Robotics

A new US Air Force kit that can turn a conventional aircraft into a robotic one has completed its maiden flight. The ROBOpilot made its first two-hour flight on August 9 at the Dugway Proving Ground in Utah after being installed in a 1968 Cessna 206 small aircraft.

Taking inspiration from the traditional cane, a team of researchers has come up with a LiDAR-enabled robotic assistant which offers light-touch support for the mobility-impaired. Dubbed Canine, the device improves the user's spacial self-awareness, and thus, their walking stability.

This week DARPA kicks off a competition called the Subterranean Challenge, where hordes of robots are unleashed into caves and tunnels to test how well they can autonomously navigate these environments. One team's designs could lead to robots that explore caves on other planets.

Robot arms are getting smarter and smarter all the time, and now a team from Georgia Tech has taught them how to make their own tools. These resourceful robots are first taught to match form and function, then let loose on a series of everyday objects to build what they need to complete a given job.

A new type of underwater robot has completed sea trials in California. Developed by the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute and others, the Mesobot is a semi-autonomous robotic submersible designed to study the marine twilight zone of the mesopelagic region.

​Tails are used throughout the animal kingdom to help with balance or to grip objects. Humans don't have such a thing, so scientists at the Keio University Graduate School of Media Design have built one to improve the agility of wearers.​

Getting real, physical movements accurately depicted in the digital world remains a challenge for programmers and engineers, but a newly developed glove promises to advance the tech significantly. It's able to capture hand movements with much more detail and nuance than most existing solutions.

To develop a new artificial muscle for robots MIT researchers are taking inspiration from an unlikely source – the cucumber. It's not the fruit of the plant, but the tendrils that wrap themselves around solid objects to support the growing plant by coiling and pulling with surprising force.

We've seen robots that can walk, trot, run, and even do backflips, but now a student team is working on a rover robot prototype that is designed to travel in lunar gravity by controlled bounds into space where all four legs leave the ground.

In a demonstration that less can be more, EPFL scientists are working on simple robots that behave and cooperate like ants. The 10-g (0.35 oz) Tribots are folded like origami, but have the ability to be assigned roles and work together on complex tasks as they jump and crawl over uneven terrain.

A team of engineers in Germany has created a tiny jellyfish-inspired robot, which can not only swim, but transport objects, mix fluids and even bury itself. It's hoped the five millimeter tetherless "jellyfishbot" could help us understand the survivability of baby jellyfish in changing environments.

NASA has awarded Carnegie Mellon University and Astrobotic a US$5.6 million contract to build a new suitcase-sized robotic lunar rover that could land on the Moon as soon as 2021. The 24-lb MoonRanger rover is designed to operate autonomously on week-long missions within 0.6 mi of its lander.