Robots promise to transform our lives in myriad ways. Having already revolutionized the production line, robots are getting smarter, smaller and more capable, and they're walking, rolling and flying out of labs and into homes and businesses at an astonishing rate. With the ability to perform tasks that are considered too menial or impossible for humans, robots are destined to make many aspects of our lives easier. Will they ultimately supplant us? We'll just have to wait and see.
DARPA has instituted a new program to advance the technologies needed to build micro-robots on the millimeter to centimeter scales. The aim is to produce new systems that would allow such microbots to enter and search the holes and crevices left by natural and manmade disasters.
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When scientists are using submersibles to study deep-sea organisms, it's understandable that they'd want to harmlessly capture fragile-bodied animals in order to get a closer look at them. Well, Harvard University's Rotary Actuated Dodecahedron (RAD) sampler is designed for just such a purpose.
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Agile robots could certainly come in handy for tasks such as locating victims at disaster sites, which is why we've seen ones that hop, sidewind and "swim" across uneven terrain. One of the latest, developed at Israel's Ben-Gurion University, crawls and sprawls.
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The engines of an airplane are complicated machines that require careful maintenance. The future of this task, as Rolls-Royce sees it, could involve deploying different kinds of of robots that patrol these aircraft parts and quickly nip any problems in the bud.
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It's one thing to make a robot that can run around, but what about one that can do it blind? MIT's new Cheetah 3 quadrupedal robot answers that question by covering rough terrain in leaps, pounces and gallops, and even navigating stairs – all without sight.
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Folks looking for a last mile transport solution have choice-a-plenty nowadays, but the CanguRo offers more than just a comfy ride. The RidRoid robot has some useful smarts cooked in, being able to follow its user around between rides, or make its way to a meeting point on its own.
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If you're a fan of insect-inspired robots, then you probably like creations such as RoboBee, VelociRoACH, and Harvard University's HAMR. Should the latter's scurrying around not be enough for you, though, it can now move across the water, sinking itself and walking beneath the surface on command.
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Disney’s animatronics are coming a long way from hippos that wiggle their ears. In the (relatively) near future, robotic versions of Iron Man or Buzz Lightyear could be performing autonomous acrobatics overhead in Disney theme parks, thanks to the newly-unveiled Stuntronics robot.
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Autonomous robots have made their way to the factory floor and busy warehouse, and are even greeting customers at some hotels. But few are out in the wild. And it's the wild that's the source of inspiration for a new breed of bots that can build structures to overcome obstacles.
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Robots that pick up and move objects (such as on assembly lines) may be useful, but they're typically only programmed to grasp specific types of objects that are placed in a specific orientation. Now, however, scientists have devised a method of allowing them to be more versatile.
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