Robotics

If an ant encounters a gap too wide for it to cross, the insect will sometimes signal other ants to form a bridge of their linked bodies. Such behaviour has now been copied in a small four-legged robot, that may inspire better search-and-rescue bots.

Although fiber optic internet cable has many advantages over metal cable, it frequently has to be distributed underground – this limits its usability. Facebook, however, has developed a robot that could wrap the cable around existing power lines.

Whether you think it’s cool or unnerving, robots are becoming more agile – and Caltech’s LEONARDO looks like one of the most nimble examples yet. LEO walks on two legs, jumps and flies, can balance on a slackline and even skateboard.

A few years ago we first heard about DARPA's Subterranean Challenge, a competition in which teams were using robots to explore underground environments. A consortium known as Team CERBERUS has recently been awarded the US$2 million top prize.

While many people are fascinated by Boston Dynamics' dog-inspired Spot quadruped robot, there's no way that they could ever afford one of their own. They could still own a different robo-dog, though, in the form of the smaller, cheaper Mini Pupper.

For decades sci-fi has been promising us helpful home robots, but progress and uptake have been slow. Amazon may have heeded the call with Astro, its new Alexa-on-wheels – and whether this future is more The Jetsons or Black Mirror is up to you.

When you're carrying a heavy load, it can be pretty difficult walking across flat ground, let alone climbing stairs. The Koma 1.5 is designed to help, by alternately acting as a powered buggy or a two-legged lower-body exoskeleton.

Increasingly, robots are being used to autonomously clean floors and other surfaces in places like airports and hospitals. You have to wonder, though … how do they know when a floor is sufficiently clean? A new module could soon tell them.

Pulling your stuff around in a cart is all very well and good, but … what if you want to keep your hands free? That's where the gita wheeled robot was designed to come in. There will soon be a smaller version available, known as the gitamini.

It goes without saying that the neutralizing of underwater mines is a risky task – definitely one that you'd avoid sending a scuba diver to do, if at all possible. That's why Pittsburgh-based RE2 Robotics is designing a robotic system to do the job.

Scientists pushing the frontiers of soft robotics continue to find inspiration in the animal kingdom, with the latest examples that move move like inchworms and earthworms deploying some novel sensor technology to give them proprioception.

When leaping geckos crash head-first into vertical surfaces such as tree trunks, they're able to hang onto that surface instead of bouncing off and falling to the ground. Scientists have discovered what allows them to do so, and copied the capability in a small robot.