Briefs: Materials
A lollipop gripper is one demonstration of a new type of soft magnetic hydrogel developed by engineers at MIT and their collaborators at EPFL in Switzerland and the University of Cincinnati. The MIT team reports on a new method to print and fabricate the gel, which can be made into complex, magnetically activated three-dimensional structures. Read on to learn more.
Briefs: Software
A study from the lab of L. Mahadevan combines mathematics, computer simulations, and experiments to show that in crowded environments, adding just the right amount of randomness, or “noise,” to how individuals move, can ease gridlock and dramatically improve efficiency. Read on to learn more.
Briefs: Robotics, Automation & Control
The future of Moon exploration may be rolling around a non-descript office on the CU Boulder campus. Here, a robot about as wide as a large pizza scoots forward on three wheels. It uses an arm with a claw at one end to pick up a plastic block from the floor, then set it back down. Read on to learn more.
Briefs: Robotics, Automation & Control
Scientists are striving to discover new semiconductor materials that could boost the efficiency of solar cells and other electronics. But the pace of innovation is bottlenecked by the speed at which researchers can manually measure important material properties. A fully autonomous robotic system developed by MIT researchers could speed things up. Read on to learn more.
Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping
A valve developed by NASA Stennis Space Center consists of a solid piston floating in a medium to control the flow stream. The piston is designed to be axially and radially balanced within the flow stream whether the valve is in the open or closed position. This valve has many unique features and design advantages over conventional valve concepts. Read on to learn more.
Briefs: Robotics, Automation & Control
A team of researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy Ames National Laboratory developed a magnetocaloric heat pump that matches current vapor-compression heat pumps for weight, cost, and performance. Read on to learn more about it.
Briefs: Aerospace
A new type of spike diffuser recently developed by NASA Stennis Space Center is able to provide approximately double the pumping performance of second-throat diffusers via Pareto-efficient reduction of both core Mach number and flow deflection. Read on to learn more about it.
Briefs: AR/AI
A new artificial intelligence control system enables soft robotic arms to learn a wide repertoire of motions and tasks once, then adjust to new scenarios on the fly, without needing retraining or sacrificing functionality. This breakthrough brings soft robotics closer to human-like adaptability for real-world applications. Read on to learn more.
Briefs: RF & Microwave Electronics
Researchers at Miguel Hernández University of Elche (UMH) in Spain have developed a hierarchical localization system that significantly improves robot positioning in large, changing environments. The method addresses one of the most challenging problems in mobile robotics: the so-called “kidnapped robot” problem, in which a robot loses knowledge of its initial pose after being moved, powered off, or displaced. Read on to learn more.
Briefs: AR/AI
Stanford researchers have introduced a system designed to help Astrobee, a cube-shaped, fan-powered robot, autonomously navigate the International Space Station. Read on to learn more.
Briefs: Design
Researchers have taken inspiration from nature to create a robotic wing that can sense and adapt to changes in water to deliver unparalleled stability. Read on to learn more.
Briefs: Robotics, Automation & Control
Power sources used in devices found in or around biological tissue must be flexible and non-toxic, while still powerful enough to support demanding technologies such as medical devices or soft robotics. To achieve this balance, researchers at Penn State are taking inspiration from electric eels. Read on to learn more.
Briefs: Robotics, Automation & Control
A team of roboticists at the University of California San Diego has developed a robot that can swim under the sand and dig itself out too, thanks to two front limbs that mimic the oversized flippers of turtle hatchlings. Read on to learn more about it.
Briefs: Robotics, Automation & Control
For workers whose jobs involve hours of lifting and repetitive motion, even small innovations can make a big difference in preventing future musculoskeletal disorders. That’s why engineers at The University of Texas at Arlington have developed PASE (Pneumatically Actuated Soft Elbow Exoskeleton), a soft robotic exoskeleton that lightens the load — literally — by reducing strain on the arm and elbow. Read on to learn more.
Briefs: Software
Innovators at NASA Johnson Space Center have developed an Earthbound robotic training system called “ARGOS” for short. It can actively simulate an astronaut’s weightlessness in space by using an overhead runway and bridge drive system to partially or fully offload their weight using attached cables, effectively suspending them off the ground. Read on to learn more.
Briefs: Materials
Imagine a tiny robot, no bigger than a leaf, gliding across a pond’s surface like a water strider. One day, devices like this could track pollutants, collect water samples, or scout flooded areas too risky for people. Baoxing Xu, Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of Virginia’s School of Engineering and Applied Science, is pioneering a way to build them. Read on to learn more.
Briefs: Photonics/Optics
A team of biomedical engineers at Georgia Tech has unveiled a breakthrough in adaptive optics: a bio-mimetic, light-powered soft lens that mimics the human eye’s ability to refocus and adjust to varying light conditions. Read on to learn more.
Briefs: Imaging
Researchers at the University of Tokyo developed a framework to enable decentralized artificial intelligence-based building automation with a focus on privacy. The system enables AI-powered devices like cameras and interfaces to cooperate directly, using a new form of device-to-device communication. In doing so, it eliminates the need for central servers and thus the need for centralized data retention, often seen as a potential security weak point and risk to private data. Read on to learn more.
Briefs: Robotics, Automation & Control
For a robot, the real world is a lot to take in. Making sense of every data point in a scene can take a huge amount of computational effort and time. Using that information to then decide how to best help a human is an even thornier exercise. Now, MIT roboticists have a way to cut through the data noise, to help robots focus on the features in a scene that are most relevant for assisting humans. Read on to learn more.
Briefs: RF & Microwave Electronics
NASA has developed an innovative combination of a Magnetometer, low-powered ElectroMagnets, and Resonant Inductive Coupling (MEMRIC) to create and control relative positioning of nano satellites within a cluster. This is a game-changing approach to enable distributed nanosatellite (nanosat) clusters. Read on to learn more.
Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping
Bees, ants, and termites don’t need blueprints. They may have queens, but none of these species breed architects or construction managers. Each insect worker, or drone, simply responds to cues like warmth or the presence or absence of building material. Now, researchers at Penn Engineering have developed mathematical rules that allow virtual swarms of tiny robots to do the same. Read on to learn more.
Briefs: Robotics, Automation & Control
University of Minnesota Twin Cities researchers have discovered a new method to move objects using ultrasound waves, which opens the door for using contactless manipulation in industries in which devices wouldn’t need a built-in power source to move. Read on to learn more.
Briefs: Design
Researchers have created a light-powered soft robot that can carry loads through the air along established tracks, similar to cable cars or aerial trams. The soft robot operates autonomously, can climb slopes at angles of up to 80°, and can carry loads up to 12 times its weight. Read on to learn more.
Briefs: Robotics, Automation & Control
Missions to the moon and other planets will require large-scale infrastructure that would benefit from autonomous assembly by robots without on-site human intervention. NASA Ames Research Center has developed a novel and efficient mobile bipedal robot system to construct low-mass, high precision, and largescale infrastructure. Read on to learn more.
Briefs: Robotics, Automation & Control
Mechanical engineering researchers in the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences think there’s another way to design robots: Programming intended functions directly into a robot’s physical structure, allowing the robot to react to its surroundings without the need for extensive on-board electronics. Read on to learn more.
Briefs: AR/AI
A team of UC Berkeley-led researchers has developed an AI-driven framework to optimize and automate the design of complex truss robots. This approach enables designers to create robots with extraordinary capabilities while maximizing control efficiency. Read on to learn more about it.
Briefs: Power
Researchers at the University of California San Diego have developed a soft robotic skin that enables vine robots that are just a few millimeters wide to navigate convoluted paths and fragile environments. Read on to learn more.
Briefs: Software
Robots may soon have a new way to communicate with people. Not through words or screens, but with light and images projected directly onto the world around them. University of South Florida's Zhao Han is developing technology that could transform how people interact with robots in both emergencies and everyday life. Read on to learn more.
Briefs: Robotics, Automation & Control
This lightweight, portable garment is designed for active shoulder and elbow positioning.
