Robotics

Operations underground, for example in underground stations, tunnels or mines, are risky and difficult for rescue teams. This is especially true if the technical infrastructure has collapsed due to explosions or fire, and there are no mobile phone signals, electricity, light, Wi-Fi or GNSS, while smoke, debris and damaged paths... Read more

When a knot lets go, it doesn't just fall apart. It snaps. That simple observation led Penn Engineers to rethink what a knot can do. Instead of treating it as something that holds tension, they asked a different question: what happens when you design a knot to release it? The... Read more

A paddle-wielding robot is so adept at playing table tennis that it is posing a tough challenge to elite human players and sometimes defeating them, according to a new study that shows how advances in artificial intelligence are making robots more agile.... Read more

A blue-eyed humanoid robot carefully opens a box and places a tool inside as a crowd of visitors watch the demonstration of "physical AI" skills at a major industrial trade fair in Germany.... Read more

When assessing the ripeness of fruit, sight and smell can tell you a lot, but the best indicator is often how the fruit feels. Cornell researchers used stretchable fiber-optic sensors to create a soft robot gripper that can predict the ripeness of strawberries by touch, then gently twist them off... Read more

A humanoid robot that won a half-marathon race for robots in Beijing on Sunday ran faster than the human world record in a show of China's technological leaps.... Read more

Breaking away from conventional robots that perform only predefined functions once fabricated, researchers have developed a next-generation artificial muscle that can change its shape in real time, recover from damage, and even be reused. The study is published in Science Advances.... Read more

When it comes to teamwork, we could all learn something from ants. These relatively simple, small-brained animals are famous for their ability to collectively build massive, intricate, climate-controlled structures, despite having neither a blueprint nor a worksite foreman.... Read more

In today's manufacturing environments, upgrading a robot fleet often means starting from scratch—not only replacing hardware, but also reprogramming tasks. Even when two robots are built to perform similar jobs, different joint arrangements or movement limits mean that a task programmed for one robot often can't be used on another.... Read more

Snake-like robots represent the future of rescue. Their slender bodies allow them to navigate narrow spaces, uneven terrain, and water surfaces, entering places that would be hazardous for humans. This could potentially save lives in earthquake-prone areas, like Japan.... Read more

A humanoid robot about the size of a primary school student had something to share in Hong Kong—it sang songs and spoke to people in Mandarin and English, answering whatever questions they posed and delighting the audience around it.... Read more

A KAIST research team has developed quadrupedal robot technology that not only enables walking by estimating terrain without visual information, but also allows the robot to perceive its surroundings through cameras and LiDAR sensors and make its own decisions while walking, much like animals that visually examine terrain and adjust... Read more

Muscles are remarkably effective systems for generating controlled force, and engineers developing hardware for robots or prosthetics have long struggled to create analogs that can approach their unique combination of strength, rapid response, scalability, and control. But now, researchers at the MIT Media Lab and Politecnico di Bari in Italy... Read more

With their ability to shapeshift and manipulate delicate objects, soft robots could work as medical implants, deliver drugs inside the body and help explore dangerous environments. But the squishy machines are often limited by rigid mechanical parts or external systems that provide power or help them move.... Read more

Guide dogs are powerful allies, leading the visually impaired safely to their destinations, but they can't talk with their owners—until now. Using large language models, a team of researchers at Binghamton University, State University of New York has created a talking robot guide dog system that determines an ideal route... Read more