Robotics

When it comes to systems for cleaning up marine oil spills, most of them simply float in place, waiting for the oil to come to them. A new robot, however, could proactively move through oil slicks – and it's inspired by both a dolphin and a sea urchin.

If someone asked you to move like a robot and you responded with the fluid art of ballet, your audience would be baffled, yet technically, you would be right. Robots are famous for their characteristic rigid movement, which is useful in some applications but can hinder adaptability. Now, researchers have developed a robotic wing that moves like no other.

A piece of techno-cinematic history has emerged as the US Library of Congress releases the restored video of the oldest film to feature a "robot." Dating from 1897, the silent film Gugusse et l'Automate by George Méliès was thought lost until recently.

Hyundai has donated four super-tough unmanned robotic vehicles to firefighters in Korea for use in high-risk situations. The autonomous vehicles will deal with the initial stages of a fire to provide more information and safety to firefighters.

Less than two years since it was founded, San Francisco-based startup Weave Robotics is accepting pre-orders for its first home robot, which promises to do one thing well: fold your laundry. But it might still need remote human help.

What has opposable thumbs and is the most dexterous tool on the planet? The human hand! Right? Well … not anymore. According to engineers at EPFL's school of engineering, a newly developed robotic hand may have just taken that title.

When it comes to ultra-humanlike Westworld-style robots, one of their most defining features are lips that move in perfect sync with their spoken words. A new bot not only sports that feature, but it can actually train itself to speak like a person.

LG has debuted a home robot that's designed to cook, clean, and manage chores using advanced Physical AI. Part of LG's "Zero Labor Home" vision, the wheeled humanoid features dexterous hands and visual learning to automate daily household tasks.

These microscopic robots are smaller than a grain of sand. At 200 micrometers wide, they're autonomous, programmable, and cheap enough that high school students are already learning to operate them in labs.

The new “stingraybot” from a team at ETH Zurich (the Federal Institute of Technology of Switzerland) offers enormous promise for surgery, medical care, wildlife biology, robotics, and more, thanks to muscular membranes of microbubbles.

Although they're constantly improving, robots aren't necessarily known for their gentle touch. A new robotic system from MIT and Stanford takes a unique stab at changing that, with a robot that uses vine-like tendrils to do its lifting.

Georgia Tech takes vision for soft robots to the next level with PHySL, a biomimetic photo-responsive hydrogel soft lens that focuses using light alone. It does away with electronics, wires, bulk, and the dangers of breaking.

An experimental robotic gripper from Switzerland’s École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) utilizes a pair of lobster tails as twin fingers. Because it uses actual animal tissue, this “hand” isn’t bio-mimicked. It’s bio-derived.

A startup founded by MIT alumni wants robots to do some heavy lifting, literally. Pickle Robot Company's systems feature AI smarts and single-armed machines to quickly unload shipping containers filled with cases weighing up to 50 lb each.

Divers may soon be able to get a welcome boost to their flutter kicks thanks to an exoskeleton developed by researchers at Peking University. By shouldering some of the burden of underwater swimming, the device could also make scuba tanks last longer.