Robotics

Engineers have created a 3D-printed smart gel that walks underwater and grabs objects and moves them. The watery creation could lead to soft robots that mimic sea animals like the octopus, which can walk underwater and bump into things without damaging them. It may also lead to artificial heart, stomach and other muscles, along with devices for diagnosing diseases, detecting and delivering drugs and performing underwater inspections.

An automated system that uses robots has been designed to rapidly produce human mini-organs derived from stem cells.

IDTechEx will be hosting a free webinar on Thursday 24 May titled Robots and drones: How everything is changing.

Robots are starting to help make our lives more enjoyable and convenient in everyday situations. An example is a service using robots in business, in a hospital, where robots use gestures and speech to guide people who are having trouble with automated reception machines. What allows this to happen is the robots communication skills, in particular its use of emotional expressions.

Started in 2014, Agribotix is a software as a service provider who uses drones to provide insight and actionable data for the farmers with 15 employees.

Insect-sized flying robots could help with time-consuming tasks like surveying crop growth on large farms or sniffing out gas leaks. These robots soar by fluttering tiny wings because they are too small to use propellers, like those seen on their larger drone cousins. Small size is advantageous: These robots are cheap to make and can easily slip into tight places that are inaccessible to big drones.

Soft robotics mimic living organisms and adapt to their surroundings. Increased flexibility and adaptability for accomplishing tasks as well as improved safety when working around humans, stimulate the use in food industry, advanced manufacturing and e-commerce.

Monika Dunkel continues to explore worldwide technology and market trends in nine key areas, and opportunities they present for the UK.

Monika Dunkel, Knowledge Transfer Manager Emerging Technologies, Innovate UK recently reported on the technology trends featured at the recent IDTechEx Show! IDTechEx show presenters and exhibitors gave an overview of key market and technology trends in nine emerging technologies. Set in Berlin on 11th and 12th April 2018 this European show attracted visitors and exhibitors from across Europe, Israel, US and a noteable South Korean presence.

Observing the world's oceans is increasingly a mission assigned to autonomous underwater vehicles — marine robots that are designed to drift, drive, or glide through the ocean without any real-time input from human operators. Critical questions that AUVs can help to answer are where, when, and what to sample for the most informative data, and how to optimally reach sampling locations.

Endeavor Robotics announced that the U.S. Marine Corps has awarded a $10 million contract for the company's lightweight, battle-proven FirstLook robots.

A major commercial rollout of autonomous delivery services for corporate and academic campuses across the U.S. and Europe. This comes on top of continued growth in robotic food, grocery and parcel delivery in residential neighbourhoods.

In this article, we will describe the upcoming transformation in the world of robotics. This analysis is drawn from our report New Robotics and Drones 2018-2038: Technologies, Forecasts, Players

Data collected on human touch can be utilised in robotics. Thus far, grasping and touching has posed a challenge for the development of robots to be used, for example, in logistics and healthcare.

Aerial Labs Inc was established in 2007 in Canada. In 2007, it raised $60M in funding.

Until now, offshore operators have conducted diligent inspections of facilities while clad in safety harnesses hanging off the side of an oil and gas platform. But, the latest technology is providing better solutions on BP's Thunder Horse platform in the Gulf of Mexico - allowing crawlers and flying robots to complete these tasks instead.

The robotic industry is looking for the next big opportunity that could one day rival the automotive sector in size. It may have found its answer in the logistic and material handling sector. In this article we will focus on the use of mobile robots in automating the goods-to-person step in logistics and material handling.

A prototype of the ridable transforming humanoid robot J-deite RIDE, a 4-meter tall robot that can transform from a bipedal walking humanoid form (robot mode) to a wheel-driven form (vehicle mode) and back.

It is developing a simple technology that helps trucks and large mobile machinery avoid hitting human objects. It is pre-revenue and is looking for its first 0.5m Euro seed funding.

When it comes to things that are ultrafast and lightweight, robots can't hold a candle to the fastest-jumping insects and other small-but-powerful creatures. New research could help explain why nature still beats robots, and describes how machines might take the lead.