Author Archives: Wilson

Robots That Smell

Biomimetic Robot from Vicky Vouloutsi on Vimeo. As humans, we may take our sense of smell for granted but for many of the other members of the animal kingdom, either land-roaming or water-dwelling, a keen sense of smell serves as … Continue reading

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Exploring the Red Planet

NASA’s Curiosity gets close to landing on Mars It takes a while to get over 90 million km away from earth. Although NASA’s rover Curiosity hit the road for Mars at the end of November, 2011, the robot isn’t expected … Continue reading

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Personalized Assistance from Robots

Robots help out—the way we want them to! Both humans and robots work in manufacturing plants however, they don’t usually work alongside one another. Robots are most often used in repetitive, exhausting or hazardous work, while people are needed for … Continue reading

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The Last Moment Robot

It’s OK if this gives you the creeps If you think this kind of robot may be taking things a step too far, its creator Dan Chen would be pleased he’s gotten his point across. For starters, this robot isn’t … Continue reading

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Robots Get Social…

Creating hype on Twitter and other networks Twitter has reached over 500 million users, but of those, apparently only 140 million actually use it regularly. Now it turns out that some of these users may not even be real people, … Continue reading

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Racing with Robots

Ready, Set, Joggobot! Running can be a challenging activity to get into and keep up. Whether it’s a friend or canine pal acting as a running buddy, the company often provides us with the motivation needed to push ourselves further … Continue reading

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Infrared Sensors Inspired by Beetles

The Jewel beetle may be able to detect forest fires up to 80km away… could they help humans do the same? Judging by their glamorous iridescent colouring, you could never tell that a Jewel beetle’s preferred hang out is among … Continue reading

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Hiroshi Ishiguro’s Huggable Robot

After a bad day, there’s nothing like a Hugvie If you’re a fan of bizarre robots, you’ve got to be familiar with some of Hiroshi Ishiguro’s work. As the director of the Intelligent Robotics Laboratory at Osaka University in Japan, … Continue reading

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Magnificent Maneuvers

Robots designed to move like cockroaches and geckos It’s suspected that the earliest forms of cockroaches were present over 300 million years ago during the Carboniferous period while our modern roach’s history dates back to the more recent Cretaceous period, … Continue reading

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Robotic Therapy Gets Paralysed Rats Walking and Running

These rats are back in action! Grégoire Courtine and his team at The École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) have been using a robotic harness and electro-chemical stimulation to get rats with damaged spinal cords up and running again.

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