A lot of people have lower limb mobility impairments, but there are few wearable technologies to enable them to walk normally while performing tasks of daily living. XoSoft, a European funded project, has brought together partners from all over Europe to develop a flexible, lightweight and resource-efficient soft exoskeleton prototype.
Hulking robots common to assembly line manufacturing tend to be loners. They often cut, bend and weld metal inside cages and behind barriers meant to safely separate them from human workers.
Mechanical engineering students challenged themselves to make a robotic fish that not only swims like a real fish, but looks the part too, demonstrating the possibilities inherent to soft robotics.
Many work processes would be almost unthinkable today without robots. But robots operating in manufacturing facilities have often posed risks to workers because they are not responsive enough to their surroundings. To make it easier for people and robots to work in close proximity in the future, Prof. Matthias Althoff of the Technical University of Munich (TUM) has developed a new system: IMPROV.
Researchers at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory flew a fleet of 30 miniature autonomous blimps in unison to test the swarming behavior of autonomous systems. The blimps responded to each other while in flight and responded to changing conditions.
Toshiba Corp. unveiled a remote-controlled robot with tongs on Monday that it hopes will be able to probe the inside of one of the three damaged reactors at Japan's tsunami-hit Fukushima nuclear plant and grip chunks of highly radioactive melted fuel.
Robust, intelligent robots that react to their surroundings are being developed to work in situations that are too dangerous for humans, such as cleaning up Europe's decades-old radioactive waste or helping during a nuclear emergency.
A bipedal robot walks on the surface of a distant planet. Its sensors scan the environment, sending data back to Earth. It comes to a crumbling hillside, flexes its knees and leaps, thrusters whirring, to land safely above the loose rock.
A*STAR researchers working with colleagues in Japan have developed a method by which robots can automatically recognize an object as a potential tool and use it, despite never having seen it before.
Cambridge researchers are studying the interaction between robots and humans – and teaching them how to do the very difficult things that we find easy.