Science & Eng
Robot moth grows a UV sensor by using an artificial circulatory system
A moth-shaped robot used an artificial circulatory system to deliver chemical building blocks through its body and grow a light sensor where UV light struck.
Science & Engineering
80 stories in the last 30 days
Science & Eng
Solid-state cooling advances toward practical use, but challenges remain
As temperatures rise, the need for cooling is growing worldwide. Conventional cooling systems consume large amounts of electricity and use refrigerants with a high global warming potential. Caloric cooling could offer a sustainable alternative by using solid-state materials instead of…
Science & Eng
Fast Feature Field: The missing link between event cameras and robot vision
For decades, event cameras, which emulate the biological retina by continuously monitoring changes in light intensity, have promised to revolutionize how robots perceive the world by allowing them to react faster and operate more reliably than conventional cameras permit.
Science & Eng
Armored caterpillars offer robot designers lessons in crossing slippery glass
Animals have long been one of the primary sources of inspiration for robotics researchers. This is because they rely on sophisticated biological mechanisms and locomotion strategies that could be artificially reproduced in robots to equip them with desired capabilities.
Science & Eng
Mystery of 60-second fluctuations in power grids solved
TenneT Germany, the largest transmission system operator in Germany, has observed over several years that the frequency in the European power grid dips briefly every 60 seconds. While these deviations were not critical to grid security, they were clearly measurable…
Science & Eng
Making bad weather on purpose to test camera and sensor performance
Many buildings and sites tied to national security rely on cameras and sensor networks to detect people and other objects nearby, but weather conditions can quickly obscure their view. To understand how these systems perform, Sandia National Laboratories researchers are…
Science & Eng
New virtual assistant streamlines one of the most advanced microscopes
Some of the most important discoveries in materials science and structural biology come down to a simple question: Where, exactly, are the atoms? The arrangement of atoms determines nearly everything about how a material behaves in the real world—how strong…
Science & Eng
Self-adjusting drone controls could make for smoother formation flying
A new method for controlling groups of drones, technically known as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), could make formation flying smoother and reduce energy consumption and mechanical wear, according to research in the International Journal of Systems, Control and Communications. The…
Science & Eng
A new flexible foot pad enables this one-legged, hopping robot to go where few robots have gone before
A team of University of Toronto Engineering researchers has developed a flexible foot pad for the "Hopcopter"—a one-legged, hopping robot they developed—significantly enhancing its performance on sand, ice and other difficult terrain.
Science & Eng
Insect-inspired flying robot bounces back after collisions
Flying insects, such as fruit flies, bees, dragonflies and mosquitoes, can dart through narrow spaces and survive collisions with various objects. In contrast, many flying robots fall, suffer damage or even break down when they hit nearby surfaces or objects.
Science & Eng
Artificial skin helps robots grasp pencil lead and pull away from needles
Researchers have covered robotic fingers with a new artificial skin that allows the hand to grasp fragile pencil lead and pull away from a needle before it punctures the covering. Both actions depend on more than sensitive sensors. The robot…
Science & Eng
Wearable system captures human activity data for robot training
Humanoid robots, robotic systems with a body shape that resembles that of humans, could tackle various chores and everyday manual tasks. To successfully complete these tasks, however, the robots should be able to reliably coordinate their movements, posture and how…
Science & Eng
Flexible robot arms learn to predict their next move
A robot arm that bends like an elephant's trunk can slip into tight spaces and handle fragile objects. Controlling it is harder because its smooth bending makes its next move hard to predict. Researchers have now developed a method that…
Science & Eng
Lab-grown mouse muscles enable tiny robots to jump, swim, walk and grasp
Lab-grown skeletal muscle tissue can contract, but the movement is often so slight that it is barely visible. This poses a problem for biohybrid robots designed to move using living muscles. Researchers at ETH Zurich have now demonstrated that it…
Science & Eng
Wheeled, flying and six-legged robots stay on track with new learning method
It's important for a robot not just to learn a task optimally, but to complete it without going off the rails of reasonable expectations. Until now, roboticists could have one or the other. Aerospace engineering researchers in The Grainger College…
Science & Eng
Secret trigger words could make AI-powered robots dangerous
Large language models (LLMs) like OpenAI's ChatGPT, Anthropic's Claude and Google Gemini are increasingly being used to help robots perform tasks, but what if LLMs could be exploited to turn helpful robots into harmful robots?
Science & Eng
From wombat burrows to Noah's Ark: Robot joins search
Technology developed by an Australian engineer to explore wombat burrows has been sent to eastern Türkiye to join in the search for the biblical Noah's Ark.
Science & Eng
Robot AI predicts future scenes to guide its next moves
A robot artificial intelligence (AI) system has been developed that can understand human instructions, predict what a scene will look like after an action and then carry out the task. Rather than simply translating instructions into physical movements, the technology…