If you haven’t seen the origami robot yet, you’re in for a fantastic surprise! Evoking the potential of an ancient and wonderful Japanese art, these crawling robots can self-assemble from flat-pack designs and autonomously perform. Inspired by self-assembly in nature—such as the way complex proteins with sophisticated functions derive from folding linear sequences of amino
Drones are no longer known as mere weapons of war. At least, that’s how Google, Facebook, and other online giants like Amazon appear to be thinking. Google has just acquired Titan Aerospace, a promising solar-powered drone maker, as part of its plans to globalize wireless internet. Titan’s website provides news that the company is working
[Reporting from the annual Science/AAAS meeting in Chicago, Illinois] Lacking proper fins and functional eyes, the electric knifefish (of the order Gymnotiformes; one of over a hundred freshwater species native to South America) has a remarkable ability to rapidly maneuver — and find its food — in the most cluttered and murkiest of waters. For
We are living in a Golden Age for robotics, or more accurately, robotic biomimicry. If there be any doubt, consider the numerous, recent robotic engineering projects taking their lead from Nature — especially the small and non-vertebrate kind — from earthworms and fleas to sea jellies and ant colonies. It’s no surprise that engineers would
The field of biomimetics – the mimicking of biological attributes for practical uses — has become an increasingly important discipline in recent years, primarily due to its applications in other emerging fields like bio-engineering, materials science, and robotics. An advance in robot locomotion – a big leap for tiny bots In a recent robot prototype
Artificial intelligence has taken a big leap forward: two roboticists (Lipson and Zagal), working at the University of Chile, Santiago, have created what they claim is the first robot to possess “metacognition” — a form of self-awareness which involves the ability to observe ones’ own thought processes and thus alter one’s behavior accordingly.
