Motion Control

Humanoid Robots Make Confident Strides Toward Walking Stability

Bipedal — two-legged — autonomous robots can be quite agile. This makes them useful for performing tasks on uneven terrain, such as carrying equipment through outdoor...

Bubble Bots: Simple Biocompatible Microrobots Autonomously Target Tumors

The potential of microrobots is enormous. These miniature objects can be designed to carry out actions within the body, such as sensing biomarkers, manipulating...

Reversible, Detachable Robotic Hand Redefines Dexterity

With its opposable thumb, multiple joints, and gripping skin, human hands are often considered to be the pinnacle of dexterity, and many robotic hands are designed in their image. But...

Teaching a Robot to Hang a T-shirt Starts with Data

Building on her experience volunteering at retirement homes, Carnegie Mellon researcher Jasmine Li decided to focus her research on assistive robotics that help people with everyday tasks....

What Robots Can Learn from Sea Stars

Sea stars are creatures whose movements involve the coordination of hundreds of tiny tube feet to navigate complex environments — despite the lack of a central brain. In other words, it’s as though...

Resource-Sharing Boosts Robotic Resilience

If the goal of a robot is to perform a function, then minimizing the possibility of failure is a top priority when it comes to robotic design. But although systems with multiple units, or agents,...

Wearable Lets Users Control Machines and Robots While on the Move

Engineers at the University of California San Diego have developed a next-generation wearable system that enables people to control machines using everyday gestures — even...

World’s Smallest Programmable, Autonomous Robots

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and University of Michigan have created the world’s smallest fully programmable, autonomous robots: microscopic swimming machines that can...

Innovative Control System Theory for Complex Networks

Leila Bridgeman and her team at Duke University Pratt School of Engineering are developing software that will improve upon existing techniques to ensure robust and safety-assured control for complex autonomous systems such as drones and medical robotics.

The Mechanics Behind Motion: Exploring Planetary Servo Gearboxes

While growing up, many of us were fascinated by watching gears turning, whether in bicycles, clocks or garbage trucks packing trash on the old rear-load machines. Today, gearing systems play a crucial role in machinery, transmitting power efficiently and reliably across a wide range of applications. Read on to learn more.

Why Human Expertise Is Driving the Future of Autonomy

The future of industrial autonomy will not be defined by systems that operate as opaque black boxes, but by approaches that deliberately embed the expertise of the people who know the processes best. Machine teaching makes this possible by making the skills and strategies of expert operators the foundation of AI system design. Read on to learn more.

New Products

See the new products, including NVIDIA's IGX Thor, an industrial-grade platform built to bring real-time physical AI directly to the edge; Teknic's precision planetary gearboxes; PI's L-220 series linear actuators; Compact Click dev tool from MIKROE; and more.

Knitting Machine Makes Solid 3D Objects

A new prototype of a knitting machine creates solid, knitted shapes, adding stitches in any direction — forward, backward, and diagonal — so users can construct a wide variety of shapes and add...

Space Robotics at the Edge of the Unknown

The USC Department of Astronautical Engineering (ASTE) is expanding its focus on space robotics, with an emphasis on autonomous systems that can operate in extreme and unmapped environments....

‘Metabots’ Shapeshift from Flat Sheets into Hundreds of Structures

Researchers have created a class of robots made from thin sheets of material that can snap into hundreds of stable shapes — allowing them to execute a wide variety of...

The Agility Equation: Discovering the Math of Human Movement for Robotics and Footwear

Researchers from UMass Amherst are working to define the primary mathematical components of running. Compared to walking, much less is understood about...

A New Way to Build Soft Robots That Can Walk on Water

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...