Robotics Research News

May 9, 2024

Top Headlines

Robotic System Feeds People With Severe Mobility Limitations

May 9, 2024 — Researchers have developed a robotic feeding system that uses computer vision, machine learning and multimodal sensing to safely feed people with severe mobility limitations, including those with spinal cord injuries, cerebral palsy and multiple ...

Generative AI That Imitates Human Motion

May 9, 2024 — Walking and running is notoriously difficult to recreate in robots. Now, a group of researchers has overcome some of these challenges by creating an innovative method that employs central pattern generators -- neural circuits located in the spinal ...

Swarms of Miniature Robots Clean Up Microplastics and Microbes, Simultaneously

May 8, 2024 — When old food packaging, discarded children's toys and other mismanaged plastic waste break down into microplastics, they become even harder to clean up from oceans and waterways. These tiny bits of ...

Caterbot? Robatapillar? It Crawls With Ease Through Loops and Bends

May 6, 2024 — Engineers created a catapillar-shaped robot that splits into segments and reassembles, hauls cargo, and crawls through twisting ...

Latest Headlines

updated 6:22pm EDT

Stretchable E-Skin Could Give Robots Human-Level Touch Sensitivity

May 3, 2024 — A stretchy electronic skin could equip robots and other devices with the same softness and touch sensitivity as human skin, opening up new possibilities to perform tasks that require a great deal of ...

Random Robots Are More Reliable

May 2, 2024 — New algorithm encourages robots to move more randomly to collect more diverse data for learning. In tests, robots started with no knowledge and then learned and correctly performed tasks within a ...

Activity in a Room Stirs Up Nanoparticles Left Over from Consumer Sprays

Apr. 30, 2024 — Common household products containing nanoparticles -- grains of engineered material so miniscule they are invisible to the eye -- could be contributing to a new form of indoor air pollution, ...

Trotting Robots Reveal Emergence of Animal Gait Transitions

Apr. 30, 2024 — A four-legged robot trained with machine learning has learned to avoid falls by spontaneously switching between walking, trotting, and pronking -- a milestone for roboticists as well as biologists ...

Scientists Develop Strong Yet Reusable Adhesive from Smart Materials

Apr. 29, 2024 — Scientists have developed a smart, reusable adhesive more than ten times stronger than a gecko's feet adhesion, pointing the way for development of reusable superglue and grippers capable of holding ...

A Shortcut for Drug Discovery

Apr. 25, 2024 — For most human proteins, there are no small molecules known to bind them chemically (so called 'ligands'). Ligands frequently represent important starting points for drug development but this ...

Robotic Nerve 'Cuffs' Could Help Treat a Range of Neurological Conditions

Apr. 26, 2024 — Researchers have developed tiny, flexible devices that can wrap around individual nerve fibers without damaging them. The researchers combined flexible electronics and soft robotics techniques to ...

Why Can't Robots Outrun Animals?

Apr. 24, 2024 — Robotics engineers have worked for decades and invested many millions of research dollars in attempts to create a robot that can walk or run as well as an animal. And yet, it remains the case that ...

An Ink for 3D-Printing Flexible Devices Without Mechanical Joints

Apr. 18, 2024 — Researchers are targeting the next generation of soft actuators and robots with an elastomer-based ink for 3D printing objects with locally changing mechanical properties, eliminating the need for ...

Octopus Inspires New Suction Mechanism for Robots

Apr. 18, 2024 — A new robotic suction cup which can grasp rough, curved and heavy stone, has been developed by ...

How 3D Printers Can Give Robots a Soft Touch

Apr. 17, 2024 — Soft skin coverings and touch sensors have emerged as a promising feature for robots that are both safer and more intuitive for human interaction, but they are expensive and difficult to make. A ...

Novel Robotic Training Program Reduces Physician Errors Placing Central Lines

Apr. 17, 2024 — More than five million central lines are placed in patients who need prolonged drug delivery, such as those undergoing cancer treatments, in the United States every year, yet the common procedure can ...

Star Trek's Holodeck Recreated Using ChatGPT and Video Game Assets

Apr. 11, 2024 — Star Trek's Holodeck is no longer just science fiction. Using AI, engineers have created a tool that can generate 3D environments, prompted by everyday ...

Engineers Design Soft and Flexible 'Skeletons' for Muscle-Powered Robots

Apr. 8, 2024 — Engineers designed modular, spring-like devices to maximize the work of live muscle fibers so they can be harnessed to power biohybrid ...

'Smart Swarms' of Tiny Robots Inspired by Natural Herd Mentality

Apr. 3, 2024 — Researchers gave nanorobots a trait called adaptive time delay, which allows them to better work ...

Intelligent Liquid

Apr. 3, 2024 — Researchers have developed a programmable meta-fluid with tunable springiness, optical properties, viscosity and even the ability to transition between a Newtonian and non-Newtonian fluid. The ...

Elastocaloric Cooling: Refrigerator Cools by Flexing Artificial Muscles

Apr. 2, 2024 — There is room for just one small bottle in the world's first refrigerator that is cooled with artificial muscles made of nitinol, a nickel-titanium alloy. But the mini-prototype is ...

Revolutionary Biomimetic Olfactory Chips to Enable Advanced Gas Sensing and Odor Detection

Mar. 28, 2024 — A research team has addressed the long-standing challenge of creating artificial olfactory sensors with arrays of diverse high-performance gas sensors. Their newly developed biomimetic olfactory ...

Robot, Can You Say 'Cheese'?

Mar. 27, 2024 — What would you do if you walked up to a robot with a human-like head and it smiled at you first? You'd likely smile back and perhaps feel the two of you were genuinely interacting. But how does ...

Engineering Household Robots to Have a Little Common Sense

Mar. 25, 2024 — Engineers aim to give robots a bit of common sense when faced with situations that push them off their trained path, so they can self-correct after missteps and carry on with their chores. The ...

Universal Controller Could Push Robotic Prostheses, Exoskeletons Into Real-World Use

Mar. 20, 2024 — A team of researchers has developed a universal approach to controlling robotic exoskeletons that requires no training, no calibration, and no adjustments to complicated algorithms. Instead, users ...

Robotic Metamaterial: An Endless Domino Effect

Mar. 20, 2024 — If it walks like a particle, and talks like a particle... it may still not be a particle. A topological soliton is a special type of wave or dislocation which behaves like a particle: it can move ...

Two Artificial Intelligences Talk to Each Other

Mar. 18, 2024 — Performing a new task based solely on verbal or written instructions, and then describing it to others so that they can reproduce it, is a cornerstone of human communication that still resists ...

Advance for Soft Robotics Manufacturing, Design

Mar. 18, 2024 — Engineers propose a new quantitative framework to account for and predict the impact of temperature on the curing speed of platinum-catalyzed silicone elastomers. The findings could maximize ...

Advanced Army Robots More Likely to Be Blamed for Deaths

Mar. 14, 2024 — Advanced killer robots are more likely to blamed for civilian deaths than military machines, new research has revealed. The study shows that high-tech bots will be held more responsible for ...

Robot ANYmal Can Do Parkour and Walk Across Rubble

Mar. 13, 2024 — The quadrupedal robot ANYmal went back to school and has learned a lot. Researchers used machine learning to teach it new skills: the robot can now climb over obstacles and successfully negotiate ...

Opening New Doors in the VR World, Literally

Mar. 13, 2024 — Recreating the action of opening doors in the virtual world requires engineering ways in which to provide the equivalent haptic feedback and steer users away from walls in the real world. A research ...

Straightening Teeth? AI Can Help

Mar. 13, 2024 — A new tool will help orthodontists correctly fit braces onto teeth. Using artificial intelligence and virtual patients, the tool predicts how teeth will move, so as to ensure that braces are neither ...

You Don't Need Glue to Hold These Materials Together -- Just Electricity

Mar. 13, 2024 — Is there a way to stick hard and soft materials together without any tape, glue or epoxy? A new study shows that applying a small voltage to certain objects forms chemical bonds that securely link ...

Robotic Interface Masters a Soft Touch

Mar. 11, 2024 — Researchers have developed a haptic device capable of reproducing the softness of various materials, from a marshmallow to a beating heart, overcoming a deceptively complex challenge that has ...