Researcher Martina Gini controls a simplified robotic arm with breathing Alain Herzog/EPFL People can learn to control a robotic third arm using their eyes and chest muscles. Such extra limbs could become essential tools for surgeons or people working in industrial jobs, say researchers. Giulia Dominijanni at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne and …
This mouse is able to move with ease Zhenshan Bing/Technical University of Munich, Germany A mouse-like robot with an articulated spine is faster, more agile and defter at balancing than rigid competitors, but the added cost and complexity means such devices will only be suitable for some applications. Zhenshan Bing at the Technical University of …
WHO’S in charge, your brain or your body? The answer may seem obvious, but there is plenty of evidence to suggest that our physiology has dramatically affected the way we think. This idea of embodied cognition could hold important lessons for those trying to build genuinely intelligent machines – artificial intelligences that learn and think and can generalise their knowledge to all manner of tasks, …
The deformation of the base of the TRACEPaw foot gives information about what is being stepped on Jørgen Anker Olsen Robots could negotiate awkward terrain surefootedly thanks to squidgy paws containing cameras. Tejal Barnwal at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Jørgen Anker Olsen at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology and their colleagues …
A robot that can pick up several bits of clothing at once from a pile strewn across the floor could be used to help tidy messy bedrooms. Picking up piles of clothes and grasping multiple items simultaneously may be straightforward for a human, but actions such as working out where the clothes’ edges are and …
A robotic construction vehicle picks and scans each boulder to determine where it fits in a stone wall Marc Schneider An autonomous robot with a large gripper can transform a pile of boulders into huge stone walls without mortar – learning on its own how to place each irregularly-shaped stone as the next building block. …