NASA’s DuAxel: Transforming Rover That Can Explore the Toughest Terrain
Made of a pair of two-wheeled vehicles, NASA’s DuAxel is designed to descend crater sides and near-vertical cliffs on the Moon, Mars, and beyond. A…
Robotics
Strong Links Between Automation and Inequality: Job-Replacing Tech Has Directly Driven the Income Gap Since the Late 1980s
Modern technology affects different workers in different ways. In some white-collar jobs — designer, engineer — people become more productive with sophisticated software at their…
Secrets of Fly Vision for Rapid Flight Control and Staggeringly Fast Reaction Speed
Mechanical engineering researchers gain biological insights that could enhance robotics. By examining how fruit flies use eye movements to enhance flight control with a staggeringly…
Laser Jolts Microscopic Electronic Robots Into Walking – Could Produce 1 Million Robots per Silicon Wafer
In 1959, former Cornell physicist Richard Feynman delivered his famous lecture “There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom,” in which he described the opportunity for…
Robot Takes Contact-Free Measurements of COVID-19 Patients’ Vital Signs
The research described in this article has been published on a preprint server but has not yet been peer-reviewed by scientific or medical experts. During…
Distributed Energy Storage: Biomorphic Batteries Could Provide 72x More Energy for Robots
Like biological fat reserves store energy in animals, a new rechargeable zinc battery integrates into the structure of a robot to provide much more energy,…
Occupants Check Into NASA’s “Robot Hotel” Aboard the Space Station
Storage is just as important aboard the International Space Station as it is on Earth. While the space station is about the size of a…
Giving Robots Human-Like Perception of Their Physical Environments
“Alexa, go to the kitchen and fetch me a snack” Wouldn’t we all appreciate a little help around the house, especially if that help came…
GoPro for Beetles: Robotic Camera Backpack Developed for Insects and Tiny Robots
In the movie “Ant-Man,” the title character can shrink in size and travel by soaring on the back of an insect. Now researchers at the…
New Algorithm Coordinates Complex Behaviors Between Hundreds of Robots in a Fraction of the Time
A new approach to designing motion plans for multiple robots grows “trees” in the search space to solve complex problems in a fraction of the…
NASA’s InSight Lander Flexes Its Robotic Arm – What’s Next for the “Mole”
Now that the lander’s robotic arm has helped the mole get underground, it will resume science activities that have been on hold. NASA’s InSight lander…
Tissue-Like Pressure Sensors Key to Bionic Breast Project
Approximately one third of the 3.8 million female breast cancer survivors in the US today have undergone mastectomy, and as many as three quarters of…
Researchers Create Bionic Jellyfish That Swim Faster and More Efficiently
Researchers at Caltech and Stanford use microelectronics to enhance jellyfish swimming. Engineers at Caltech and Stanford University have developed a tiny prosthetic that enables jellyfish…
Clever New Robot Rover Designed to Conquer Lunar and Planetary Exploration
Built with wheeled appendages that can be lifted, a new robot developed with U.S. Army funding has complex locomotion techniques robust enough to allow it…
Inspired by Cheetah Biomechanics, Researchers Build World-Record Fast Soft Robots
Inspired by the biomechanics of cheetahs, researchers have developed a new type of soft robot that is capable of moving more quickly on solid surfaces…
Low-Cost, High-Accuracy GPS-Like System Developed for Flexible Medical Robots
Roboticists at the University of California San Diego have developed an affordable, easy to use system to track the location of flexible surgical robots inside…
Planetary Exploration Rover Features Complex Locomotion Techniques to Avoid Traps
The rolling hills of Mars or the moon are a long way from the nearest tow truck. That’s why the next generation of exploration rovers…
How Many Jobs Do Robots and Automation Really Replace?
MIT economist Daron Acemoglu’s new research puts a number on the job costs of automation. In many parts of the U.S., robots have been replacing…