Engineers at Harvard University have created a millionth-scale automobile differential to govern the flight of minuscule aerial robots. Their new approach is the first to passively balance the aerodynamic forces encountered by these miniature flying devices, letting their wings flap asymmetrically in response to gusts of wind, wing damage, and other real-world impediments. “The drivetrain… »
Researchers at A*STAR’s Social Robotics Programme (ASORO), integration of research capabilities of the Institute for Infocomm Research (I2R), the Data Storage Institute (DSI) and the Singapore Institute of Manufacturing Technology (SIMTech), are developing social robot OLIVIA – an experimental platform for social robot study. The folks from ASORO envision OLIVIA as a receptionist or a… »
The first prototype robots capable of developing emotions as they interact with their human caregivers and expressing a whole range of emotions have been finalized by researchers. Led by Dr. Lola Cañamero at the University of Hertfordshire, and in collaboration with a consortium of universities and robotic companies across Europe, these robots differ from others… »
If you haven’t learned to flip pancakes yet, here is a robot that will put you to shame. Acquiring new motor skills involves various forms of learning. The efficiency of the process lies in the interconnections between imitation and self-improvement strategies. A team of researchers from the Italian Institute of Technology are developing algorithms which… »
The capabilities and behavior of bees have inspired scientists in various fields as swarm movement and cooperation. Neurobiologists from Bielefeld University, Germany, have been researching the computational mechanisms that allow the nervous system to extract behaviorally relevant information from the retinal input and to use this information in behavioral control. In their previous research, the… »
By combining origami and electrical engineering, researchers at MIT and Harvard are developing a transformable robot. The researchers have developed algorithms that, given a three-dimensional shape, can determine how to reproduce it by folding a sheet of semi-rigid material with a distinctive pattern of flexible creases. To test out their theories, they built a prototype… »
Weird movements in the abdomens of freely crawling caterpillars are making headlines in the fields of biology and engineering. The findings from a multidisciplinary team of researchers, including Jake Socha, Virginia Tech assistant professor of engineering science and mechanics, Michael Simon of Tufts University’s Department of Biology, and Barry Trimmer, professor of biology at Tufts,… »
The RoboCup is a fascinating combination of innovative research and one of the world’s most popular team sports – soccer. Standard Platform League is a league in which all teams use the same robot platform (Aldebaran’s Nao humanoid robot we described in the last year’s article about RoboCup 2009) so the teams are challenged to… »
