news 2023

Could an electric nudge to the head help your doctor operate a surgical robot? Johns Hopkins study finds stimulating people's brains with gentle electric currents can boost learning 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 much more easily than people who didn't receive those nudges, a new study shows.

Scientists show that breathing may be used to control a wearable extra robotic arm in healthy individuals, without hindering control of other parts of the body. Neuroengineer Silvestro Micera develops advanced technological solutions to help people regain sensory and motor functions that have been lost due to traumatic events or neurological disorders.

For the first time ever, wireless millirobots navigated a narrow blood vessel both along and against arterial flow. Researchers from the University of Twente and Radboudumc inserted the screw-shaped robots in a detached aorta with kidneys where they controlled them using a robotically controlled rotating magnet.

Current hand prostheses already work with the help of an app or sensors attached to the forearm. New research at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) shows this: A better understanding of muscle activity patterns enables more intuitive and natural control of the prostheses. This requires a network of 128 sensors and the use of artificial intelligence .

People interacting with social robots disclosed more about themselves over time and reported feeling less lonely, according to a new study. People interacting with social robots disclosed more about themselves over time and reported feeling less lonely, according to a new study. The research - led by the University of Glasgow and published in the International Journal of Social Robotics - also found that interacting with a social robot improved people's moods over time, suggesting social robots could be used as an effective intervention to support peoples' emotional health in the future.

In a step toward more autonomous soft robots and wearable technologies, researchers have created a device that uses color to simultaneously sense multiple mechanical and temperature stimuli. Robotics researchers have already made great strides in developing sensors that can perceive changes in position, pressure, and temperature - all of which are important for technologies like wearable devices and human-robot interfaces.

Facial expressions are extremely important in understanding what the other person is saying, according to PhD research by Naomi Nota. Frowning in particular turns out to play a major role. Nota will defend her PhD thesis at Radboud University on 6 December. In the past, linguists mainly looked at speech and how it affects language processing.

Human Guided Exploration (HuGE) enables AI agents to learn quickly with some help from humans, even if the humans make mistakes. To teach an AI agent a new task, like how to open a kitchen cabinet, researchers often use reinforcement learning - a trial-and-error process where the agent is rewarded for taking actions that get it closer to the goal.

For the first time, researchers have succeeded in printing a robotic hand with bones, ligaments and tendons made of different polymers using a new laser scanning technique. 3D printing is advancing rapidly, and the range of materials that can be used has expanded considerably. While the technology was previously limited to fast-curing plastics, it has now been made suitable for slow-curing plastics as well.

Computer vision enables contact-free 3D printing, letting engineers print with high-performance materials they couldn't use before. With 3D inkjet printing systems, engineers can fabricate hybrid structures that have soft and rigid components, like robotic grippers that are strong enough to grasp heavy objects but soft enough to interact safely with humans.

The team's new algorithm finds failures and fixes in all sorts of autonomous systems, from drone teams to power grids. From vehicle collision avoidance to airline scheduling systems to power supply grids, many of the services we rely on are managed by computers. As these autonomous systems grow in complexity and ubiquity, so too could the ways in which they fail.

A new ETH study compares 27 humanoid robots with humans and comes to the conclusion that while robots have better components, they are still not capable of achieving as much.

In-memory computing Hussam Amrouch has developed an AI-ready architecture that is twice as powerful as comparable in-memory computing approaches. As reported in the journal Nature, the professor at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) applies a new computational paradigm using special circuits known as ferroelectric field effect transistors (FeFETs).

Researchers have designed a bio-inspired robot with a novel trimmed helicoid structure that allows for a wide range of motion and safe interaction with humans. At EPFL's CREATE lab , under the guidance of Josie Hughes, a breakthrough has been made in the realm of soft robotics. Drawing inspiration from the versatile movement of elephant trunks and octopus tentacles, the team introduced the trimmed helicoid - a novel robotic structure that promises greater compliance and control in robotic designs.

To navigate the world, we all shimmy like these electric fish Johns Hopkins scientists are the first to demonstrate that a wide range of organisms, even microbes, perform the same pattern of movements in order to sense their surroundings An electric knifefish shimmies in the water for the same reason a dog sniffs or a human glances around a new place-to make sense of their surroundings.

Plant-based materials give life to tiny soft robots that can potentially conduct medical procedures A team of University of Waterloo researchers has created smart, advanced materials that will be the building blocks for a future generation of soft medical microrobots. These tiny robots have the potential to conduct medical procedures, such as biopsy, and cell and tissue transport, in a minimally invasive fashion.

For the first time ever, researchers at the Surgical Robotics Laboratory of the University of Twente successfully made two microrobots work together to pick up, move and assemble passive objects in 3D environments. This achievement opens new horizons for promising biomedical applications. Imagine you need surgery somewhere inside your body.

Using a simple and convenient touchscreen interface, the algorithm learns the assistance preferences of the wearer Two assistance profiles selected based on previous data. The user chooses one, and it presents another for comparison. Taking inspiration from music streaming services, a team of engineers at the University of Michigan, Google and Georgia Tech has designed the simplest way for users to program their own exoskeleton assistance settings.

Some researchers see formal specifications as a way for autonomous systems to "explain themselves" to humans. But a new study finds that we aren't understanding. As autonomous systems and artificial intelligence become increasingly common in daily life, new methods are emerging to help humans check that these systems are behaving as expected.

Key Takeaways Radiation mapping can be used to improve safety at sites with radioactive sources (such as power plants or hospitals), enforce non-proliferation agreements, or guide environmental cleanup and disaster response Scientists at Berkeley Lab have created multi-sensor systems that can map nuclear radiation in 3D in real time and are now testing how to integrate their system with robots that can autonomously investigate radiation areas Sm