Robotics Research News

April 30, 2025

Top Headlines

High-Wire Act: Soft Robot Can Carry Cargo Up and Down Steep Aerial Wires

Apr. 28, 2025 — Researchers have created a light-powered soft robot that can carry loads through the air along established tracks, similar to cable cars or aerial trams. The soft robot operates autonomously, can climb slopes at angles of up to 80 degrees, and can ...

Flying Robots Unlock New Horizons in Construction

Apr. 24, 2025 — An international team has explored how in future aerial robots could process construction materials precisely in the air -- an approach with great potential for difficult-to-access locations or work at great heights. The flying robots are not ...

Combining Signals Could Make for Better Control of Prosthetics

Apr. 24, 2025 — Combining two different kinds of signals could help engineers build prosthetic limbs that better reproduce natural movements, according to a new study. A combination of electromyography and force myography is more accurate at predicting hand ...

Material? Robot? It's a Metabot

Apr. 23, 2025 — The invention is a metamaterial, which is a material engineered to feature new and unusual properties that depend on the material's physical structure rather than its chemical composition. In this case, the researchers built their metamaterial using ...

Latest Headlines

updated 1:17pm EDT

Engineering a Robot That Can Jump 10 Feet High -- Without Legs

Apr. 23, 2025 — Inspired by the movements of a tiny parasitic worm, engineers have created a 5-inch soft robot that can jump as high as a basketball hoop. Their device, a silicone rod with a carbon-fiber spine, can ...

'Periodic Table of Machine Learning' Could Fuel AI Discovery

Apr. 23, 2025 — After uncovering a unifying algorithm that links more than 20 common machine-learning approaches, researchers organized them into a 'periodic table of machine learning' that can help scientists ...

Robot See, Robot Do: System Learns After Watching How-to Videos

Apr. 22, 2025 — Researchers have developed a new robotic framework powered by artificial intelligence -- called RHyME (Retrieval for Hybrid Imitation under Mismatched Execution) -- that allows robots to learn tasks ...

RoboBee Comes in for a Landing

Apr. 16, 2025 — A recently created RoboBee is now outfitted with its most reliable landing gear to date, inspired by one of nature's most graceful landers: the crane fly. The team has given their flying robot a set ...

Farm Robot Autonomously Navigates, Harvests Among Raised Beds

Apr. 16, 2025 — A researcher has developed an autonomous driving algorithm for agricultural robots used for greenhouse cultivation and other farm ...

Bite-Sized Chunks of Chicken With the Texture of Whole Meat Can Be Grown in the Lab

Apr. 16, 2025 — A bioreactor that mimics a circulatory system can deliver nutrients and oxygen to artificial tissue, enabling the production of over 10 grams of ...

Explainable AI for Ship Navigation Raises Trust, Decreases Human Error

Apr. 15, 2025 — A team has developed an explainable AI model for automatic collision avoidance between ...

Machine Learning Unlocks Superior Performance in Light-Driven Organic Crystals

Apr. 15, 2025 — Researchers have developed a machine learning workflow to optimize the output force of photo-actuated organic crystals. Using LASSO regression to ...

Photonic Computing Needs More Nonlinearity: Acoustics Can Help

Apr. 14, 2025 — Neural networks are one typical structure on which artificial intelligence can be based. The term neural describes their learning ability, which to some extent mimics the functioning of neurons in ...

A New Robotic Gripper Made of Measuring Tape Is Sizing Up Fruit and Veggie Picking

Apr. 9, 2025 — It's a game a lot of us played as children -- and maybe even later in life: unspooling measuring tape to see how far it would extend before bending. ...

Hopping Gives This Tiny Robot a Leg Up

Apr. 9, 2025 — A hopping, insect-sized robot can jump over gaps or obstacles, traverse rough, slippery, or slanted surfaces, and perform aerial acrobatic maneuvers, while using a fraction of the energy required for ...

3D-Printed Open-Source Robot Offers Accessible Solution for Materials Synthesis

Apr. 9, 2025 — FLUID, an open-source, 3D-printed robot, offers an affordable and customizable solution for automated material synthesis, making advanced research accessible to more ...

Tiny, Soft Robot Flexes Its Potential as a Life Saver

Apr. 8, 2025 — A tiny, soft, flexible robot that can crawl through earthquake rubble to find trapped victims or travel inside the human body to deliver medicine may seem like science fiction, but an international ...

How Can Science Benefit from AI? Risks?

Apr. 4, 2025 — Researchers from chemistry, biology, and medicine are increasingly turning to AI models to develop new hypotheses. However, it is often unclear on which basis the algorithms come to their conclusions ...

Nurture More Important Than Nature for Robotic Hand

Apr. 3, 2025 — How does a robotic arm or a prosthetic hand learn a complex task like grasping and rotating a ball? Researchers address the classic 'nature versus nurture' question. The research ...

Scientists Unveil Starfish-Inspired Wearable Tech for Heart Monitoring

Apr. 2, 2025 — When we move, it's harder for existing wearable devices to accurately track our heart activity. But researchers found that a starfish's five-arm shape helps solve this problem. Inspired by ...

My Robot Therapist: The Ethics of AI Mental Health Chatbots for Kids

Mar. 31, 2025 — AI mental health apps may offer a cheap and accessible way to fill the gaps in the overstretched U.S. mental health care system, but ethics experts warn that we need to be thoughtful about how we use ...

Artificial Neurons Organize Themselves

Mar. 28, 2025 — Novel artificial neurons learn independently and are more strongly modeled on their biological counterparts. A team of researchers has programmed these infomorphic neurons and constructed artificial ...

A Lighter, Smarter Magnetoreceptive Electronic Skin

Mar. 27, 2025 — Imagine navigating a virtual reality with contact lenses or operating your smartphone under water: This and more could soon be a reality thanks to innovative e-skins. A research team has developed an ...

Mini Rolling Robot Takes Virtual Biopsies

Mar. 26, 2025 — A tiny magnetic robot which can take 3D scans from deep within the body, that could revolutionize early cancer detection, has been developed by researchers. The team say this is the first time it has ...

Philosophy: Cultural Differences in Exploitation of Artificial Agents

Mar. 26, 2025 — A new study shows that people in Japan treat robots and AI agents more respectfully than people in Western ...

These Electronics-Free Robots Can Walk Right Off the 3D-Printer

Mar. 25, 2025 — This a robot can walk, without electronics, and only with the addition of a cartridge of compressed gas, right off the 3D-printer. It can also be printed in one go, from one ...

Affordable Sensing System to Restore Sense of Touch in Minimally Invasive Surgery

Mar. 24, 2025 — Researchers have developed an innovative sensing system that restores the missing tactile feedback in minimally invasive surgery (MIS), enhancing precision, ease of use, and safety. The new ...

Squirrel-Inspired Leaping Robot Can Stick a Landing on a Branch

Mar. 19, 2025 — A leaping robot could have application in search and rescue, construction, even forest monitoring. But how do you design a robot to stick a landing on a branch or pipe? Biologists worked with robot ...

Coffee-Making Robot Breaks New Ground for AI Machines

Mar. 18, 2025 — An AI-powered robot that can prepare cups of coffee in a busy kitchen could usher in the next generation of intelligent machines, a study ...

'Democratizing Chemical analysis':Chemists Use Machine Learning and Robotics to Identify Chemical Compositions from Images

Mar. 18, 2025 — Chemists have created a machine learning tool that can identify the chemical composition of dried salt solutions from an image with 99% accuracy. By using robotics to prepare thousands of samples and ...

Revolutionary Blueprint to Fuse Wireless Technologies and AI

Mar. 18, 2025 — Virginia Tech researchers say a true revolution in wireless technologies is only possible through endowing the system with the next generation of artificial intelligence (AI) that can think, imagine, ...

Artificial Muscle Flexes in Multiple Directions, Offering a Path to Soft, Wiggly Robots

Mar. 17, 2025 — Engineers developed a method to grow artificial muscle tissue that twitches and flexes in multiple, coordinated directions. These tissues could be useful for building 'biohybrid' robots ...

Magnetic Microalgae on a Mission to Become Robots

Mar. 17, 2025 — Scientists have developed a single-cell green microalgae coated with magnetic material. This miniature robot was put to the test: would the microalgae with its magnetic coating be able to swim ...

Robotics and Spinal Stimulation Restore Movement in Paralysis

Mar. 12, 2025 — Scientists have developed an approach that combines rehabilitation robotics with spinal cord stimulation to restore movement in people with spinal cord injuries. The technology enhances ...