In the last few years, delivery robots and drones have popped up around the U.S., occasionally rolling, walking or flying up to people's doorsteps to drop off packages. But one consideration that needs to be addressed before widely adopting autonomous technologies is their environmental impact. Now, researchers reporting in ACS' Environmental Science & Technology show that automating residential package transport doesn't influence the greenhouse gas footprint as much as the delivery van's size and type.
Sea cucumbers have a bumpy and oblong shape. They are soft but stiffen up quickly when touched. They can shrink or stretch to several meters, and their original shape can be recovered even after they die and shrivel up with the regulation of water uptake. Recently, a POSTECH research team has developed a soft actuator inspired by this unique behavior of sea cucumbers.
Boston Dynamics, the company known for its robotic dogs, now has a humanoid robot capable of doing gymnastics.
Roboticists worldwide have been trying to develop autonomous unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that could be deployed during search and rescue missions or that could be used to map geographical areas and for source-seeking. To operate autonomously, however, drones should be able to move safely and efficiently in their environment.
Massey University Ph.D. student Chris Muller's novel "Drone Ranger" technology is being used to track the 40 Toutouwai North Island robins that were translocated to Palmerston North's Turitea Dam in April.
A new algorithm speeds up path planning for robots that use arm-like appendages to maintain balance on treacherous terrain such as disaster areas or construction sites, researchers at the University of Michigan have shown. The improved path planning algorithm found successful paths three times as often as standard algorithms, while needing much less processing time.
Thanks to their swimming robot modeled after a lamprey, EPFL scientists may have discovered why some vertebrates are able to retain their locomotor capabilities after a spinal cord lesion. The finding could also help improve the performance of swimming robots used for search and rescue missions and for environmental monitoring.
Last year, according to a United Nations report published in March, Libyan government forces hunted down rebel forces using "lethal autonomous weapons systems" that were "programmed to attack targets without requiring data connectivity between the operator and the munition." The deadly drones were Turkish-made quadcopters about the size of a dinner plate, capable of delivering a warhead weighing a kilogram or so.
Peer into any fishbowl, and you'll see that pet goldfish and guppies have nimble fins. With a few flicks of these appendages, aquarium swimmers can turn in circles, dive deep down or even bob to the surface.
Underwater vehicles are typically designed for one cruise speed, and they're often inefficient at other speeds. The technology is rudimentary compared to the way fish swim well, fast or slow.
Chinese electronics company Xiaomi has unveiled CyberDog, a quadruped robot that the company describes as more personable than others in its class. The company made its announcement on its Twitter feed, calling it a "true beast."
A team of researchers working at Seoul National University has developed a soft robot chameleon that can change its colors in real time to match its background. In their paper published in the journal Nature Communications, the group describes their multi-layer skin design and possible uses for it.
When robots make mistakes—and they do from time to time—reestablishing trust with human co-workers depends on how the machines own up to the errors and how human-like they appear, according to University of Michigan research.
Would you let a tiny MANiAC travel around your nervous system to treat you with drugs? You may be inclined to say no, but in the future, "magnetically aligned nanorods in alginate capsules" (MANiACs) may be part of an advanced arsenal of drug delivery technologies at doctors' disposal. A recent study in Frontiers in Robotics and AI is the first to investigate how such tiny robots might perform as drug delivery vehicles in neural tissue. The study finds that when controlled using a magnetic field, the tiny tumbling soft robots can move against fluid flow, climb slopes and move about neural tissues, such as the spinal cord, and deposit substances at precise locations.
In recent years, computer scientists have developed mobile robots that could be introduced in a variety of settings. To efficiently navigate unstructured environments, however, these robots should be able to plan safe paths to reach their desired destinations.