The giant, balloon-like inflatable robot named Baymax in Disney's Big Hero 6 has its roots in real-world research conducted by iRobot Corporation, Carnegie Mellon University and Otherlab under DARPA's Maximum Mobility Manipulation ...
Artificial tongues have received increased attention due to their ability to detect the five basic tastes, but until now scientists have been unable to fully enable human tongue-like biomimicry for astringency in the lab. ...
These findings, reported today, Friday 9th October, in the journal Bioinspiration & Biomechanics, offer a new insight into how animals respond to different terrain, and how robots can learn from them.
(Phys.org) -- When you’re just a few microns long, swimming can be difficult. At that size scale, the viscosity of water is more like that of honey, and momentum can’t be relied upon to maintain forward motion.
Most robotic gripping mechanisms to date have relied on humanlike fingers or appendages, which sometimes struggle to provide the fine touch, flexibility or cost-effectiveness needed in some circumstances to hold onto objects. ...
Scientists are one step closer to artificial muscles. Orthotics have come a long way since their initial wood and strap designs, yet innovation lapsed when it came to compensating for muscle power—until now. A collaborative ...
Water droplets float in a hot pan because of the so-called Leidenfrost effect. Now, physicists have discovered a variation: the elastic Leidenfrost effect. It explains why hydrogel balls jump around on a hot plate making ...
One day, microrobots may be able to swim through the human body like sperm or paramecia to carry out medical functions in specific locations. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Stuttgart ...
"Soft matter" was first proposed by Pierre-Gilles de Gennes in his Nobel acceptance speech in 1991. The term describes materials between aqueous substances and ideal solids.
Robots will be one of the keys to the expanding in-space economy. As launch costs decrease—hopefully significantly when Starship and other massive lift systems come online—the most significant barrier to entry for the ...
