Robotics

A team of researchers has reported a breakthrough in stretchable electronics that can serve as an artificial skin, allowing a robotic hand to sense the difference between hot and cold, while also offering advantages for a wide range of biomedical devices.

The ground-breaking Hands Free Hectare which aimed to be the first in the world to plant, tend and harvest a crop with only autonomous vehicles and drones, has come to an end after a successful harvest.

Robotic technology will transform the forklift industry, causing a colossal transfer of value from human-provided driving services, towards spending on autonomous industrial material handling machines, thus fuelling an industry revenue boom far exceeding recent growth trends.

Investors and executives in the agricultural industry are getting a first look at TerraSentia, a new-to-the-market agricultural robot that autonomously measures crop traits.

A research group is investigating the behaviour of young honeybees immediately after hatching and successfully transfers this to robots. The bees' brood-care strategies turn out to be surprisingly efficient.

Through origami-inspired engineering, researchers hope to not only create rapidly fabricable robots capable of completing tasks, but also build intuitive design software that enables others who may not be trained in engineering to create their own personalized origami robots.

Despite what you might see in movies, today's robots are still very limited in what they can do. They can be great for many repetitive tasks, but their inability to understand the nuances of human language makes them mostly useless for more complicated requests.

Domino's Pizza and Ford Motor Co are launching an industry-first collaboration to understand the role that self-driving vehicles can play in pizza delivery.

Last mile delivery remains an expensive affair in the parcel delivery business, often representing more than half of the total cost. Its importance is also growing thanks to a change in the composition of total deliveries with B2C deliveries rapidly taking on a bigger share.

With over two months to go until the IDTechEx Show! at the Santa Clara Convention Center on November 15 - 16, over 90% of the exhibit space is already sold. The event brings together the hottest emerging technologies including materials, components and systems with end users, who seek to use these technologies to differentiate their products through greater capability.

New research details how origami structures and bio-inspired design can be used to create a crawling robot.

Robots are becoming uncaged, mobile, collaborative and increasingly intelligent and dexterous, moving beyond their traditional strongholds to bring automation to previously inaccessible tasks.

A project being led by National Grid will allow a robot to undertake the inspection of gas pipelines at high pressure has been awarded 5.7 million pounds.

Engineers have designed an autonomous robot with "socially aware navigation," that can keep pace with foot traffic while observing general codes of pedestrian conduct.

Scientists have created the first functional robot powered entirely by vacuum: made up of soft building blocks, it moves by having air sucked out of them.

Recording electrical signals from inside a neuron in the living brain can reveal a great deal of information about that neuron's function and how it coordinates with other cells in the brain.

Bee-based maths is helping teach swarms of drones to find weeds, while robotic mowers keep hedgerows in shape.

A robotic over-the-bed table, to help veterans and others with disabilities or mobility impairments better use their laptop computers and mobile devices while restricted to bed, allowing them to be more independent and remain productive with work or school.

New stochastic separation theorems proved by mathematicians could enhance capabilities of artificial intelligence.

A new, electronic skin microsystem tracks heart rate, respiration, muscle movement and other health data, and wirelessly transmits it to a smartphone.