Robotics

Schematic illustrations and images of a miniaturized hand-shaped soft gripper. (A) Schematic illustration of the milliscale soft gripper with variable stiffness for measuring biosignals of a living organism. (B to D) Photographs of the milliscale soft gripper, tip-to-tip gripping using the thumb and middle finger, and selective folding of digits...

Credit: Xie et al. To efficiently navigate their surrounding environments and complete missions, unmanned aerial systems (UASs) should be able to detect multiple objects in their surroundings and track their movements over time. So far, however, enabling multi-object tracking in unmanned aerial vehicles has proved to be fairly challenging. Researchers...

Stanford PhD candidate Michael John Raitor tests out the augmented cane, created with way-finding capabilities similar to those used in autonomous vehicles. Credit: Andrew Brodhead Most know the white cane as a simple-but-crucial tool that assists people with visual impairments in making their way through the world. Researchers at Stanford University...

Diagram of interplay between data, transfer operators, kernel methods, and environmental features. Transfer operators represent dynamical systems, where a state x ∈ X is lifted to a space L∞X and g(x) provides physical properties of the system. Many systems are defined by data exhibiting complex patterns, such as two nested...

Robotic arms put in the electric vehicle powertrain into the Ariya model in the assembly line at Nissan's Tochigi plant in Kaminokawa town, Tochigi prefecture, Japan, Friday, Oct. 8, 2021. Nissan's "intelligent factory" hardly has any human workers. The robots do the work, including welding and mounting. They do the...

The autonomous drone navigates independently through the forest at 40 km/h. Credit: UZH Researchers at the University of Zurich have developed a new approach to autonomously fly quadrotors through unknown, complex environments at high speeds using only on-board sensing and computation. The new approach could be useful in emergencies, on...

Credit: California Institute of Technology Researchers at Caltech have built a bipedal robot that combines walking with flying to create a new type of locomotion, making it exceptionally nimble and capable of complex movements. Part walking robot, part flying drone, the newly developed LEONARDO (short for LEgs ONboARD drOne, or...

Image summarizing the pipeline of the emotional speech synthesizer. Credit: Homma et al. Over the past few decades, roboticists have designed a variety of robots to assist humans. These include robots that could assist the elderly and serve as companions to improve their wellbeing and quality of life. Companion robots...

Armed with seven cameras, a Xavier robot in Singapore issues warnings to the public and detects 'undesirable social behaviour' Singapore has trialled patrol robots that blast warnings at people engaging in "undesirable social behaviour", adding to an arsenal of surveillance technology in the tightly controlled city-state that is fuelling privacy...

Researchers at MIT have developed a fully-integrated robotic arm that fuses visual data from a camera and radio frequency (RF) information from an antenna to find and retrieve objects, even when they are buried under a pile and fully out of view. Credit: Massachusetts Institute of Technology A busy commuter...

This image shows a team of robots collaborating to search for and then retrieve lost objects. The use of blockchain technology could enable secure, tamper-proof communication among the robots as they complete their task, according to new research from MIT. Credit: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Imagine a team of autonomous...

Credit: Yale School of Engineering and Applied Science Octopus tentacles can move in many directions, but also form stiff joint-like structures for more precise movements. Caterpillars can travel by using inchworm movements, as well as coil up and propel themselves away from predators. Such capabilities allow organisms to thrive in...

An interactive session where a participant collaborates with a robot as the robot also talks to itself. A virtual table is represented in the tablet, and the participant and the robot are setting up the table together. Credit: Pipitone et al. Trust is a very important aspect of human-robot interactions,...

Researchers have been building robotic fish for years, but the performance has never approached the efficiency of real fish. Credit: Daniel Quinn, CC BY-NC Underwater vehicles haven't changed much since the submarines of World War II. They're rigid, fairly boxy and use propellers to move. And whether they are large...

Credit: Mori et al. Over the past few decades, roboticists have developed systems for a variety of real-world settings, including healthcare facilities. Among their many possible uses in healthcare, robots could help to assist patients in nursing homes or hospitals; for instance, administering medication, food or helping patients to walk....

Actual Baby Robot's prototype. While prototyping it must be exposed as it is suffering constant modifications. Credit: Cañas et al. Researchers at Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya in Barcelona have recently developed Baby Robot, a robotic toy that could be used to enhance the motor skills of toddlers. This system, presented...

The term ‘killer robot’ often conjures images of Terminator-like humanoid robots. Militaries around the world are working on autonomous machines that are less scary looking but no less lethal. Credit: John F. Williams/U.S. Navy Autonomous weapon systems—commonly known as killer robots—may have killed human beings for the first time ever...

Graduate student Guan Rong Tan walks in the ankle exoskeleton emulator in the Biomechatronics Laboratory. Credit: Guan Rong Tan and Michael Raitor Exoskeleton devices work, researchers say, for a variety of uses such as speeding up our walking or making running easier. Yet they don't know what exactly makes exoskeletons...

This photo provided by Amazon shows the company's new robot called Astro. Credit: Courtesy of Amazon via AP Amazon's new robot can hear, see and follow you around the the home, but its no Rosey the Robot. Amazon's version, called Astro, doesn't cook or clean like the animated character from...

The KIMM research team led by Dr. Bongkyun Jang and Dr. Seungmin Hyun at the Department of Nano-Mechanics has developed a battery with high safety and stretchability by mimicking the design of the scales and flexible joints found in the structure of snake scales. Upon zooming in on the battery,...