Although micro aerial vehicles (MAVs) could be very useful in search and rescue, exploration and environmental monitoring missions, due to their small size they still lack maneuverability. Johns Hopkins University (JHU) engineers are using high-speed video cameras to figure out how butterflies manage to fly with amazing grace and agility in order to improve maneuvering… »
Arizona State University researchers are using their automation, sensors, biotechnology, and systems expertise to develop Sensorbots – spherical robots equipped with biogeochemical sensors that are affordable enough to be deployed by the hundreds. Sensorbots will be used to monitor the ocean in the National Science Foundation’s Ocean Observatories Initiative named Regional Scale Nodes (RSN) project…. »
There are numerous examples in nature where ‘active touch’ plays a primary role in how an animal finds its way around and how it behaves. Inspired by the Etruscan shrew, one of the world’s tiniest mammals, researchers at the Bristol Robotics Laboratory (BRL) developed Shrewbot – the newest generation of a robots that use sophisticated… »
All-terrain robots for search-and-rescue missions must be flexible enough to move over uneven surfaces, and be able to squeeze themselves into tight spaces. Many engineers and researchers have been inspired by nature’s way to solve this problem and the develop snake like robots that could be up to the challenge. Georgia Tech researchers have designed… »
Robotics experts at UC Santa Cruz (UCSC) and the University of Washington (UW) came up with an idea to have a network of laboratories working on a common robotic platform they have developed in order to simplify software sharing, experiment replication, as well as to improve collaboration among major medical research laboratories throughout the United… »
A joint research project conducted at University of Lausanne (UNIL) and EPFL performed a research that could lead to better understanding of communication within the animal kingdom. They followed the evolution of communication in 100 groups of 20 robots over the course of 1000 generations. The results show that communication systems can evolve differently within… »
With support from the Department of Defense and NASA, MIT undergraduates built five volleyball-sized free-flying satellites, and three of those have been on the International Space Station since 2006 to test a set of well-defined instructions for spacecraft performing autonomous rendezvous and docking maneuvers. Recently, the satellite got an upgrade that enables its remote operation… »
A research team from Harvard University developed an array of “soft” robots inspired by natural forms, such as squid and starfish, which are capable to perform very delicate operations or move where rigid robots might not. These abilities enable the robots to pick up a raw egg without breaking the shell, or aid in search… »
