A complex sense of touch for individuals living with spinal cord injuries is a step closer to reality. A study published in Science, paves the way for complex touch sensations through brain stimulation while using an extracorporeal bionic limb, that is attached to a chair or wheelchair. The paper is titled "Tactile edges and motion via patterned microstimulation of the human somatosensory cortex."
Accurate object pose estimation refers to the ability of a robot to determine both the position and orientation of an object. It is essential for robotics, especially in pick-and-place tasks, which are crucial in industries such as manufacturing and logistics.
The robotics industry should be creating robots that could be reprogrammed and repurposed for other tasks once its life span is completed, University of Bristol and University of West England researchers have advised.
Over the past decades, robotic systems have been rapidly advancing, fueled by the continuous introduction of more advanced electronics, mechanical components and software solutions. As a result, robots can easily become obsolete and outdated as newer systems emerge.
With a more efficient method for artificial pollination, farmers in the future could grow fruits and vegetables inside multilevel warehouses, boosting yields while mitigating some of agriculture's harmful impacts on the environment.
The behavior of a cat rubbing its head against a person, known as bunting, is an expression of affection and is believed to have a healing effect on humans.
Today's robots perform safety checks at industrial plants, conduct quality control in manufacturing, and are even starting to keep hospital patients company.
Researchers have been analyzing how humanoid robots relate to people and say teaching the machines how to understand emotion may be essential in getting the best from them.
Researchers at Stanford University, Princeton University, and Dexterity recently developed TidyBot++, a holonomic mobile robot that can perform various household chores and could help to train or test new algorithms for robotics applications.
In research published in Advanced Intelligence Systems, scientists have developed an innovative, soft, wearable robot to help workers avoid job-related injuries while lifting, lowering, and carrying objects.
Humans and animals are the key inspiration for many robotic systems developed to date, as they possess body structures that innately support efficient locomotion. While many bipedal (i.e., two-legged) robots are humanoids, meaning that their body resembles that of humans, others draw inspiration from other animals that walk on two legs, such as ostriches and some other birds.
Scientists have developed an advanced swarm navigation algorithm for cyborg insects that prevents them from becoming stuck while navigating challenging terrain.
A research team from Seoul National University has proposed a gripper capable of moving multiple objects together to enhance the efficiency of pick-and-place processes, inspired by humans' multi-object grasping strategy. The gripper not only transfers multiple objects at once but also places individual objects at desired locations. The study, which analyzed human motion principles and successfully applied them to a robotic gripper, is published in the journal Science Robotics.
Roboticists at the Tallinn University of Technology (TalTech) have developed a new class of bio-inspired feet that significantly enhance robot mobility on challenging terrains like mud and wet snow. The findings, published in Bioinspiration & Biomimetics, could expand the capabilities of robots, allowing them to navigate in complex natural terrains to conduct sensitive environmental monitoring, aid in agriculture and participate in disaster response.
Piezoelectric and triboelectric tactile sensors are designed to convert mechanical stimuli into electrical signals, making them critical components in intelligent systems. Piezoelectric sensors leverage voltage generation through mechanical stress in non-centrosymmetric materials, such as quartz and polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF), while triboelectric sensors operate on contact-induced charge transfer.