Until recently, bespoke tailoring—clothing made to a customer's individual specifications—was the only way to have garments that provided the perfect fit for your physique. For most people, the cost of custom tailoring is prohibitive. However, the invention of active fibers and innovative knitting processes is changing the textile industry.
Schools of fish, colonies of bees, and murmurations of starlings exhibit swarming behavior in nature, flowing like a liquid in synchronized, shape-shifting coordination. Through the lens of fluid mechanics, swarming is of particular interest to physicists like Heinrich Jaeger, the University of Chicago Sewell Avery Distinguished Service Professor in Physics and the James Franck Institute, and James Franck Institute research staff scientist Baudouin Saintyves, who apply physics principles to the development of modular, adaptive robotics.
Before a robot can grab dishes off a shelf to set the table, it must ensure its gripper and arm won't crash into anything and potentially shatter the fine china. As part of its motion planning process, a robot typically runs "safety check" algorithms that verify its trajectory is collision-free.
In recent years, materials scientists and engineers have introduced increasingly sophisticated materials for robotic and prosthetic applications. This includes a wide range of electronic skins, or e-skins, designed to sense the surrounding environment and artificially reproduce the sense of touch.
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have received significant attention in recent years across many sectors, such as military, agriculture, construction, and disaster management. These versatile machines offer remote access to hard-to-get or hazardous areas and excellent surveillance capabilities.
"Caution: robot!" chirps the green self-driving delivery vehicle as it trundles down the street to a pork cutlet restaurant in Tokyo to pick up a meal ordered on Uber Eats.
Scientists have developed a new robot that can 'mimic' the two-handed movements of care workers as they dress an individual.
ChatGPT-maker OpenAI is looking to fuse its artificial intelligence systems into the bodies of humanoid robots as part of a new deal with robotics startup Figure.
Hundreds of robots zip back and forth across the floor of a colossal robotic warehouse, grabbing items and delivering them to human workers for packing and shipping. Such warehouses are increasingly becoming part of the supply chain in many industries, from e-commerce to automotive production.
A radical new type of touch sensor for robotics and other bio-mimicking (bionic) applications is so sensitive it works even without direct contact between the sensor and the objects being detected. It senses interference in the electric field between an object and the sensor, at up to 100 millimeters from the object.
Biomimetic robots, which mimic the movements and biological functions of living organisms, are a fascinating area of research that can not only lead to more efficient robots but also serve as a platform for understanding muscle biology.
My colleagues and I have built a robot composed of many building blocks like the cells of a multicellular organism. Without a "brain" or a central controller in the system, our robot, dubbed Loopy, relies on the collective behavior of all of its cells to interact with the world.
The rapid advancement of deep learning algorithms and generative models has enabled the automated production of increasingly striking AI-generated artistic content. Most of this AI-generated art, however, is created by algorithms and computational models, rather than by physical robots.
Soft robots inspired by animals can help to tackle real-world problems in efficient and innovative ways. Roboticists have been working to continuously broaden and improve these robots' capabilities, as this could open new avenues for the automation of tasks in various settings.
Professor Dario Floreano is a Swiss-Italian roboticist and engineer engaged in a bold research venture: the creation of edible robots and digestible electronics.