Robohub.org
bio-inspired
ep.
263
podcast
ICRA 2018 Exhibition, with Juxi Leitner, Nicholas Panitz, Ben Wilson and James Brett
Audrow Nash
23 Jun 2018
In this episode, Audrow Nash interviews Juxi Leitner, a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at QUT; and Nicholas Panitz, Ben Wilson, and James Brett, from CSIRO.
Leitner speaks about the Amazon Pickin...
ep.
256
podcast
Socially Assistive Robots, with Maja Matarić
Audrow Nash
19 Mar 2018
In this episode, Audrow Nash speaks with Maja Matarić, a professor at the University of Southern California and the Chief Science Officer of Embodied, about socially assistive robotics. Socially ass...
ep.
255
podcast
Learning about Legged Locomotion from Birds, with Monica Daley
Audrow Nash
04 Mar 2018
In this episode, Audrow Nash speaks with Monica Daley about learning from birds about legged locomotion. To do this, Daley analyzes the gaits of guineafowl in various experiments to understand the mec...
ep.
251
podcast
Open Source Prosthetic Leg, with Elliott Rouse
Audrow Nash
06 Jan 2018
In this episode, Audrow Nash interviews Elliott Rouse, Assistant Professor at the University of Michigan, about an open-source prosthetic leg—that is a robotic knee and ankle. Rouse’s goal is to p...
ep.
250
podcast
Learning Prosthesis Control Parameters, with Helen Huang
Audrow Nash
24 Dec 2017
In this interview, Audrow Nash interviews Helen Huang, Joint Professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and North Carolina State, about a method of tuning powered lower limb prosthes...
ep.
246
podcast
Smart Swarms, with Vijay Kumar
Jack Rasiel
28 Oct 2017
In this episode, Jack Rasiel interviews Vijay Kumar, Professor and Dean of Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania. Kumar discusses the guiding ideas behind his research on micro unmanned aeri...
Robot-driven device improves crouch gait in children with cerebral palsy
Columbia Engineering
27 Jul 2017
In the U.S., 3.6 out of 1000 school-aged children are diagnosed with cerebral palsy (CP). Their symptoms include abnormal gait patterns which results in joint degeneration over time. Slow walking spee...
Stanford researchers develop a new type of soft, growing robot
Stanford University News
25 Jul 2017
By Taylor Kubota, Stanford News Service
Imagine rescuers searching for people in the rubble of a collapsed building. Instead of digging through the debris by hand or having dogs sniff for signs of ...
Spider webs as computers
Helmut Hauser
27 Jun 2017
Spiders are truly amazing creatures. They have evolved over more than 200 million years and can be found in almost every corner of our planet. They are one of the most successful animals. Not less imp...
Drones that drive
CSAIL MIT
27 Jun 2017
Being able to both walk and take flight is typical in nature - many birds, insects and other animals can do both. If we could program robots with similar versatility, it would open up many possibiliti...
From drinking straws to robots
Harvard Gazette
16 Jun 2017
By Peter Reuell, Harvard Staff Writer
At the beginning of the decade, George Whitesides helped rewrite the rules of what a machine could be with the development of biologically inspired “soft rob...
The Uncanny Valley of human-robot interactions
Oliver Mitchell
02 Jun 2017
The device named “Spark” flew high above the man on stage with his hands waving in the direction of the flying object. In a demonstration of DJI’s newest drone, the audience marveled at the Cok...
Researcher to develop bio-inspired ‘smart’ knee for prosthetics
UWE Bristol
01 Jun 2017
A researcher at the University of the West of England (UWE Bristol) is developing a bio-inspired ‘smart’ knee joint for prosthetic lower limbs. Dr Appolinaire Etoundi, based at Bristol Robotics La...
TrotBot take two: Galloping like a horse
Ben Vagle
04 May 2017
Hi, I’m Ben. I was a member of the team that developed a new walking mechanism, TrotBot, that we eventually scaled up to the size of a mini-van (you can read my original post here). Now, at DIYwalke...
Grow a house with plant-robot hybrids
Horizon Magazine
30 Mar 2017
Robots and plants are being intricately linked into a new type of living technology that its creators believe could be used to grow a house....
ep.
230
podcast
bots_alive, with Bradley Knox
Audrow Nash
18 Mar 2017
In this episode, Audrow Nash interviews Bradley Knox, founder of bots_alive. Knox speaks about an add-on to a Hexbug, a six-legged robotic toy, that makes the bot behave more like a character. They di...
Discovering optimal strategies for fast robotic walking and climbing
NCCR Robotics
17 Feb 2017
Chances are that you’ve never given much thought to how insects walk, or what combination of leg movements–or gaits–is most stable or fastest, but, if like a group of scientists from Ramdya, Flo...
Transparent, gel-based robots can catch and release live fish
MIT News
02 Feb 2017
Engineers at MIT have fabricated transparent, gel-based robots that move when water is pumped in and out of them. The bots can perform a number of fast, forceful tasks, including kicking a ball underw...
Wearable AI that can detect the tone of a conversation
CSAIL MIT
01 Feb 2017
It’s a fact of nature that a single conversation can be interpreted in very different ways. For people with anxiety or conditions like Asperger’s, this can make social situations extremely stressf...
Soft exosuit economies: Understanding the costs of lightening the load
Wyss Institute
30 Jan 2017
Last year, Harvard’s soft exosuit team provided first proof-of-concept results showing that its wearable robot could lower energy expenditure in healthy people walking with a load on their back. Mad...
Implantable microrobots: Manufacturing intricate biocompatible micromachines
Columbia Engineering
10 Jan 2017
A team of researchers led by Biomedical Engineering Professor Sam Sia at Columbia Engineering has developed a way to manufacture microscale machines from biomaterials that can safely be implanted in t...
Robot Life Survey
What might the first western explorer have thought upon encountering whales, flamingos and iguanas? What would have they thought of these strange near-fantastical creatures?
What is it like for 21s...
ep.
225
podcast
A Wearable Robotic Extra-Finger for Grasp Compensation, with Domenico Prattichizzo
Audrow Nash
07 Jan 2017
In this episode, Audrow Nash interviews Domenico Prattichizzo, Professor of Robotics at the University of Siena and Senior Scientist at the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia in Genova in Italy, about a ...
Designing robots with bugs??
Jibo
26 Dec 2016
Ask a child to design a robot, and they’ll produce a drawing that looks a little like you or I—the parts may be gray and boxy, but it will have two arms, two legs, and a head (probably with an ant...
ep.
223
podcast
Actuation for Robotic Fingers, with Edward Neff
Abate De Mey
11 Dec 2016
In this episode, Abate De Mey interviews Edward Neff, founder of SMAC Corporation. Mr. Neff discusses how breakthroughs in his company have allowed them to develop linear actuators compact enough to b...
QuadBot: The 3D printed crab-bot scuttling beyond its Kickstarter goal
Josh Elijah
09 Dec 2016
Robotics is becoming more accessible for many people, but the complexities of legged robots mean they remain beyond the reach of most consumers. The complex mechanics, electronics and code algorithms ...
Robohub roundtable: Robotic bee swarms from Black Mirror – what’s hype, what’s real?
Alex Kirkpatrick
06 Dec 2016
In this roundtable edition, we watched the Black Mirror episode “Hated in the Nation” and asked our Robohub team members: with many institutions focused on developing aerial drone technology, and ...
ep.
222
podcast
100/100 Computer Vision Challenge, with Dieter Fox
Audrow Nash
26 Nov 2016
In this episode, Audrow Nash interviews Dieter Fox, Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Washington, about the 100/100 Computer Vision Tracking Challen...
ep.
217
podcast
LunaRoo, with Jürgen Leitner
Ron Vanderkley
17 Sep 2016
In this episode, Ron Vanderkley interviews Jürgen "Juxi" Leitner, a researcher at the ARC Centre of Excellence in Robots Vision in the Queensland University of Technology in Australia. Leitner spe...
ep.
215
podcast
Human 2.0: Exoskeletons and Orthoses, with Hugh Herr
Audrow Nash
20 Aug 2016
In this episode, Audrow Nash interviews Hugh Herr, Director of the Biomechatronics Group at MIT. Herr talks about the accident that led to the amputation of both of his legs below the knee and how th...
Towards building brain-like cognition and control for robots
Florian Röhrbein and Florian Walter
27 Jan 2016
The idea of connecting brain-inspired models of computation to robots is probably as old as the discipline of robotics itself; as far back as 1950, neurophysiologist William Grey Walter had already co...
Flying robots, with Dario Floreano (Part two)
Last month we caught up with Dario Floreano, the head of the Laboratory of Intelligent Systems at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland. Here we continue our discussion,...
New insect-inspired vision strategy could hasten development of mini-drones
Guido de Croon
07 Jan 2016
New research published today in the Journal of Bioinspiration and Biomimetics by the Micro Air Vehicle laboratory of TU Delft shows that an insect-inspired vision strategy can help indoor flying drone...
Four-legged robot that efficiently handles challenging terrain
ETH Zurich
30 Oct 2015
StarlETH is a multi-purpose legged transporter robot developed at ETH Zurich’s Autonomous Systems Lab. Combining versatility, speed, robustness, and efficiency, StarlETH walks, climbs, and runs over...
Artificial whisker reveals source of harbor seal’s uncanny prey-sensing ability
MIT News
22 Oct 2015
by Jennifer Chu | MIT News Office
Harbor seals have an amazingly fine-tuned sense for detecting prey, as marine biologists have noted for years. Even when blindfolded, trained seals are able to ch...
ep.
189
podcast
Robots and Communication, with Eleanor Sandry
Ron Vanderkley
21 Aug 2015
Transcript included.
In this episode, Ron Vanderkley speaks with Dr. Eleanor Sandry of Curtin University about her new book Robots and Communication. In the interview, we explore human to anim...
