Researchers at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Sweden have carried out a study exploring the effects of using physical robots to assist humans during vocabulary learning exercises. The department of Speech, Music and Hearing at KTH specializes in...
Robotics
Flexoskeleton printing: Fabricating flexible exoskeletons for insect-inspired robots
Insects typically have a variety of complex exoskeleton structures, which support them in their movements and everyday activities. Fabricating artificial exoskeletons for insect-inspired robots that match the complexity of these naturally-occurring structures is a key...
From motion to emotion: The potential of robot swarms in artistic performances
Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have recently carried out an interesting study exploring how motion and shape descriptors that are associated with particular emotions can be incorporated into swarm behaviors to create evocative artistic expositions....
Generating cross-modal sensory data for robotic visual-tactile perception
Perceiving an object only visually (e.g. on a screen) or only by touching it, can sometimes limit what we are able to infer about it. Human beings, however, have the innate ability to integrate visual and tactile stimuli, leveraging whatever sensory data is available...
Implementing kick control on simulated and real-world wheeled robots
A team of researchers at Babes-Bolyai University, in Romania, and Goethe University Frankfurt have recently collaborated on a study exploring implementations of kick control on both simulated and real-world wheeled robots. The term 'kick control' refers to short,...
A swarm robotics approach inspired by behavior observed in microorganisms
Many animals and microorganisms are able to complete complex tasks, such as finding food or building nests, as a team, or "swarm." One of the most obvious examples of this is bees, as their survival as a group heavily depends upon cooperation with other members of...
A system to automatically detect and collect garbage
Numerous countries worldwide are currently facing major problems related to waste collection, particularly in urban areas, due to the large amount of waste generated daily by the population. Technology could play a significant role in tackling these issues, for...
A technique to enhance physical interaction in aerial robots
In recent years, aerial robots have become increasingly popular, with potential applications in a variety of fields. Many of these robots are primarily designed to fly around and collect visual data from their surrounding environment, yet some are also able to grasp,...
A unifying approach for controlling flying robotic insects
One of the key problems confronting researchers in the field of microrobotics is designing and implementing reliable controllers for insect-scale micro air vehicles (FWMAVs), which are tiny flying robots typically inspired by insects. In fact, although these...
A user-friendly approach for active reward learning in robots
In recent years, researchers have been trying to develop methods that enable robots to learn new skills. One option is for a robot to learn these new skills from humans, asking questions whenever it is unsure about how to behave, and learning from the human user's...