New method allows robot vision to identify occluded objects

When artificial intelligence systems encounter scenes where objects are not fully visible, they have to make estimations based only on the visible parts of the objects. This partial information leads to detection errors, and large training data is required to correctly recognize such scenes. Now, researchers at the Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology have developed a framework that allows robot vision to detect such objects successfully in the same way that we perceive them

Soft robotic origami crawlers

Materials scientists aim to develop biomimetic soft robotic crawlers including earthworm-like and inchworm-like crawlers to realize locomotion via in-plane and out-of-plane contractions for a variety of engineering applications. While such devices can show effective motion in confined spaces, it is challenging to miniaturize the concept due to complex and limited actuation. In a new report now published in Science Advances, Qiji Ze and a team of scientists in mechanical engineering and aerospace engineering at Stanford University and the Ohio State University, U.S., described a magnetically actuated, small-scale origami crawler exhibiting in-plane contraction. The team achieved contraction mechanisms via a four-unit Kresling origami assembly to facilitate the motion of an untethered robot with crawling or steering capacity. The crawler overcame large resistances in severely confined spaces due to its magnetically tunable structural stiffness and anisotropy. The setup provided a contraption for drug storage and release with potential to serve as a minimally invasive device in biomedicine.

Researchers develop new AI form that can adapt to perform tasks in changeable environments

Can robots adapt their own working methods to solve complex tasks? Researchers at Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, have developed a new form of AI, which, by observing human behavior, can adapt to perform its tasks in a changeable environment. The hope is that robots that can be flexible in this way will be able to work alongside humans to a much greater degree.

A flexible way to grab items with feeling: Engineers develop a robotic gripper with rich sensory capabilities

The notion of a large metallic robot that speaks in monotone and moves in lumbering, deliberate steps is somewhat hard to shake. But practitioners in the field of soft robotics have an entirely different image in mind—autonomous devices composed of compliant parts that are gentle to the touch, more closely resembling human fingers than R2-D2 or Robby the Robot.