Part-supported through the EU-funded SOMA project, robotics researchers have developed versatile robotic grippers to pick thousands of supermarket items. The grippers were designed to handle the full 48 000 items stocked at Ocado’s - the world’s largest online-only supermarket - highly-automated warehouses whilst ensuring limited damage to a whole shopping list of fragile food products.

Scientists from Korea University and TU Berlin have decoded specific signals from within the brain to develop a brain-computer control interface for lower limb exoskeletons. The system uses an ElectroEncephaloGram (EEG) cap and five flickering LEDs, which the user stares at in sequence to move forwards, turn left and right, sit and stand.