The physics of walking for multi-legged animals and robots is simpler than previously thought. That is the finding described by a team of roboticists, physicists and biologists in the Sept. 5 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, in a paper titled "Walking is like slithering: a unifying, data-driven view of locomotion."
Student teams are an underappreciated resource in much of the scientific community. Joining a team working toward a goal while at university, whether for racing solar-powered cars or digging fish ponds in Africa, is an excellent way to sharpen technical and project skills while improving communication and teamwork. The space industry is starting to catch on to these strengths, with student teams developing exciting projects all over the world. A recent entry comes from students at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands—a six-legged robot called Lunar Zebro with a unique take on wheels.
An international team led by researchers at the RIKEN Cluster for Pioneering Research (CPR) has engineered a system for creating remote controlled cyborg cockroaches, equipped with a tiny wireless control module that is powered by a rechargeable battery attached to a solar cell. Despite the mechanic devices, ultrathin electronics and flexible materials allow the insects to move freely. These achievements, reported in the scientific journal npj Flexible Electronics on September 5, will help make the use of cyborg insects a practical reality.
A team of researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, working with a pair of colleagues from the Harbin Institute of Technology, has developed a tiny actuated gearbox that can be used to give very tiny robots more power. In their paper published in the journal Science Robotics, the group describes how their gearbox works and the power improvements observed in several types of tiny robots.
A small robot with a clip-like hand and enough smarts to know which drinks are popular is part of an effort to make convenience stores even more convenient.
Robots can be better at detecting mental well-being issues in children than parent-reported or self-reported testing, a new study suggests.
Nature has provided great support for the development of robots. Inspired by manta rays, a team from the State Key Laboratory of Robotics at the Shenyang Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, has developed a bionic swimming robot that is actuated by cultured skeletal muscle tissue and controlled by circular distributed multiple electrodes (CDME). The robot can be efficiently propelled by only one muscle tissue.
The thermal radiation emitted by the human body is predominantly in the long-wave infrared region (8–14 μm), which is characterized by low photon energy and low power intensity.
Everybody could use a third arm sometimes, but for some it would be particularly helpful.
In recent years, deep learning algorithms have achieved remarkable results in a variety of fields, including artistic disciplines. In fact, many computer scientists worldwide have successfully developed models that can create artistic works, including poems, paintings and sketches.
Underwater robots are being widely used as tools in a variety of marine tasks. The RobDact is one such bionic underwater vehicle, inspired by a fish called Dactylopteridae known for its enlarged pectoral fins. A research team has combined computational fluid dynamics and a force measurement experiment to study the RobDact, creating an accurate hydrodynamic model of the RobDact that allows them to better control the vehicle.
Researchers University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley), Université de Montréal and Mila have recently developed a hierarchical reinforcement learning framework to improve the precision of quadrupedal robots in soccer shooting. This framework, introduced in a paper pre-published on arXiv, was deployed on a Unitree A1, a quadruped robot developed by UnitreeRobotics.
In recent years, roboticists have developed a wide variety of robotic systems with different body structures and capabilities. Most of these robots are either made of hard materials, such as metals, or soft materials, such as silicon and rubbery materials.
A scientist from the Graduate School of Engineering at Osaka University proposed a numerical scale to quantify the expressiveness of robotic android faces. By focusing on the range of deformation of the face instead of the number of mechanical actuators, the new system can more accurately measure how much robots are able to mimic actual human emotions. This work, published in Advanced Robotics, may help develop more lifelike robots that can rapidly convey information.
Carnegie Mellon researchers have developed an open-source software that enables more agile movement in legged robots.