Robotics

Equipped with funding and support from NASA, mechanical engineers have built an inflatable robot made with fabric.

With just two northern white rhinos remaining in the world, both of whom are female, scientists are racing against the clock to rescue the species from the brink of extinction. Decades of poaching and habitat loss have led to their dramatic decline. Hope for their survival now rests on scientists' ability to develop innovative methods for repopulating the species.

Researchers have used computationally controlled knitting machines to create plush toys and other knitted objects that are actuated by tendons. It's an approach they say might someday be used to cost-effectively make soft robots and wearable technologies.

As a genetic material, DNA is responsible for all known life. But DNA is also a polymer. Tapping into the unique nature of the molecule, engineers have created simple machines constructed of biomaterials with properties of living things.

IDTechEx CEO, Raghu Das discusses trends in flexible electronics, stretchable electronics, structural electronics, internet of things, sensors, wearables, healthcare, electric vehicles, energy storage, graphene, 3d printing and printed electronics in the opening cornerstone presentation at the IDTechEx Show! Europe 2019.

A visit to the dentist typically involves time-consuming and sometimes unpleasant scraping with mechanical tools to remove plaque from teeth. What if, instead, a dentist could deploy a small army of tiny robots to precisely and non-invasively remove that buildup?

Bees are known to be both busy and hard-working, and NASA's new free-flying space robots, called Astrobee, will soon have the same reputation. Unlike bees that live on Earth, the robots will do their work flying alongside astronauts inside the International Space Station and will play a critical role in supporting innovative and sustainable exploration of the Moon, Mars and beyond.

New soccer-ball-shaped robots have the remarkable ability to fall from a height of more than 600 feet and be no worse for wear. Built of a network of rods linked by contracting cables, they can also shapeshift in order to crawl from one point to another.

Wing has achieved a significant milestone, becoming the first drone delivery company to receive Air Carrier Certification from the United States Federal Aviation Administration. This is an important step for the FAA and the drone industry in the United States; the result of years of work to safely integrate drones into the national airspace.

Bioengineers report the first demonstration of a robot able to navigate autonomously inside the body. In an animal model of cardiac valve repair, the team programmed a robotic catheter to find its way along the walls of a beating, blood-filled heart to a leaky valve -- without a surgeon's guidance.

For years, Israeli neurologist Tamar Flash has had a fascination with the octopus, and the way the invertebrate's eight arms propel it effortlessly through the water. She's convinced this has major implications for diagnosing and treating Parkinson's disease — and possible other disorders as well.

Bad news for ophiophobes: Researchers have developed a new and improved snake-inspired soft robot that is faster and more precise than its predecessor.

A new learning system improves robots' abilities to mold materials into target shapes and make predictions about interacting with solid objects and liquids. The system, known as a learning-based particle simulator, could give industrial robots a more refined touch — and it may have fun applications in personal robotics, such as modelling clay shapes or rolling sticky rice for sushi. In robotic planning, physical simulators are models that capture how different materials respon

Every year trash companies sift through an estimated 68 million tons of recycling, which is the weight equivalent of more than 30 million cars.

Liquid-metal mixture bends the rules on flexible and highly conductive materials for wearable devices.

Researchers have created a new low-cost, human friendly robot named Blue, designed to use recent advances in artificial intelligence and deep reinforcement learning to master intricate human tasks, all while remaining affordable and safe enough that every AI researcher could have one. The team hopes Blue will accelerate the development of robotics for the home.

When dealing with disasters or searching for objects, robots or drones with cameras are usually used. However, conventional cameras are of rather limited use in murky, dark water, such as in a sewage pipe or a lake that is cloudy with sediment.

Walmart is adding additional robotic technologies to stores across America. And they are going big.

A field robotics start-up based on technology created by the University of Sydney's Australian Centre for Field Robotics has received a $6.5 million investment.

The world's elderly population is booming. The number of older people -- those age 60 years or older -- is expected to more than double by 2050 and is growing faster than all younger age groups across the globe. This trend comes with an increasing demand for caregivers capable of providing 24-hour care, not only at hospitals or nursing homes, but also at private homes and apartments.