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bio-inspired
Jellyfish-like robots could one day clean up the world’s oceans
Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems
17 May 2023
Roboticists have developed a jellyfish-inspired underwater robot with which they hope one day to collect waste from the bottom of the ocean. The almost noise-free prototype can trap objects underneath its body without physical contact, thereby enabling safe interactions in delicate environments such as coral reefs. Jellyfish-Bot could become an important tool for environmental remediation.
Sea creatures inspire marine robots which can operate in extra-terrestrial oceans
University of Bristol
02 Feb 2023
Scientists at the University of Bristol have drawn on the design and life of a mysterious zooplankton to develop underwater robots.
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363
podcast
Going out on a Bionic Limb, with Joel Gibbard
Abate De Mey
21 Dec 2022
Joel Gibbard, co-founder of Open Bionics dives deep into their creative, imagination-capturing prosthetic limbs.
Combating climate change with a soft robotics fish
Robin Hall
17 Nov 2022
We have fabricated a 3D printed, cable-actuated wave spring tail made from soft materials that can drive a small robot fish.
Big step towards tiny autonomous drones
Joost van de Loo
28 Oct 2022
A new study in Nature magazine describes how flying insects and drones know the difference between up and down.
Tiny particles work together to do big things
MIT News
16 Oct 2022
Simple microparticles can beat rhythmically together, generating an oscillating electrical current that could be used to power microrobotic devices.
Robot helps reveal how ants pass on knowledge
University of Bristol
24 Aug 2022
Scientists have developed a small robot to understand how ants teach one another.
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358
podcast
Underwater Human-Robot Interaction #ICRA2022, with Michael Fulton
Abate De Mey
22 Jul 2022
Michael Fulton describes his unique robot-to-human communication system using exaggerated body language.
Bees’ ‘waggle dance’ may revolutionize how robots talk to each other in disaster zones
Frontiers Journals & Blog
18 Jul 2022
A recent study presents a simple technique whereby robots view and interpret each other’s movements or a gesture from a human to communicate a geographical location.
Robotic lightning bugs take flight
MIT News
07 Jul 2022
Inspired by fireflies, researchers create insect-scale robots that can emit light when they fly, which enables motion tracking and communication.
BirdBot is energy-efficient thanks to nature as a model
Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems
19 Mar 2022
A team of scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems and the University of California, Irvine constructed a robot leg that, like its natural model, is very energy efficient. BirdBot benefits from a foot-leg coupling through a network of muscles and tendons that extends across multiple joints. In this way, BirdBot needs fewer motors than previous legged robots and could, theoretically, scale to large size.
Bristol scientists develop insect-sized flying robots with flapping wings
University of Bristol
03 Feb 2022
A new drive system for flapping wing autonomous robots has been developed by a University of Bristol team, using a new method of electromechanical zipping that does away with the need for conventional motors and gears.
Radhika Nagpal at #NeurIPS2021: the collective intelligence of army ants
Lucy Smith
01 Feb 2022
Radhika’s research focusses on collective intelligence, with the overarching goal being to understand how large groups of individuals, with local interaction rules, can cooperate to achieve globally complex behaviour.
Team builds first living robots that can reproduce
Wyss Institute
02 Dec 2021
AI-designed Xenobots reveal entirely new form of biological self-replication—promising for regenerative medicine.
One giant leap for the mini cheetah
MIT News
23 Oct 2021
A new control system, demonstrated using MIT’s robotic mini cheetah, enables four-legged robots to jump across uneven terrain in real-time.
To swim like a tuna, robotic fish need to change how stiff their tails are in real time
The Conversation
05 Oct 2021
Researchers have been building robotic fish for years, but the performance has never approached the efficiency of real fish. Daniel Quinn, CC BY-NC
By Daniel Quinn
Underwater vehicles haven’t ...
Fish fins are teaching us the secret to flexible robots and new shape-changing materials
The Conversation
20 Aug 2021
By Francois Barthelat
Flying fish use their fins both to swim and glide through the air. Smithsonian Institution/Flickr
The big idea
Segmented hinges in the long, thin bones of fish fins are...
Swimming robot gives fresh insight into locomotion and neuroscience
NCCR Robotics
12 Aug 2021
Scientists at the Biorobotics Laboratory (BioRob) in EPFL’s School of Engineering are developing innovative robots in order to study locomotion in animals and, ultimately, gain a better understandin...
We used peanuts and a climbing wall to learn how squirrels judge their leaps so successfully – and how their skills could inspire more nimble robots
How do they stick their landings? Alex Turton via Getty ImagesTree squirrels are the Olympic divers of the rodent world, leaping gracefully among branches and structures high above the ground. And as ...
A robotic cat can teach us how real animals move
Frontiers Journals & Blog
03 Aug 2021
By Mischa Dijkstra, Frontiers science writer / Toyoaki Tanikawa, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Osaka University
In the young discipline of robotics-inspired biology, robots replace experime...
Sniffy Bug: a fully autonomous swarm of gas-seeking nano quadcopters in cluttered environments
Bart Duisterhof and Guido de Croon
15 Jul 2021
Tiny drones are ideal candidates for fully autonomous jobs that are too dangerous or time-consuming for humans. A commonly shared dream by engineers and fire & rescue services, would be to have swarms...
Helping drone swarms avoid obstacles without hitting each other
EPFL
20 May 2021
By Clara Marc
There is strength in numbers. That’s true not only for humans, but for drones too. By flying in a swarm, they can cover larger areas and collect a wider range of data, since each dr...
Robot stomachs: powering machines with garbage and pee
Oliver Mitchell
14 May 2021
The Seinfeld idiom, “worlds are colliding,” is probably the best description of work in the age of Corona. Pre-pandemic, it was easy to departmentalize one’s professional life from o...
Fish-inspired soft robot survives a trip to the deepest part of the ocean
Dimitris Tsakiris
05 May 2021
The deepest regions of the oceans still remain one of the least explored areas on Earth, despite their considerable scientific interest and the richness of lifeforms inhabiting them.
Two reasons f...
Researchers introduce a new generation of tiny, agile drones
MIT News
02 Mar 2021
By Daniel Ackerman
If you’ve ever swatted a mosquito away from your face, only to have it return again (and again and again), you know that insects can be remarkably acrobatic and resilient in fl...
Soft robots for ocean exploration and offshore operations: A perspective
Simona Aracri
06 Feb 2021
Most of the ocean is unknown. Yet we know that the most challenging environments on the planet reside in it. Understanding the ocean in its totality is a key component for the sustainable development ...
Robotic swarm swims like a school of fish
Wyss Institute
01 Feb 2021
By Leah Burrows / SEAS Communications
Schools of fish exhibit complex, synchronized behaviors that help them find food, migrate, and evade predators. No one fish or sub-group of fish coordinates th...
IEEE RAS Soft Robotics Podcast with Ali Khademhosseini: Biomaterials, soft robotics and the Terasaki Institute
Marwa ElDiwiny
26 Jan 2021
Interesting discussion with Prof. Ali Khademhosseini, CEO of the Terasaki Institute, and one of the pioneers of the Bioengineering field. Prof. Ali’s journey from Harvard and UCLA to the Terasaki In...
Self-supervised learning of visual appearance solves fundamental problems of optical flow
Guido de Croon
19 Jan 2021
Flying insects as inspiration to AI for small drones
How do honeybees land on flowers or avoid obstacles? One would expect such questions to be mostly of interest to biologists. However, the rise o...
IEEE RAS Soft Robotics Podcast with Hod Lipson: Can we design self-aware robots?
Marwa ElDiwiny
13 Jan 2021
Interesting discussion with Hod Lipson, head of Creative Machines Lab, Columbia University in New York. Can robots be self-aware? Can they design other robots and self-repair? Why should we evolve rob...
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325
podcast
The Advantage of Fins, with Benjamin Pietro Filardo
Abate De Mey
16 Dec 2020
Robohub Podcast · The Advantage of Fins
Abate interviews Benjamin "Pietro" Filardo, CEO and founder of Pliant Energy Systems. At PES, they developed a novel form of actuation using two undulating ...
A raptor-inspired drone with morphing wing and tail
NCCR Robotics
31 Oct 2020
By Nicola Nosengo
NCCR Robotics researchers at EPFL have developed a drone with a feathered wing and tail that give it unprecedented flight agility....
Lily the barn owl reveals how birds fly in gusty winds
University of Bristol
26 Oct 2020
Scientists from the University of Bristol and the Royal Veterinary College have discovered how birds are able to fly in gusty conditions – findings that could inform the development of bio-inspired ...
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310
podcast
RoboBee’s Untethered Flight, with Farrell Helbling
Kate Zhou
20 May 2020
In this episode, Kate Zhou interviews Farrell Helbling, postdoctoral fellow at Harvard Microrobotics lab, who has worked on developing the RoboBee, an insect-inspired robot that is the lightest vehicl...
Transience, Replication, and the Paradox of Social Robotics
Silicon Valley Robotics
30 Oct 2019
with Guy Hoffman
Robotics Researcher, Cornell University
An Art, Technology, and Culture Colloquium, co-sponsored by the Center for New Music and Audio Technologies and CITRIS People and Robot...
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266
podcast
Towards using Micro and Nano Robots in the Human Body, with Peer Fischer
Marwa ElDiwiny
06 Aug 2018
In this episode, Marwa ElDiwiny interview Peer Fisher, a Professor of Physical Chemistry at the University of Stuttgart and the Director of the Micro Nano and Molecular Systems Lab at the Max Planck I...
