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Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University are one step closer to creating biological-mechanical hybrid machines as they work to develop soft robots that can sense and respond to chemical signals. "A lot of the inspiration actually comes from looking at different kinds of species around us that can interact and respond to their surrounding environment in exciting ways," said Kyle Justus, who graduated with a Ph.D.

A bio-inspired bot uses water from the environment to create a propelling gas and launch itself from the water's surface. The robot had been developed by researchers at Imperial College London. It can travel 26 meters through the air after take-off and could be used to collect water samples in hazardous and cluttered environments, such as during flooding or when monitoring ocean pollution, report the team lead by Mirko Kovac, who also heads the joint "Materials and Technology Center of Robotics" at Empa, in the latest issue of "Science Robotics".

A bio-inspired bot uses water from the environment to create a gas and launch itself from the water's surface. The robot, which can travel 26 metres through the air after take-off, could be used to collect water samples in hazardous and cluttered environments, such as during flooding or when monitoring ocean pollution.

Collaborations with EU researchers and institutions have been critical to the UK's success in robotic surgery research and innovation. This is according to a new study which examines the UK's global research collaboration network and models how the UK might compensate for any loss of EU collaborations after Brexit.

In a paper in Science Robotics, materials scientists from the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering describe a new design for a swimming robot that's both powered and steered by constant light. The device, called OsciBot because it moves by oscillating its tail, could eventually lead to designs for oceangoing robots and autonomous ships.

Engineers at the University of Birmingham have successfully designed a robotic system that can perform a key task in disassembling component parts. The research is an important advance for manufacturers looking for more efficient ways to build products from a combination of reused, repaired and new parts.

Magnetically controlled device could deliver clot-reducing therapies in response to stroke or other brain blockages. Etherington explains that the new robotic threads could "potentially make it easier and more accessible to treat brain blood vessel issues like blockages and lesions that can cause aneurysms and strokes." Gizmodo reporter Andrew Liszewski writes that a new thread-like robotic work developed by MIT researchers could be used to quickly clear blockages and clots that lead to strokes.

UW researchers have used deep learning to develop a new system that can monitor factory or warehouse workers and tell them how risky their behaviors are in real time. In 2017 there were nearly 350,000 incidents of workers taking sick leave due to injuries affecting muscles, nerves, ligaments or tendons - like carpal tunnel syndrome - according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Scientists at EPFL have developed a tiny pump that could play a big role in the development of autonomous soft robots, lightweight exoskeletons and smart clothing. Flexible, silent and weighing only one gram, it is poised to replace the rigid, noisy and bulky pumps currently used. The scientists' work has just been published in Nature.

Robots need to know the reason why they are doing a job if they are to effectively and safely work alongside people in the near future. In simple terms, this means machines need to understand motive the way humans do, and not just perform tasks blindly, without context. According to a new article by the National Centre for Nuclear Robotics , based at the University of Birmingham, this could herald a profound change for the world of robotics, but one that is necessary.

EPFL startup Flybotix has developed a novel drone with just two propellers and an advanced stabilization system that allow it to fly for twice as long as conventional models.

A team of EPFL researchers has developed tiny 10-gram robots that are inspired by ants: they can communicate with each other, assign roles among themselves and complete complex tasks together. These reconfigurable robots are simple in structure, yet they can jump and crawl to explore uneven surfaces.

Told to optimize for speed while racing down a track in a computer game, a car pushes the pedal to the metal.. and proceeds to spin in a tight little circle. Nothing in the instructions told the car to drive straight, and so it improvised. Researchers are trying to make it easier for humans to tell autonomous systems, such as vehicles and robots, what they want them to do.

Through an imaginative experiment, researchers were able to get two extremely different animal species located far apart to interact with each other and reach a shared decision with the help of robots. Bees and fish don't often have the occasion to meet, nor would they have much to say to each other if they did.

Drones and robots could build and repair future cities, but only if they can work together ' by copying the tactics of nature. A new review, published today in Science Robotics and co-authored by Imperial researcher Dr Mirko Kovac , who directs the Aerial Robotics Laboratory in the Department of Aeronautics, looks at the state-of-the-art in robot construction and where we need to go next to make a robot-built environment a reality.

Many things today can be produced simply, fast and cheaply using a 3D printer: jewelry, small components and even prototypes. Printing complete houses is still a long way off. For the moment, at least. But work is being done at TU Graz on additive manufacturing of concrete parts using printing robots.

Scientists at EPFL and ETH Zurich have developed tiny elastic robots that can change shape depending on their surroundings. Modeled after bacteria and fully biocompatible, these robots optimize their movements so as to get to hard-to-reach areas of the human body. They stand to revolutionize targeted drug delivery.

Imagine an electrically-powered device as thin as paper, as powerful as human muscle, and capable of lifting 1,000 times its own weight. Researchers from the University of Bristol have done precisely that, creating an artificial 'muscle' that could boost the power of anything from microrobots to space structures.

Robots invaded the Sahara Desert for Europe's largest rover field test, taking place in a Mars-like part of Morocco. For two weeks three rovers and more than 40 engineers performed testing of automated navigation systems at up to five different sites. This marked the end of the first phase of the strategic research cluster on space robotics technologies, a scheme funded by the European Union's Horizon 2020 programme.

Robots invaded the Sahara Desert for Europe's largest rover field test, taking place in a Mars-like part of Morocco. For two weeks three rovers and more than 40 engineers performed testing of automated navigation systems at up to five different sites. This marked the end of the first phase of the strategic research cluster on space robotics technologies, a scheme funded by the European Union's Horizon 2020 programme.