Robotics

In 2021, a group of scientists from China engineered the RoboFalcon—a bird-inspired flapping-wing robot with a newly engineered mechanism made to drive bat-style morphing wings capable of flight. While this bio-inspired robot performed well at a cruising speed, it was not capable of flying at lower speeds or achieving takeoff... Read more

Montreal-based artist Audrey-Eve Goulet was initially uncertain as she watched an AI-powered robotic arm reproduce one of her works, but said the outcome was "really impressive."... Read more

Days after Meagan Brazil-Sheehan's 6-year-old son was diagnosed with leukemia, they were walking down the halls of UMass Memorial Children's Medical Center when they ran into Robin the Robot.... Read more

Developments in autonomous robotics have the potential to revolutionize manufacturing processes, making them more flexible, customizable, and efficient. But coordinating fleets of autonomous, mobile robots in a shared space—and helping them work with each other and with human partners—is an extremely complicated task.... Read more

Monash University researchers have trialed a new system demonstrating how humans and robots can team up on the job to make construction faster, safer and less physically demanding.... Read more

Marine litter is a major environmental problem around the world. As part of the EU project SEACLEAR, a research team at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) has now developed an autonomous diving robot that can detect and retrieve litter. It uses an AI system to analyze objects with ultrasound... Read more

The body movements performed by humans and other animals are known to be supported by several intricate biological and neural mechanisms. While roboticists have been trying to develop systems that emulate these mechanisms for decades, the processes driving these systems' motions remain very different.... Read more

Training humanoid robots to hike could accelerate development of embodied AI for tasks like autonomous search and rescue, ecological monitoring in unexplored places and more, say University of Michigan researchers who developed an AI model that equips humanoids to hit the trails.... Read more

Until now, when scientists created magnetic robots, their magnetization profiles were generally fixed, enabling only a specific type of shape programming capability using applied external magnetic fields. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems (MPI-IS) have now proposed a new magnetization reprogramming method that can drastically expand the... Read more

People who care informally for sick or disabled friends and relatives often become invisible in their own lives. Focusing on the needs of those they care for, they rarely get the chance to talk about their own emotions or challenges, and this can lead to them feeling increasingly stressed and... Read more

For 20 hours a day, seven days a week, a security robot rolls around the old Kansas City Star building on the 1600 block of McGee Street, like the 21st century version of a street patrolling beat cop.... Read more

Growing up, we learn to push just hard enough to move a box and to avoid touching a hot pan with our bare hands. Now, a robot hand has been developed that also has these instincts.... Read more

Social companion robots are no longer just science fiction. In classrooms, libraries and homes, these small machines are designed to read stories, play games or offer comfort to children. They promise to support learning and companionship, yet their role in family life often extends beyond their original purpose.... Read more

Researchers from the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT) in Genoa (Italy) and Brown University in Providence (U.S.) have discovered that people sense the hand of a humanoid robot as part of their body schema, particularly when it comes to carrying out a task together, like slicing a bar of soap.... Read more

Exoskeletons typically work by implementing motions programmed in advance and having the user call for them, making it difficult to use them for a wide range of motions in real-life environments.... Read more