If a robot traveling to a destination has just two possible paths, it needs only to compare the routes' travel time and probability of success. But if the robot is traversing a complex environment with many possible paths, choosing the best route amid so much uncertainty can quickly become an intractable problem.
In this blog, you'll learn about these two lens types with key insights into their attributes and best-use scenarios in the world of embedded vision.
The robot known as ANYmal has, for some time, had no problem coping with the stony terrain of Swiss hiking trails. Now researchers at ETH Zurich have taught this quadrupedal robot some new skills: It is proving rather adept at parkour, a sport based on using athletic maneuvers to smoothly negotiate obstacles in an urban environment, which has become very popular. ANYmal is also proficient at dealing with the tricky terrain commonly found on building sites or in disaster areas.
A new University of Michigan study on how humans and robots work together on tasks with conflicting objectives is the first to demonstrate that trust and team performance improve when the robot actively adapts to the human's strategy.
When lower limb exoskeletons—mechanical structures worn on the leg—do not operate properly, some people adjust quickly while others compensate with their ankle or hip, expending more energy than necessary, according to a new study by University of Michigan researchers.
One of the primary challenges lies in equipping robots to understand and navigate dynamic environments and make informed decisions based on that information. This is where Practical Human Supervised Autonomy (PHSA) emerges as a game-changer.
Miniature drives and microdrives can be found in virtually all areas of automation technology and have a correspondingly wide variety of applications. These range from medical technology and laboratory automation.
The perception of softness can be taken for granted, but it plays a crucial role in many actions and interactions—from judging the ripeness of an avocado to conducting a medical exam, or holding the hand of a loved one. But understanding and reproducing softness perception is challenging because it involves so many sensory and cognitive processes.
MODEX 2024 is happening and our special newspage is loaded with news and product announcements from the event.
Robots that can closely imitate the actions and movements of humans in real-time could be incredibly useful, as they could learn to complete everyday tasks in specific ways without having to be extensively pre-programmed on these tasks. While techniques to enable imitation learning considerably improved over the past few years, their performance is often hampered by the lack of correspondence between a robot's body and that of its human user.
Odd things can happen when a wave meets a boundary. In the ocean, tsunami waves that are hardly noticeable in deep water can become quite large at the continental shelf and shore, as the waves slow and their mass moves upward.
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.
OSARO fulfills a crucial front-end role for DAC Robotics’ fully automated inventory replenishment system, which completely automates the handling of dangerous depalletization, box opening, and decanting
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.