Twisted soft robots navigate mazes without human or computer guidance
May 2022, phys.org
Physical intelligence vs Computational intelligence, active matter, and the Internet of Everything.
Also, Translucent Rotini:
The soft robots are made of liquid crystal elastomers in the shape of a twisted ribbon, resembling translucent rotini.When you place the ribbon on a surface that is at least 55 degrees Celsius (131 degrees Fahrenheit), which is hotter than the ambient air, the portion of the ribbon touching the surface contracts, while the portion of the ribbon exposed to the air does not. This induces a rolling motion in the ribbon. And the warmer the surface, the faster it rolls."It's much like the robotic vacuums that many people use in their homes," Yin says. "Except the soft robot we've created draws energy from its environment and operates without any computer programming."
via North Carolina State University: Twisting for Soft Intelligent Autonomous Robot in Unstructured Environments, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2022). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2200265119
Image credit: AI Art - Body Modification
A marsupial robotic system that combines a legged and an aerial robot
Jun 2022, phys.org
"Our idea comes from a very simple concept: the complementarity of walking and flying robots," De Petris explained.
via DARPA Subterranean Challenge and winning team CERBERUS of NTNU, UNR, ETH Zurich, UC Berkley, Oxford and Flyability: Paolo De Petris et al, Marsupial walking-and-flying robotic deployment for collaborative exploration of unknown environments. arXiv:2205.05477v1 [cs.RO], arxiv.org/abs/2205.05477
Robotic lightning bugs take flight
Jun 2022, phys.org
Electroluminescent soft artificial muscles for flying, insect-scale robots that communicate with each other.These researchers previously demonstrated a new fabrication technique to build soft actuators, or artificial muscles, that flap the wings of the robot. and are made by alternating ultrathin layers of elastomer and carbon nanotube electrode in a stack and then rolling it into a squishy cylinder. When a voltage is applied to that cylinder, the electrodes squeeze the elastomer, and the mechanical strain flaps the wing. Electroluminescent zinc sulfate particles into the elastomeric artificial muscles.
via MIT: Suhan Kim et al, FireFly: An Insect-Scale Aerial Robot Powered by Electroluminescent Soft Artificial Muscles, IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters (2022). DOI: 10.1109/LRA.2022.3179486
Robotic arms connected directly to brain of partially paralyzed man allows him to feed himself
Jul 2022, phys.org
A person with very limited upper body mobility, who hasn't been able to use his fingers in about 30 years, has just fed himself dessert using his mind and some smart robotic hands.
The new paper outlines an innovative model for shared control that enables a human to maneuver a pair of robotic prostheses with minimal mental input. "This shared control approach is intended to leverage the intrinsic capabilities of the brain machine interface and the robotic system, creating a 'best of both worlds' environment where the user can personalize the behavior of a smart prosthesis,"
via Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory and the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation in the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine: Shared control of bimanual robotic limbs with a BMI for self-feeding, Frontiers in Neurorobotics (2022). DOI: 10.3389/fnbot.2022.918001
Extra 'eye' movements are the key to better self-driving cars
Jul 2022, phys.org
With the help of Levy patterns, also called a foraging behavior model:
When tested with shifted images that mimicked naturally altered visual input that would occur when the eyes move, performance dropped drastically to chance level. Classification improved significantly after training the network with shifted images, as long as the direction and size of the eye movements that resulted in the shift were also included. Adding the eye movements and their corresponding motor commands to the network model allowed the system to better cope with visual noise in the images. "This advancement will help avoid dangerous mistakes in machine vision,"
via RIKEN: Andrea Benucci et al, Motor-related signals support localization invariance for stable visual perception, PLOS Computational Biology (2022). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1009928
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