers at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)'s Center for Vision, Cognition, Learning, and Autonomy (VCLA), led by Prof. Song-Chun Zhu, recently developed an approach that could help to align a human user's assessment of what a robot can do with its true capabilities. This approach, presented in a paper published in IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, is based on a new algorithm that simultaneously optimizes the physical cost and expressiveness of a robot's motion, to determine how well human observers would estimate its reachable workspace.
Developing robots inspired by animals and other biological systems has become a key research focus for many roboticists worldwide. By artificially reproducing biological mechanisms, these robots could help to automate complex real-world tasks in efficient and reliable ways.
Robots have helped humans in countless work environments to a point that the latter—in some cases—developed strong emotional bonds with them.
Researchers have developed self-healing, biodegradable, 3D-printed materials that could be used in the development of realistic artificial hands and other soft robotics applications.
In recent years, scientists have introduced a wide variety of robots of all shapes and sizes. Among these are microswimmers, carefully engineered microstructures that can move in water and other liquids.
A figure skater framed only by ragged ice gazes up, almost beseechingly. A goaltender sprawls inside a net, defeat written all over his limbs, even with his face obscured.