Robotics, AI and SmartTech News – Latest Headlines

Shape-shifting robot built from 'smarticles' shows new locomotion strategy

Building conventional robots typically requires carefully combining components like motors, batteries, actuators, body segments, legs and wheels. Now, researchers have taken a new approach, building a robot entirely from smaller robots known as 'smarticles' to unlock the principles of a potentially new locomotion technique.

September 19, 2019 Read more

Researchers explore fish movement to enhance underwater robots

By taking a deep dive into the complex interaction between structure and fluid dynamics, mechanical engineering professors hope to advance bio-inspired technology.

September 18, 2019 Read more

'Flying fish' robot can dive and fly (w/video)

A bio-inspired bot uses water from the environment to create a propelling gas and launch itself from the water's surface.

September 12, 2019 Read more

Nerve-like 'optical lace' gives robots a human touch

A new synthetic material that creates a linked sensory network similar to a biological nervous system could enable soft robots to sense how they interact with their environment and adjust their actions accordingly.

September 11, 2019 Read more

Scurrying roaches help researchers steady staggering robots

Bomechanics researchers boiled down the sprints of cockroaches to handy principles and equations they then used to make a test robot amble about better.

August 23, 2019 Read more

Understanding the animal brain could help robots wash your dishes

Neuroscientists show how evolution and animal brains can be a rich source of inspiration for machine learning, especially to help AI tackle some enormously difficult problems, like doing the dishes.

August 22, 2019 Read more

The future of robots: A psychological approach to human-automation interaction

The increasingly digital nature of our world introduces a seemingly endless list of considerations when it comes to ensuring automated systems can successfully meet human needs.

August 17, 2019 Read more

A miniature stretchable pump for the next generation of soft robots

Scientists have developed a tiny pump that could play a big role in the development of autonomous soft robots, lightweight exoskeletons and smart clothing. Flexible, silent and weighing only one gram, it is poised to replace the rigid, noisy and bulky pumps currently used.

August 14, 2019 Read more

'MacGyver'-like robot can build own tools by Aassessing form, function of supplies

Thanks to new technology that enables them to create simple tools, robots may be on the verge of their own version of the Stone Age.

August 13, 2019 Read more

Guided by AI, robotic platform automates molecule manufacture

New system could free bench chemists from time-consuming tasks, may help inspire new molecules.

August 9, 2019 Read more

Self healing robots that 'feel pain' and heal themselves

Scientists will develop technologies within the new SHERO project that allow soft robots to self-heal damage. Because this repair process should not involve humans, the researchers are looking into self-healing materials to build the soft robots with.

August 8, 2019 Read more

How can robots land like birds? (w/video)

Birds can perch on a wide variety of surfaces, thick or thin, rough or slick. But can they find stable footing if a branch is covered in Teflon? In the interest of making better robots, researchers found out.

August 6, 2019 Read more

You can't squash this roach-inspired robot (w/video)

If the sight of a skittering bug makes you squirm, you may want to look away - a new insect-sized robot can scurry across the floor at nearly the speed of a darting cockroach.

July 31, 2019 Read more

Chameleon-inspired structural color soft robot can interact with environment

Researchers have developed a novel structural color soft robot with both color-changing and locomotion capabilities.

July 31, 2019 Read more

Centimeter-long snail robot is powered by light

Researchers used liquid crystal elastomer technology to demonstrate a bio-inspired microrobot capable of mimicking the adhesive locomotion of snails and slugs in natural scale. The 10-millimeter long soft robot harvests energy from a laser beam and can crawl on horizontal surfaces, climb vertical walls and an upside-down glass ceiling.

July 31, 2019 Read more

Latest e-skin innovation gives robots and prosthetics an exceptional sense of touch (w/video)

Unique sensor system responds 1,000 times faster than the human sense of touch, the fastest ever achieved for an e-skin.

July 18, 2019 Read more

Robot control system for grasping and releasing objects under both dry and wet conditions

Researchers have developed a control system for deformable robot-fingertips for grasping and releasing objects. Previously developed robot fingertips with high friction texture can stably grasp a paper box, a soft object under both dry and wet conditions. By injecting a lubricant (absolute ethanol) the grasped object slipped downwards without changing the position of the robot fingertips.

July 16, 2019 Read more

Automated system generates robotic parts for novel tasks

When designing actuators involves too many variables for humans to test by hand, this system can step in.

July 16, 2019 Read more