Robotics, AI and SmartTech News – Latest Headlines

Fine motor skills for robotic hands

Neuroscientists can predict grip movements of the hand by measuring brain cell activity.

January 22, 2015 Read more

System encourages creativity, makes robot-design fun

A new cardboard-robotic toolkit allows children to create custom robots they control wirelessly with hand gestures without formal education in programming or electronics.

January 20, 2015 Read more

Upgraded Atlas robot to go wireless as the stakes are raised for the DARPA Robotics Challenge finals (w/video)

A total of $3.5 million in prizes will now be awarded to the top three finishers in the DARPA Robotics Challenge, the final event of which will be held June 5-6, 2015, at Fairplex in Pomona, Calif.

January 20, 2015 Read more

Robots as multifunctional gentlemen

Researchers have developed a new service robot model centred on the concept of a universal helper for everyday scenarios: the fourth generation of the Care-O-Bot.

January 15, 2015 Read more

Vision system for household robots

New algorithm could enable household robots to better identify objects in cluttered environments.

January 12, 2015 Read more

Robotic camera mimics human operators to anticipate basketball game action

Automated cameras make it possible to broadcast even minor events, but the result often looks...well, robotic. Now scientists have made it possible for robotic cameras to learn from human operators how to better frame shots of a basketball game.

January 7, 2015 Read more

Underwater robotics: Analyzing the propulsion of a soft robotic fish

Propulsion by undulation entails complicated interplay between body deformation and fluid motion. Developing high performance robots by utilizing such complex dynamics is a main goal of the research on robotic fish.

December 24, 2014 Read more

Artificial intelligence: Brain-training for baseball robot

Researchers have created a model of the cerebellum comprising over 100,000 'neurons' - which was implemented on dedicated hardware for parallel computing known as a graphics processing unit (GPU) - s able to train a robot to accurately hit a ball bowled in real-time.

December 24, 2014 Read more

Robo turtle may take plunge for tough tasks

Latest turtle robot capable of performing more complicated tasks such as surveillance and energy harvesting, and operates on a self-charge mode.

December 23, 2014 Read more

New findings from the mind-controlled robot arm project

Using mind control, woman with quadriplegia moves robot arm and hand in '10D'.

December 17, 2014 Read more

First steps for Hector the robot stick insect (w/video)

Inspired by a stick insect, Hector has passive elastic joints and an ultralight exoskeleton. What makes it unique is that it is also equipped with a great number of sensors and it functions according to a biologically inspired decentralized reactive control concept: the Walknet.

December 16, 2014 Read more

Intelligent deep sea robotics

Researchers have developed an innovative underwater robot incorporating intelligent three-dimensional object recognition CCD technology for autonomous search and tracking operations over long durations of time in open water.

December 10, 2014 Read more

Using robots to get more food from raw materials

Can an industrial robot succeed both at removing the breast fillet from a chicken, and at the same time get more out of the raw materials? This is one of the questions to which researchers working on the CYCLE project now have the answer.

December 9, 2014 Read more

New research will help robots know their limits

A team of UK researchers is embarking on a collaborative project to ensure that the autonomous robots we build in the future will be safer, making decisions that are ethical and follow legislation on robotics.

December 8, 2014 Read more

Engineer applies robot control theory to improve prosthetic legs

A University of Texas at Dallas professor applied robot control theory to enable powered prosthetics to dynamically respond to the wearer's environment and help amputees walk.

December 4, 2014 Read more

Milestones in human-machine cooperation

Just a little over a year has passed since BBC News ranked the Robo-Mate exoskeleton at No. 2,right after the announcement of the new iPhone, and major technical progress has been made on several fronts.

December 4, 2014 Read more

An eel-lectrifying future for autonomous underwater robots

A team in Singapore has developed and built a prototype for an eel-like robotic fish to be operable remotely, small, sophisticated and intelligent enough to operate autonomously underwater. A new form of central pattern generator model is presented, by which the swimming pattern of a real Anguilliform fish is successfully applied to the robotic prototype. Mathematical model, control law design, different locomotion patterns, and locomotion planning are presented for an Anguilliform robotic fish.

November 26, 2014 Read more

Theater arts research offers insight for designers, builders of robots

Theatre Arts research provides insight into human behavior for scientists, engineers who design and build social robots.

November 21, 2014 Read more