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Soft assistive robotic wearables get a boost from rapid design tool

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Scientists created a new design and fabrication tool for soft pneumatic actuators with integrated sensing, which can power personalized healthcare, smart homes, and gaming.

Soft, pneumatic actuators might not be a phrase that comes up in daily conversations, but more likely than not you might have benefited from their utility. The devices use compressed air to power motion, and with sensing capabilities, they’ve proven to be a critical backbone in a variety of applications such as assistive wearables, robotics, and rehabilitative technologies.

But there’s a bit of a bottleneck in creating the little dynamic devices that have advantages like high response rates and power to input ratios. They require a manual design and fabrication pipeline, which translates to a lot of trial and error cycles to actually test and see whether the designs will work. [Read more…] about Soft assistive robotic wearables get a boost from rapid design tool

Robot designed by WHOI to explore underwater glacial walls to monitor climate change

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It’s the front line of climate change and could hold the key to predicting global sea level rise, but what goes on at the underwater face of Greenland’s glaciers is a mystery to science.

That could change in 2023 with a bold new mission led by researchers at the University of Texas at Austin that will explore three of Greenland’s glaciers with a submersible robot.

The voyage will be the first time Greenland’s glaciers – which make up the world’s second-largest ice sheet – will be seen up close underwater. [Read more…] about Robot designed by WHOI to explore underwater glacial walls to monitor climate change

Russia’s Sber Bank establishes new science award with $820,000 prize money

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Sber, Russia’s largest banking group, has created a competition to find innovative startup companies in the country, pledging to give approximately $270,000 in prize money to the winners.

It’s officially the “Year of Science and Technology” in Russia, so Sber decided to mark it by establishing the Sber Science Award, which is planned to be an annual science award to support the research and development efforts that have a considerable potential to impact the progress of science and technology.

Three winners will receive 20 million roubles (approximately $270,000) in prizes. The total prize pool of the science award reaches 60 million roubles (approximately $820,000). [Read more…] about Russia’s Sber Bank establishes new science award with $820,000 prize money

Scientists research ‘matter waves’ to shine light on post electronics future

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Most modern technologies owe their success to advances in electronics. These devices harness the flow of electrons in different ways to create computers, charge batteries, light-up displays, and move motors.

Now researchers are starting to explore ways to harness the flow of waves of whole atoms, called matter waves, to enable new kinds of sensors, computers, and scientific research.

This new field has been named atomtronics, owing to the focus on finding ways to move whole atoms rather than electrons in traditional electronics devices. [Read more…] about Scientists research ‘matter waves’ to shine light on post electronics future

RoboCup Federation and UBTech Robotics team up to improve robots’ football skills

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The RoboCup Federation, famous for organising football matches between teams of tiny Nao humanoid robots, and UBTech Robotics have formed a strategic partnership.

The two companies say they are aiming to achieve “the highest-quality artificial intelligence and robotic research and education as well as respective worldwide visibility”.

Both organizations share the goal of intelligent robots serving and supporting humans in various challenging tasks both at home and at work. [Read more…] about RoboCup Federation and UBTech Robotics team up to improve robots’ football skills

GSR rescues its deep-sea manganese mining robot

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GSR, the deep-sea exploratory division of the DEME Group, has successfully recovered its prototype deep-seabed mining robot – which had become uncoupled from a cable connecting it to a surface vessel – from the floor of the Pacific Ocean.

Patania II – GSR’s purpose-built prototype nodule collector – is currently being trialled in 4,500 metre water depth in the Clarion Clipperton Zone (CCZ) of the Pacific Ocean.

On its final dive in the GSR area on 25 April, a lifting point separated and Patania II was uncoupled from the 5 km cable that connects it to the surface vessel. [Read more…] about GSR rescues its deep-sea manganese mining robot

Scientists develop soft robot for exploration in the deepest underwater place on Earth

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Scientists at Zhejiang University in China have developed a soft robot which has been able to navigate the Mariana Trench, the deepest part of the Earth.

The research team led by Professor LI Tiefeng from the Center for X-Mechanics at the Zhejiang University School of Aeronautics and Astronautics and Zhejiang Lab conducted inter-disciplinary research with its partners and pioneered in proposing the principle of pressure adaptation in mechatronic systems, and their findings were reported in the journal Nature.

Typically, at such depths in the oceans, a vessel without a pressure-resilient “armor” would be “destroyed by the overwhelmingly hydrostatic pressure”. [Read more…] about Scientists develop soft robot for exploration in the deepest underwater place on Earth

Plastic-eating bacteria could help recycle waste ‘six times faster’

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The University of Portsmouth scientists who re-engineered the plastic-eating enzyme PETase have now created an enzyme “cocktail” which can digest plastic up to six times faster.

A second enzyme, found in the same rubbish dwelling bacterium that lives on a diet of plastic bottles, has been combined with PETase to speed up the breakdown of plastic.

PETase breaks down polyethylene terephthalate (PET) back into its building blocks, creating an opportunity to recycle plastic infinitely and reduce plastic pollution and the greenhouse gases driving climate change. [Read more…] about Plastic-eating bacteria could help recycle waste ‘six times faster’

Innovative Ways for Robotics Companies to Step up Their Performance

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When we think about robotics, many of us automatically have the image of the robots from our favorite science-fiction movie or animation.

Robots in movies have incredible artificial intelligence and functions that often sees them at odds with the human characters.

In actual fact, robots are incredibly useful for our lives and robotic scientists are constantly coming up with new innovations which are advancing the development of new robotic technology at an incredible speed. [Read more…] about Innovative Ways for Robotics Companies to Step up Their Performance

Scientists build robot to climb coconut trees

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A group of scientists has developed a robot that can climb coconut trees and harvest the delicious fruit, or nut, or whatever it is. (See video below.)

In a paper authored by nine authors, the researchers say there is “an acute shortage of human coconut tree climbers to harvest coconuts in India and other developing countries”.

In response, the team has built a robot called Amaran, which is described as “a novel robotic coconut tree climber and harvester”, and which can be operated through a smartphone. [Read more…] about Scientists build robot to climb coconut trees