Robots

As time goes on and robots are becoming more advanced, more and more are marketed primarily at regular consumers. Robots are no longer just the domain of manufacturing and laboratories as there are plenty for the average consumers of the world to buy. Some of these have uses around the house, some are meant to spark an interest in STEM fields, and others are toys with some extra functionality. Here are some of the coolest robots you can buy today.

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Typically we think of automotive manufacturer Hyundai, its cars and SUVs that come to mind. Hyundai is on hand at CES 2022, and it has revealed something that isn't automotive-related but is aimed at ushering in a new type of mobility. The product is called the Plug & Drive (PnD) Robotic Module, and Hyundai says it's designed to enable the Mobility of Things (MoT) concept.

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Someone at Hyundai has been watching The Mandalorian. The automaker has revealed its new Mobile Eccentric Droid or MobED. It looks like a wheeled version of the crib Baby Yoda* uses in the incredibly popular Disney+ series The Mandalorian. However, there are some key differences. Most notably, the baby hauling carriage has a frame and wheels rather than floating around as the crib does in the show.

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It's common for researchers around the world to conduct investigations into creating better drone aircraft. It's also common for researchers to conduct investigations into building better humanoid robots. What's not common is research that focuses on combining those technologies to create a humanoid robot, like iRonCub, that flies.

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Artificial intelligence, or AI, is one of the most prolific areas of research in several fields. AI has vast potential to improve medicine and many other fields of research. Typically, an AI lives inside a computer system constrained inside the digital realm. However, a company called Engineered Arts has developed what it calls an AB, or artificial body, that will give an AI a physical place to reside.

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Engineers at Stanford University have been working on a robot that is part quadrotor flying drone and part peregrine falcon. The upper half of the robot looks like a common quadrotor drone designed to fly through the air. The lower half of the drone has a pair of clawed feet - significantly different from anything we've seen in the past.

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Last year, a team of scientists announced the development of "living robots," a new type of organism made using cells harvested from frog embryos. That same team is back with an update on these "robots," which they call xenobots, detailing a new scientific milestone: the ability to self replicate using existing cells.

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One of the difficulties with treating cancer via chemotherapy is that most current chemotherapy techniques require medication to be delivered systemically. When medications are delivered systemically, they flow through the entire body to the specific cells where they are needed creating all kinds of side effects to the chemotherapy. Many cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy will tell you that the side effects from the drugs make them feel worse than cancer itself. Researchers are on the lookout for methods of delivering cancer drugs to fight tumors that don't produce side effects for the entire body.

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Defense and aerospace company Northrop Grumman will work alongside some of its partners to develop a Lunar Terrain Vehicle (LTV) for NASA, the company has announced. The rover will be used to shuttle NASA's astronauts across the Moon's surface as part of a future crewed Artemis mission. Multiple other companies will fulfill their own parts of the project, including Michelin, Intuitive Machines, Lunar Outpost, and AVL.

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Typically when we think of a robot, we think of a machine made from rigid plastics or metals such as the type typically used in a factory setting. While rigid robots do have their place, there are also situations where a soft robot is much more useful. Significant amounts of research are being put into creating soft robots today, and researchers from Princeton University have invented a new way to make soft robots called bubble casting.

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One of the things that many people hate most about getting vaccinations and taking certain types of medication is needles. Any medication that has to be delivered intramuscular typically requires a needle and a skilled medical professional to administer it. However, that may change in the future with a new autonomous robot created by a company called Cobionix, founded at the University of Waterloo.

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Humans take the sense of touch for granted, and it's one of the most important types of input that we get in certain situations. Our sense of touch allows us to do things like feel how we are gripping an object to enable us to pick it up easily without crushing it. Anytime we pick up something fragile, like an egg, we know exactly how hard to squeeze it to keep from crushing it, making a huge mess. For robots and AI without a similar sense of touch, it's difficult for the robot to gather information about the object it is attempting to handle.

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