Robotics
Six-legged robots faster than nature-inspired gait
When vertebrates run, their legs exhibit minimal contact with the ground. But insects are different. These six-legged creatures run fastest using a three-legged, or "tripod" gait where they have three legs on the ground at all times -- two on one side of their body and one on the other. The tripod gait has long inspired engineers who design six-legged robots, but is it necessarily the fastest and most efficient way for bio-inspired robots to move...
Controlling individual members of a robot swarm
A trio of researchers with Philips Innovative Technologies in Germany has developed a way to magnetically control individual members of a robot swarm. In their paper published in the journal Science Robotics, Jürgen Rahmer, Christian Stehning and Bernhard Gleich describe their approach and the ways they believe it could be used in practical applications.
Robotic arms could transform your weekly food shop
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.
Assembled dress-packs feature cable protection for welding robots
igus now offers fully assembled dress-packs for rapid replacement of energy chain systems on welding robots. A custom designed, drop-in replacement, these complete solutions can be connected quickly and easily to the robot, thereby minimising production downtime.
Now you can 'build your own' bio-bot
For the past several years, researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have been developing a class of walking "bio-bots" powered by muscle cells and controlled with electrical and optical pulses. Now, Rashid Bashir's research group is sharing the recipe for the current generation of bio-bots. Their how-to paper is the cover article in Nature Protocols.
Will androids dream of quantum sheep?
Quantum replicants of responsive systems can be more efficient than classical models, say researchers from the Centre for Quantum Technologies in Singapore, because classical models have to store more past information than is necessary to simulate the future. They have published their findings in npj Quantum Information. The word 'replicant' evokes thoughts of a sci-fi world where society has replaced common creatures with artificial ma...
Robotic technologies increase quality in fluid dispense applications
Manufacturing operations across a range of industries rely on dispense technology for adhesive and bonding applications. While in some cases manual dispensing is adequate, robot dispensing delivers greater accuracy and therefore ensure final product quality. Customised robot dispensing technology can prove critical to high quality fluid dispensing applications.
3D scanners replace Natural History Museum's diplodocus
After 112 years, the Natural History Museum, London have decided to remove the iconic Dippy the Diplodocus. The specimen will be replaced with the real skeleton of a blue whale that was found on an Irish beach in 1891. Dippy will now embark on a UK tour around eight venues.
Robots of tomorrow with smart visual capabilities
The ability to perceive and understand the dynamics of the real world is critical for the next generation of robots. An EU initiative explored vision, which is essential for most robotic tasks. Robots need a way to adaptively select relevant information in a given scene for further processing.
WiFi controlled robot using Raspberry Pi
This tutorial will show you to develop a python based wireless robot which can be controlled from anywhere around the world using WiFi.