Robotics Research News

May 31, 2025

Top Headlines

Engineers Develop Self-Healing Muscle for Robots

May 30, 2025 — Students recently unveiled their invention of a robotic actuator -- the 'muscle' that converts energy into a robot's physical movement -- that has the ability to detect punctures or pressure, heal the injury and repair its damage-detecting ...

Horses 'Mane' Inspiration for New Generation of Social Robots

May 28, 2025 — Interactive robots should not just be passive companions, but active partners -- like therapy horses who respond to human emotion -- say ...

Mid-Air Transformation Helps Flying, Rolling Robot to Transition Smoothly

May 28, 2025 — Engineers have developed a real-life Transformer that has the 'brains' to morph in midair, allowing the drone-like robot to smoothly roll away and begin its ground operations without pause. The increased agility and robustness of such robots could ...

An Artificial Protein That Moves Like Something Found in Nature

May 22, 2025 — Proteins catalyze life by changing shape when they interact with other molecules. The result is a muscle twitching, the perception of light, or a bit of energy extracted from food. The ability to engineer shapeshifting proteins opens new avenues for ...

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Light-Driven Cockroach Cyborgs Navigate Without Wires or Surgery

May 14, 2025 — have created a new type of insect cyborg that can navigate autonomously -- without wires, surgery, or stress-inducing electrical shocks. The system uses a small ultraviolet (UV) light helmet to steer ...

Remotely Moving Objects Underwater Using Sound

May 20, 2025 — A metamaterial is a composite material that exhibits unique properties due to its structure, and now researchers have used one featuring a small sawtooth pattern on its surface to move and position ...

Robots Learning Without Us? New Study Cuts Humans from Early Testing

May 19, 2025 — Humans no longer have exclusive control over training social robots to interact effectively, thanks to a new study. The study introduces a new simulation method that lets researchers test their ...

Extreme Weather Cycles Change Underwater Light at Lake Tahoe

May 21, 2025 — Large shifts in UV radiation at Lake Tahoe are associated with wet and dry climate extremes, finds a new ...

Empowering Robots With Human-Like Perception to Navigate Unwieldy Terrain

May 19, 2025 — Researchers have developed a novel framework named WildFusion that fuses vision, vibration and touch to enable robots to 'sense' and navigate complex outdoor environments much like humans ...

Remotely Controlled Robots at Your Fingertips: Enhancing Safety in Industrial Sites

May 19, 2025 — A research team has developed a novel haptic device designed to enhance both safety and efficiency for workers in industrial ...

Nimble Dimples: Agile Underwater Vehicles Inspired by Golf Balls

May 19, 2025 — Underwater or aerial vehicles with dimples like golf balls could be more efficient and maneuverable, a new prototype has ...

How to Swim Without a Brain

May 19, 2025 — A team was able to show that swimming movements are possible even without a central control unit. This not only explains the behavior of microorganisms, it could also enable nanobots to move in a ...

Handy Octopus Robot Can Adapt to Its Surroundings

May 14, 2025 — Scientists inspired by the octopus's nervous system have developed a robot that can decide how to move or grip objects by sensing its ...

Digital Lab for Data And Robot-Driven Materials Science

May 14, 2025 — Researchers have developed a digital laboratory (dLab) system that fully automates the material synthesis and structural, physical property evaluation of thin-film samples. With dLab, the team can ...

Eldercare Robot Helps People Sit and Stand, and Catches Them If They Fall

May 13, 2025 — Engineers built E-BAR, a mobile robot designed to physically support the elderly and prevent them from falling as they move around their homes. E-BAR acts as a set of robotic handlebars that follows ...

Robotic Hand Moves Objects With Human-Like Grasp

May 13, 2025 — A robotic hand can pick up 24 different objects with human-like movements that emerge spontaneously, thanks to compliant materials and structures rather than ...

Submarine Robot Catches an Underwater Wave

May 12, 2025 — Engineers have taught a simple submarine robot to take advantage of turbulent forces to propel itself through ...

Ping Pong Bot Returns Shots With High-Speed Precision

May 8, 2025 — Engineers developed a ping-pong-playing robot that quickly estimates the speed and trajectory of an incoming ball and precisely hits it to a desired location on the ...

Robotic Dog Mimics Mammals for Superior Mobility on Land and in Water

May 8, 2025 — A team of researchers has unveiled a cutting-edge Amphibious Robotic Dog capable of roving across both land and water with remarkable ...

Eco-Friendly Aquatic Robot Is Made from Fish Food

May 8, 2025 — An edible robot leverages a combination of biodegradable fuel and surface tension to zip around the water's surface, creating a safe -- and nutritious -- alternative to environmental monitoring ...

Transforming Hospital Sanitation: Autonomous Robots for Wiping and UV-C Disinfection

May 7, 2025 — A research team develops disinfection robot combining physical wiping and UV-C ...

Gender Characteristics of Service Robots Can Influence Customer Decisions

May 6, 2025 — While service robots with male characteristics can be more persuasive when interacting with some women who have a low sense of decision-making power, 'cute' design features -- such as big ...

Do Manta Rays Benefit from Collective Motion?

May 6, 2025 — Researchers model the motions of groups of manta rays to study how group dynamics affect their propulsion, studying different formations of three manta rays: in tandem, in a triangular setup with one ...

Robotic Touch Sensors Are Not Just Skin Deep

May 5, 2025 — Researchers argue that the problem that has been lurking in the margins of many papers about touch sensors lies in the robotic skin ...

Text-to-Video AI Blossoms With New Metamorphic Video Capabilities

May 5, 2025 — Computer scientists have developed a new AI text-to-video model that learns real-world physics knowledge from time-lapse ...

Privacy-Aware Building Automation

May 5, 2025 — Researchers developed a framework to enable decentralized artificial intelligence-based building automation with a focus on privacy. The system enables AI-powered devices like cameras and interfaces ...

Using Principles of Swarm Intelligence, Study Compared Platforms That Allow Brainstorming Among Large Groups

May 1, 2025 — A next-generation technology developed in 2023, conversational swarm intelligence (CSI), combines the principles of ASI with the power of large language ...

Artificial Sense of Touch, Improved

May 1, 2025 — While exploring a digitally represented object through artificially created sense of touch, brain-computer interface users described the warm fur of a purring cat, the smooth rigid surface of a door ...

Researchers Develop a Novel Vote-Based Model for More Accurate Hand-Held Object Pose Estimation

May 1, 2025 — Estimating the pose of hand-held objects is a critical and challenging problem in robotics and computer vision. While leveraging multi-modal RGB and depth data is a promising solution, existing ...

High-Wire Act: Soft Robot Can Carry Cargo Up and Down Steep Aerial Wires

Apr. 28, 2025 — Researchers have created a light-powered soft robot that can carry loads through the air along established tracks, similar to cable cars or aerial trams. The soft robot operates autonomously, can ...

Flying Robots Unlock New Horizons in Construction

Apr. 24, 2025 — An international team has explored how in future aerial robots could process construction materials precisely in the air -- an approach with great potential for difficult-to-access locations or work ...

Combining Signals Could Make for Better Control of Prosthetics

Apr. 24, 2025 — Combining two different kinds of signals could help engineers build prosthetic limbs that better reproduce natural movements, according to a new study. A combination of electromyography and force ...

Engineering a Robot That Can Jump 10 Feet High -- Without Legs

Apr. 23, 2025 — Inspired by the movements of a tiny parasitic worm, engineers have created a 5-inch soft robot that can jump as high as a basketball hoop. Their device, a silicone rod with a carbon-fiber spine, can ...

'Periodic Table of Machine Learning' Could Fuel AI Discovery

Apr. 23, 2025 — After uncovering a unifying algorithm that links more than 20 common machine-learning approaches, researchers organized them into a 'periodic table of machine learning' that can help ...