Researchers at Cornell University are designing robots that can autonomously traverse and manipulate a 3-D truss structure by using specially designed gears and joints to assemble and disassemble the structure as it climbs. Researchers believe this technology may someday lead to safer construction zones and could be used for repairs on the International Space Station. [...]

To help carry gear, DARPA is continuing research into developing a highly mobile, semi-autonomous legged robot to integrate with a squad of Marines or Soldiers. As seen in the video, a recent prototype underwent a series of outdoor tests and DARPA plans to continue refinements over the next 18 months. Today’s dismounted warfighter can be [...]

Engineers at Johns Hopkins are studying butterflies using high-speed video cameras to gain a better understand of their flight dynamics. With funding from U.S. defense agencies, the researchers hope to use this knowledge to create micro aerial vehicles that will mimic the butterflies airborne maneuvers and carry out reconnaissance, search-and-rescue and environmental monitoring missions. To [...]

BERKELEY — Leaping lizards have a message for robots: Get a tail! University of California, Berkeley, biologists and engineers ‑ including undergraduate and graduate students ‑ studied how lizards manage to leap successfully even when they slip and stumble. They found that lizards swing their tails upward to prevent them from pitching head-over-heels into a [...]

This fluffy robot is cuddly and soft, but it is no toy. Babyloid is Japan’s latest therapeutic robot baby, designed to help ease depression among older people by offering them companionship. The eyes blink, it can produce a smile, and those rosy cheeks have LED lights that turn red to let you know when Babyloid [...]

Mirror mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all? Well, Qbo didn’t say that as it rolled up to a mirror and looked at its reflection, but he does say “Oh. This is me. Nice.” I guess Qbo likes what he sees. Qbo is an open-source robot with two cameras that give [...]

Robots that can jump are nothing new, but Jianguo Zhao, a PhD student at Michigan State, has developed a robot that can not only jump in the air, but when it comes down, it can right itself, and jump again. Now in its third generation, Zhao’s robot can jump up to 36 inches in the [...]

This may not look like the future of robots that we were promised from movies like Star Wars and Star Trek, but according to scientists at Harvard University and other leading researchers in the robotics field, flexible robots are the future. They offer the ability to adapt to situations and go places that a standard [...]

The Korean Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) and Kyonggi University are teaming up to develop robot prison guards that look like the conceptual image above.  This may well help keep human prison guards safe, but I’m not sure how effective they will be. You can easily imagine inmates destroying these expensive creations in creative [...]

Getting robots to do our chores for us is nothing new. Mankind has long held this dream and more and more it is becoming a reality. Yaskawa Electric, the world’s largest industrial robot manufacturer, is doing its part to make our dreams come true. The SmartPal VII is basically a telepresence robot, but with an [...]