Today’s robots are often static and isolated from humans in structured environments — you can think of robot arms employed by Amazon for picking and packaging products within warehouses. But the true potential of robotics lies in mobile robots operating alongside humans in messy environments like our homes and hospitals — this requires navigation skills. …
Image: shutterstock.com By Inês Hipólito/Deborah Pirchner, Frontiers science writer Inês Hipólito is a highly accomplished researcher, recognized for her work in esteemed journals and contributions as a co-editor. She has received research awards including the prestigious Talent Grant from the University of Amsterdam in 2021. After her PhD, she held positions at the Berlin School …
Why diversity and inclusion needs to be at the forefront of future AI Read More »
Commercial and industrial deployments of robot fleets: package delivery (top left), food delivery (bottom left), e-commerce order fulfillment at Ambi Robotics (top right), autonomous taxis at Waymo (bottom right). In the last few years we have seen an exciting development in robotics and artificial intelligence: large fleets of robots have left the lab and entered …
MIT researchers have developed resilient artificial muscles that can enable insect-scale aerial robots to effectively recover flight performance after suffering severe damage. Photo: Courtesy of the researchers By Adam Zewe | MIT News Office Bumblebees are clumsy fliers. It is estimated that a foraging bee bumps into a flower about once per second, which damages …
Resilient bug-sized robots keep flying even after wing damage Read More »
A team of MIT engineers is designing a kit of universal robotic parts that an astronaut could easily mix and match to build different robot “species” to fit various missions on the moon. Credit: hexapod image courtesy of the researchers, edited by MIT News By Jennifer Chu | MIT News Office When astronauts begin to …
Mix-and-match kit could enable astronauts to build a menagerie of lunar exploration bots Read More »
Author: D.Farina. Credits: Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia – © IIT, all rights reserved Researchers at Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT-Italian Institute of Technology) in Genova has realized a new soft robot inspired by the biology of earthworms,which is able to crawl thanks to soft actuators that elongate or squeeze, when air passes through them or …
A new bioinspired earthworm robot for future underground explorations Read More »
Joey’s design. Image credit: TL Nguyen, A Blight, A Pickering, A Barber, GH Jackson-Mills, JH Boyle, R Richardson, M Dogar, N Cohen By Mischa Dijkstra, Frontiers science writer Researchers from the University of Leeds have developed the first mini-robot, called Joey, that can find its own way independently through networks of narrow pipes underground, to …
Smart ‘Joey’ bots could soon swarm underground to clean and inspect our pipes Read More »
Teleoperation is one of the longest-standing application fields in robotics. While full autonomy is still work in progress, the possibility to remotely operate a robot has already opened scenarios where humans can act in risky environments without endangering their own safety, such as when defusing explosives or decommissioning nuclear waste. It also allows one to …
Estimating manipulation intentions to ease teleoperation Read More »
The Utah Bionic Leg is a motorized prosthetic for lower-limb amputees developed by University of Utah mechanical engineering associate professor Tommaso Lenzi and his students in the HGN Lab. Lenzi’s Utah Bionic Leg uses motors, processors, and advanced artificial intelligence that all work together to give amputees more power to walk, stand-up, sit-down, and ascend …
The Utah Bionic Leg: A motorized prosthetic for lower-limb amputees Read More »
Magnetic bacteria (grey) can squeeze through narrow intercellular spaces to cross the blood vessel wall and infiltrate tumours. (Visualisations: Yimo Yan / ETH Zurich) By Fabio Bergamin Scientists around the world are researching how anti-cancer drugs can most efficiently reach the tumours they target. One possibility is to use modified bacteria as “ferries” to carry …
