Uncrewed aircraft responding to fire and medical emergencies will be used to save lives—if digitalized air-traffic control can help them navigate safely in the skies over Europe.
Fireflies that light up dusky backyards on warm summer evenings use their luminescence for communication—to attract a mate, ward off predators or lure prey.
As robots make their way into a variety of real-world environments, roboticists are trying to ensure that they can efficiently complete a growing number of tasks. For robots that are designed to assist humans in their homes, this includes household chores, such as cleaning, tidying up and cooking.
A team of UCLA engineers and their colleagues have developed a new design strategy and 3D printing technique to build robots in one single step.
A team of researchers at Tsinghua University's Center for Brain-Inspired Computing Research in Beijing, China, has developed a neuromorphic chip that can reduce the power consumption of a cat-and-mouse-type rolling robot by approximately half, compared to a conventional NVIDIA chip designed for AI applications. In their paper published in the journal Science Robotics, the group describes design concepts they used to build the chip and how well it worked when tested.
Just like us, robots can't see through walls. Sometimes they need a little help to get where they're going.
Small autonomous mobile robots, such as drones, rovers, and legged robots, promise to perform a wide range of tasks, from autonomously monitoring crops in greenhouses to last-kilometer delivery. These applications require robots to operate for extended periods while performing complex tasks, often in unknown, changing, and complicated environments.
New blockchain-style information sharing will make a seamlessly integrated ecosystem of crewed and uncrewed aircraft in the UK's skies a reality, say Cranfield researchers.
Researchers at IIT-Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (Italian Institute of Technology) and INAIL (Italian Worker's Compensation Authority) have designed and created innovative prototypes of wearable robotic exoskeletons for industrial use to make work in the industrial and manufacturing sectors safer. Via electric motors and artificial intelligence algorithms, these wearable robotic devices will assist workers engaged in the most physically demanding tasks, significantly reducing the effort required by up to 40% and lowering the percentage of accidents at work and chronic occupational disorders. Researchers are starting to test the prototypes in real scenarios and are planning further development in order to reach the technological level required to bring them to the market in few years.
If you've ever swallowed the same round tablet in hopes of curing everything from stomach cramps to headaches, you already know that medicines aren't always designed to treat precise pain points. While over-the-counter pills have cured many ailments for decades, biomedical researchers have only recently begun exploring ways to improve targeted drug delivery when treating more complicated medical conditions, like cardiovascular disease or cancer.
A new Imperial-developed "dual robot" drone can both fly through air and land on water to collect samples and monitor water quality.
The skin of cephalopods, such as octopuses, squids and cuttlefish, is stretchy and smart, contributing to these creatures' ability to sense and respond to their surroundings. A Penn State-led collaboration has harnessed these properties to create an artificial skin that mimics both the elasticity and the neurologic functions of cephalopod skin, with potential applications for neurorobotics, skin prosthetics, artificial organs and more.
Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), or drones, are already widely used in various real-world settings, including the film industry, the military, and the transport sector. In the future, they could also be used to assist human agents during search & rescue missions, to monitor remote or inaccessible environments, and to deliver packages.
Under the amused gaze of many tourists, a robot dog wanders the ancient stone alleys of Pompeii's famous archaeological park.
From action heroes to villainous assassins, biohybrid robots made of both living and artificial materials have been at the center of many sci-fi fantasies, inspiring today's robotic innovations. It's still a long way until human-like robots walk among us in our daily lives, but scientists from Japan are bringing us one step closer by crafting living human skin on robots. The method developed, presented June 9 in the journal Matter, not only gave a robotic finger skin-like texture, but also water-repellent and self-healing functions.