Robotics

Researchers have developed a thermally conductive rubber material that represents a breakthrough for creating soft, stretchable machines and electronics.

Scientists have developed an ultrafast high-contrast camera that could help self-driving cars and drones see better in extreme road conditions and in bad weather.

EU-wide rules are needed for the fast-evolving field of robotics, e.g. to enforce ethical standards or establish liability for accidents involving driverless cars, say MEPs in a resolution voted on Thursday.

Machine learning is becoming an increasingly important artificial intelligence approach to building autonomous and robotic systems. One of the key challenges with machine learning is the need for many samples — the amount of data needed to learn useful behaviors is prohibitively high.

Due to its excellent material properties of elasticity, resilience, and electrical and thermal insulation, elastomers have been used in a myriad of applications.

Nanorobots and other mini-vehicles might be able to perform important services in medicine one day - for example, by conducting remotely-controlled operations or transporting pharmaceutical agents to a desired location in the body.

The team is looking forward to leveraging these topological mechanical metamaterials for various applications, optimizing them, and carving devices out of them for applications in soft robotics, prosthetics and energy harvesting.

As bees slip onto the endangered species list in the United States, researchers in Japan are pollinating lilies with insect-sized drones.

In the operating room of the future, robots will be an integral part of the surgical team, working alongside human surgeons to make surgeries safer, faster and more precise.

Legged locomotion may revolutionize robot mobility and enable robots to go anywhere people can go.

Researchers predict that in the next five years, older people and others with mobility problems will be able to rent robotic exoskeletons that make dream vacations — as well as mundane tasks — a possibility.

Oxbotica has announced the release of its pioneering camera-based localisation software for autonomous vehicles, Dub4.

A collaboration has received funding to deliver a human-robotics hybrid solution for the maintenance and operation of offshore windfarms.

Ocado, the world's largest online-only supermarket, has been evaluating the feasibility of robotic picking and packing of shopping orders in its highly-automated warehouses through the SoMa project, a Horizon 2020 framework programme for research and innovation funded by the European Union.

Researchers have developed an algorithm for automated vehicles to operate in traffic alongside manually-driven vehicles. This is a key step in the shift towards autonomous driving expected to be achieved by 2030.

Bats have long captured the imaginations of scientists and engineers with their unrivalled agility, but their complex wing motions pose significant technological challenges for those seeking to recreate their flight in a robot.

Engineers have fabricated transparent, gel-based robots that move when water is pumped in and out of them. The bots can perform a number of fast, forceful tasks, including kicking a ball underwater, and grabbing and releasing a live fish.

The smallest aerial drones mimic insects in many ways, but none can match the efficiency and maneuverability of the dragonfly. Now, engineers are creating a new kind of hybrid drone by combining miniaturized navigation, synthetic biology and neurotechnology to guide dragonfly insects.

A prediction by analysts IDTechEx is turning out to be true.The window of opportunity is closing for fuel cell on-road vehicles to become mainstream.

Apple has joined the Partnership on AI as a founding member. The company has been involved and collaborating with the Partnership since before it was first announced and is thrilled to formalize its membership alongside Amazon, Facebook, Google/DeepMind, IBM, and Microsoft.