The Harvard Microrobotics Lab has announced the latest version of its insect-like RoboBee 'X-Wing' is officially the lightest vehicle to achieve sustained untethered flight. The solo flight milestone was recorded as a slow-motion video in which viewers see the tiny robot's wings flap rapidly, just like an ordinary insect. The achievement was made possible via a number of improvements made to the RoboBee.
Toyota has announced that its CUE humanoid robot has set a new record for the greatest number of consecutive basketball free throws performed by a humanoid AI-powered machine. The robot successfully made 2,020 free throws in a row without missing, earning it a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records. The CUE robot was born as a voluntary project for Toyota employees to work on in their spare time.
Researchers have been working on ways to power robots for extended duration use. Long duration power for robots is a challenge because there is limited space inside most robots for batteries and other hardware. Scientists at Cornell have created a new synthetic vascular system for robots that can pump an energy-dense hydraulic liquid that stores energy, transmits force, and operates appendages while providing structure in a single integrated design.
In recent years, Domino's has seemed focused on changing the pizza delivery experience. Whether that was through creating apps that could handle placing orders through services like Slack or deploying AI that's capable of checking the quality of cooked pizza, Domino's has been dipping its hand into a lot of different honey pots in search of ways to perfect its business. Today, the company announced that it will soon get the ball rolling on one of its biggest initiatives yet: Autonomous pizza delivery.
DJI is perhaps best known for its drones but, at its core, it is a robotics company. It has dabbled in every aspect related to robotics, from computer vision to AI to mechanical engineering. While those have been mostly applied to hobbyist and professional unmanned aerial vehicles or UAVs (a.k.a. drones), it has yet to tap one budding market in the robotics industry: education. That changes today with the introduction of the RoboMaster S1, the company's first robot designed for entertainment and education.
Over the past several weeks we've been using the Roborock S6, a robot vacuum made to take on the biggest names in the industry. Roborock does not have the name recognition of the Ecovacs, the Neato, or iRobot's Roomba, but it's a robot. It doesn't know how popular it is - all it need to know is where to go to clean. With LDS Navigation and suction power equal to that of a Neato Botvac D7 Connected, this machine is ready to pick up all your dust immediately.
More than 2,000 preschools in China have introduced robots used for daily health inspections, according to a new report. The robots, which feature fun designs that won't frighten children, utilize tech to detect signs of a potential illness. If a robot finds evidence that a child may be sick, it alerts human operators who can then do their own evaluation and decide whether the student should be sent home.
iRobot is rolling out two new home-cleaning robots today, and they're meant to work together to clean all of the floors in your house. The first robot being introduced today is the Roomba s9+ vacuum, which follows in the footsteps of the vacuum cleaners that first put iRobot on the map. It's joined by the Braava jet m6, a robotic mop that can clean your hard floors beyond what the s9+ is capable of.
We've seen Boston Dynamics' Spot Minis play reindeer and pull Santa's truck but those may have nothing on this robot hailing all the way from Italy. Although more a research platform than a commercial robot, the Italian Institute of Technology (IIT) Dynamic Legged System Lab's latest HyQReal robot has may have a few things going for it, including its ruggedness, its durability, and, more importantly, its strength.
People instinctively know how to work together when it comes time to lift something that takes two people. People coordinate their motions and work to be sure that each side of whatever is being carried is at the same height. While tasks like that are natural for a human, for robots, it's not natural at all.
Facebook has revealed the fruits of its robotics division, driving artificial intelligence research and coming up with some creepy bug-like 'bots in the process. Though robots capable of walking, using tactile sensors to better manipulate new objects, and even showing curiosity may sound like a strange endeavor for a social network, Facebook argues that they're just what its AIs need.
Ford has been testing the use an autonomous robot called Survival that enables factory workers to focus on more demanding, complex tasks, the company has revealed. The robot was built by Ford engineers as a way to offload mundane, rote tasks that would otherwise take up engineers' time. The robot is operating at a Ford plant in Spain.