Bots & Brains

A research initiative focusing on the challenges posed by autonomous vehicles (AVs) has been announced. The University of Portsmouth and the University of West London have been awarded funding for this endeavor by the ASIS Foundation. The research will center on the security and regulations surrounding AVs.

Jonathan Shihao Ji, a computer science professor at Georgia State University, has received a $10 million grant from the Department of Defense (DoD) to address critical problems in artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics with a focus on human-robot interaction, 3D virtual environment reconstruction, edge computing and trustworthy AI.

Researchers at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KIST)  have developed a soft gripper with a woven structure that can grip objects weighing more than 100 kg with 130 grams of material.

Microsure announced the closing of its Series B2 investment round, obtaining €38 million in development capital. With these funds, Microsure plans to complete the development of its MUSA-3 microsurgical robot for clinical studies, followed by FDA clearance in the USA and CE-mark in Europe. As part of this financing round, Kreske Nickelsen from the investor kineo will join the supervisory board.

A team led by Northwestern University researchers has developed the first artificial intelligence (AI) to date that can intelligently design robots from scratch. To test the new AI, the researchers gave the system a simple prompt: Design a robot that can walk across a flat surface. While it took nature billions of years to evolve the first walking species, the new algorithm compressed evolution to lightning speed — designing a successfully walking robot in mere seconds.

Someone’s prior beliefs about an artificial intelligence agent, like a chatbot, have a significant effect on their interactions with that agent and their perception of its trustworthiness, empathy, and effectiveness, according to a new study.

Researchers at the University of Washington have now created MilliMobile, a tiny, self-driving robot powered only by surrounding light or radio waves. Equipped with a solar panel–like energy harvester and four wheels, MilliMobile is about the size of a penny, weighs as much as a raisin and can move about the length of a bus (30 feet, or 10 meters) in an hour even on a cloudy day.

A new study by researchers at Queen Mary University of London, Imperial College London and The University of Melbourne has found that people can learn to use supernumerary robotic arms as effectively as working with a partner in just one hour of training. 

Tesla Optimus has now acquired the capability to autonomously sort objects through a unique method of neural network training. The robot’s training process takes video inputs and transforms them directly into controls, allowing Optimus to differentiate and organize items autonomously.

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the United States. Some tumors are extremely small and hide deep within lung tissue, making it difficult for surgeons to reach them. To address this challenge, UNC –Chapel Hill and Vanderbilt University researchers have been working on an extremely bendy but sturdy robot capable of traversing lung tissue.