Motion Control/​Automation

Could an Electric Nudge to the Head Help Your Doctor Operate a Surgical Robot?

People who received gentle electric currents on the back of their heads learned to maneuver a robotic surgery tool in virtual reality and then in a real setting...

How do you make a robot smarter? Program it to know what it doesn’t know.

Engineers at Princeton University and Google have come up with a new way to teach robots to know when they don’t know. The technique involves quantifying the...

4 Predictions for 2024: AI Set to Supercharge Robotic Automation

Software is a key component of automation, and with AI, software developers will be able to create more customized and optimized solutions for various tasks and challenges.

A Precision Arm for Mini Robots

A team at ETH Zurich has developed an ultrasonically actuated glass needle that can be attached to a robotic arm. This lets them pump and mix minuscule amounts of liquid and trap particles.

A Temperature-Modulating Robotic System

A research team has developed a robotic system that can be unobtrusively built into the frame of a standard honeybee hive. Composed of an array of thermal sensors and actuators, the system measures and modulates honeybee behavior through localized temperature variations.

Dynamic Hydrogel Makes Soft Robot Components and Building Blocks

Using a new type of dual-polymer material capable of responding dynamically to its environment, researchers have developed a set of modular hydrogel components that could be useful in a variety of soft robotic and biomedical applications.

Snake-Like Robot for Traversing Extreme Terrain on Earth, Moon, and Beyond

Called EELS (Exobiology Extant Life Surveyor), the self-propelled, autonomous robot was inspired by a desire to look for signs of life in the ocean hiding below the icy crust of Saturn's moon Enceladus by descending narrow vents in the surface that spew geysers into space.

Photoelectric Sensor Essentials

Photoelectric (PE) sensors represent a discrete sensor technology widely used throughout industry. They use the presence or absence of light to provide an on/off output to supervisory automation and monitoring systems, and are often the better choice for sensing manufacturing products.

Top 10 Engineering Stories of 2023 on Tech Briefs

If you missed the most-popular engineering stories of 2023 on Tech Briefs, see the list below.

AI Steers Adaptive Control Systems

Unmanned Underwater Vehicles (UUVs) are used around the world to conduct difficult environmental, remote, oceanic, defense, and rescue missions in often unpredictable and harsh conditions.

MIT Engineers Design a Robotic Replica of the Heart’s Right Chamber

MIT engineers have developed a robotic replica of the heart’s right ventricle, which mimics the beating and blood-pumping action of live hearts.

AI Helps Robots Manipulate Objects with Their Whole Bodies

Imagine you want to carry a large, heavy box up a flight of stairs. You might spread your fingers and lift the box with both hands, then hold it on top of your forearms and balance...

Beyond the Shadows: Engineering Solutions for Surviving the Lunar Night

Passive thermal control systems have been developed over years of research and product development and will serve as enabling technology for NASA’s VIPER and future missions.

How Much Do You Know About Surgical Robots?

Surgical robots allow doctors to perform complex procedures with more precision, flexibility, and control than possible with traditional techniques. Surgical robots are also sometimes used in conventional open surgical procedures.

Products of Tomorrow

See the products of tomorrow, including battery-free force stickers, 3D holographic displays, an AI co-pilot.

Product of the Month

See the product of the month, Keysight Technologies' new compact, four-channel vector signal generator (VSG) capable of signal generation up to 8.5 GHz with 960 MHz of modulation bandwidth per channel.

Testing Real Driverless Cars in a Virtual Environment

Researchers at The Ohio State University have developed new software to aid in the development, evaluation, and demonstration of safer autonomous, or driverless, vehicles. Called the Vehicle-in-Virtual-Environment (VVE) method, it allows the testing of driverless cars in a perfectly safe environment.

Pump Considerations for Energy-Efficient Industrial Hydraulic Systems

Pump systems have advanced technically over many years. The recent innovations in demand-based variable speed hydraulic pump systems are the next step in lowering energy costs, reducing noise, and allowing for proactive maintenance opportunities.

Origami-Inspired Robot Uses Single Motor for Self-Folding and Movement

Centimeter-scale walking and crawling robots are in demand both for their ability to explore tight or cluttered environments and for their low fabrication costs. Pulling from origami-inspired construction, researchers have crafted a more simplified approach to the design and fabrication of these robots.

An Autonomous Battery-Free Microrobot Powered by Surrounding Light

Moving robots demands a lot of energy, and batteries, the typical power source, limit lifetime and raise environmental concerns. Researchers at the University of Washington have now created MilliMobile, a tiny, self-driving robot powered only by surrounding light or radio waves.

Smart Soft Sensor Improves Human-Robot Interaction

A new soft sensor developed by UBC and Honda researchers opens the door to a wide range of applications in robotics and prosthetics. When applied to the surface of a prosthetic arm or a robotic limb, the sensor skin provides touch sensitivity and dexterity, enabling tasks that can be difficult for machines such as picking up a piece of soft fruit.

A Soft Robotic Gripper Mimics a Woven Structure

Dr. Song Kahye along with Professor Lee, Dae-Young have jointly developed a soft gripper with a woven structure that can grip objects weighing more than 100 kg with 130 g of material. To increase the loading capacity of the soft robot gripper, the team applied a new structure inspired by textiles.

Building More Dexterous Robots

MIT researchers have developed a camera-based touch sensor that is long, curved, and shaped like a human finger. Their device provides high-resolution tactile sensing over a large area. The sensor, called the GelSight Svelte, uses two mirrors to reflect and refract light.

A Combustion-Powered Quadrupedal Robot

Cornell researchers have combined soft microactuators with high-energy-density chemical fuel to create an insect-scale quadrupedal robot that is powered by combustion and can outrace, outlift, outflex, and outleap its electric-driven competitors.

AI-Powered Robot Control Optimizes a Challenging Handling Process

Like other small and medium-sized enterprises, HWL Löttechnik GmbH faces the realities of labor shortages, the ongoing energy crisis, and the intricate nature of production processes. To overcome these challenges, HWL adopted state-of-the-art technologies and the optimization of operational processes.

Remote Robot Automates Amazon Reforestation Project

A pilot project between ABB Robotics and US non-profit organization Junglekeepers demonstrated the role cloud technology can play in making reforestation faster, more efficient, and scalable.

Zonal Electrical Architectures Cut Vehicle Wiring-System Cost, Complexity

Ultimately, zonal architectures require a fundamentally reorganized software structure that allows the OEM to independently, quickly, easily, and modularly adapt the control of the entire vehicle while minimizing the complexity in the wiring harness and the number of control devices.