One of the biggest problems with robots is that they're slow, mostly because they're a little tippy.
Well, researchers at the University of California have found a way to make robots 40 percent faster, flexible feet.
The soft robotic foot is reminiscent of the Versaball Gripper from Empire Robotics, which is essentially a sand-filled stress ball that can conform to any shape and safely pick it up.
Like the Versaball, the robotic foot conforms to the surface, which could make robots much faster and reliable on stone and wooden surfaces during anything from search-and-rescue missions to space exploration.
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Robots armed with UV light fight grape mildew | Cornell Chronicle
Researchers at Cornell AgriTech in Geneva, New York, have partnered with SAGA Robotics in Norway to develop the first commercial robotic units, and the autonomous vehicle robots will appear on the market this year.
This spring, the researchers are using two such robots to conduct field trials on Chardonnay grapes at two sites – Cornell AgriTech's research vineyards in Geneva, and at Anthony Road Wine Co. in Penn Yan, New York.
"For Chardonnay grapes, we've got effective suppression of powdery mildew over a period of two years, with treatments once a week," said David Gadoury , senior research associate in the Department of Plant Pathology and Plant-Microbe Biology at Cornell Agritech, who leads the project .
7 Ways Robots Are Playing Essential Roles During COVID-19
‘Hello, I am Baymax, your personal healthcare companion. I was alerted to the need for medical attention when you said, “Ow!”’
In Disney’s film Big Hero 6 , a loveable, inflatable healthcare robot known as Baymax can scan patients to accurately diagnose conditions and administer the necessary medication to treat them.
Although technology hasn't quite caught up to the bar that Baymax has set for robots in healthcare, they are being used in a variety of ways to help combat the impact of the virus around the world and relieve the pressures on key workers to perform high-risk jobs.
Giving soft robots feeling | MIT News
Professor Ted Adelson's team created a soft robotic finger that uses embedded cameras and deep learning to enable high-resolution tactile sensing and "proprioception" (awareness of positions and movements of the body).
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One of the hottest topics in robotics is the field of soft robots, which utilizes squishy and flexible materials rather than traditional rigid materials. But soft robots have been limited due to their lack of good sensing. A good robotic gripper needs to feel what it is touching (tactile sensing), and it needs to sense the positions of its fingers (proprioception). Such sensing has been missing from most soft robots.
Not to change the topic here:
Next-generation cockroach-inspired robot is small but mighty
This itsy-bitsy robot can't climb up the waterspout yet but it can run, jump, carry heavy payloads and turn on a dime. Dubbed HAMR-JR, this microrobot developed by researchers at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) and the Harvard Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, is a half-scale version of the cockroach-inspired Harvard Ambulatory Microrobot or HAMR.
"Most robots at this scale are pretty simple and only demonstrate basic mobility," said Kaushik Jayaram, a former postdoctoral fellow at SEAS and Wyss and first author of the paper. "We have shown that you don't have to compromise dexterity or control for size."
Locus Robotics raises $40 million to take its warehouse robots global | VentureBeat
Warehouse robotics startup Locus Robotics today announced it has raised $40 million, the bulk of which will be put toward accelerating R&D and the company's expansion into new markets, including in the EU, where it opened a new headquarters. CEO Rich Faulk says Locus also intends to launch strategic reseller partnerships throughout 2020, following a year in which its number of customer deployments passed 50.
Worker shortages attributable to the pandemic have accelerated the adoption of automation. According to ABI Research , more than 4 million commercial robots will be installed in over 50,000 warehouses around the world by 2025, up from under 4,000 warehouses as of 2018. In China, Oxford Economics anticipates 12.5 million manufacturing jobs will become automated, while in the U.S., McKinsey projects machines will take upwards of 30% of such jobs.
Beep Boop Back To Work: Robots Rebrand As Model Employees In The Age Of Social Distancing |
It's not that Youssef Saleh doesn't like people. It's just that in the midst of a global pandemic, he doesn't want to risk breathing strangers' germs when he goes shopping.
"I mean, I don't know about you — now, when I go to a store, I would rather interact with machines than people," he said.
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As offices, shops and other public places gradually reopen — with fewer people, keeping farther apart, than usual — Saleh envisions robots becoming ubiquitous beyond medical settings. His firm is one of several in Greater Boston that view the coronavirus outbreak as a potential turning point in public perceptions of robots.
Robots dish out the drinks at reopened Dutch restaurant - Science & Tech - The Jakarta Post
At the Dadawan restaurant in the southern Dutch city of Maastricht, an unusual group of new staffers has been brought in to help after the Netherlands eased its coronavirus lockdown this week: robots.
A robotic trio of waiters named Amy, Aker and James roll back and forth from the bar at the Asian fusion restaurant, handing out drinks -- and lessening the number of trips that human staff need to make through the restaurant.
Each robot has a simple humanoid figure, including arms to hold serving trays. Simple displays on their faces shows a smile, or occasionally a frown.
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