Bots & Brains

Next month the 2023 edition of the European Robotics Forum will be hosted in the ‘Robot Capital of the World’, Odense in Denmark. Rocking Robots talked to the chairman of this major robotics event, Christian Schlette of the University of Southern Denmark. ‘Robotics has become a major factor in engineering, where so many different technologies and methods come together.’

Humans naturally perform numerous complex tasks. These include sitting down, picking something up from a table, and pushing a cart. These activities involve various movements and require multiple contacts, which makes it difficult to program robots to perform them.

Humans are less forgiving of robots after multiple mistakes—and the trust is difficult to get back, according to a new University of Michigan study. Similar to human co-workers, robots can make mistakes that violate a human’s trust in them. When mistakes happen, humans often see robots as less trustworthy, which ultimately decreases their trust in them. 

Researchers used a chemical synthesis robot and computationally cost effective AI model to successfully predict and validate highly selective catalysts.

Professor Andrew Cooper from the University of Liverpool’s Department of Chemistry has been awarded a prestigious Royal Society Research Professorship to further develop the mobile robotic chemist to fast forward advances in materials science.

Celera Motion, a business unit of Novanta, announced its launch of what it claims is the world’s smallest servo drives. The compact servo drives are designed for service robots, surgical robots, industrial grippers and lab automation applications.

With the support of Fujitsu, the operators of the Nürburgring are showing how history, the present and the future can be optimally combined – for greater safety using advanced AI technology. Especially on the one of the world’s most challenging race tracks: the Nordschleife. There, the unique tourist drives in particular can become even safer.

Researchers at CyberArk Labs had ChatGPT write malicious code, and have it automatically mutate in order to circumvent security tools. Last week it was announced that ChatGPT could be used to write code as part of malware, but CyberArk Labs goes a step further by having ChatGPT create the malware itself, which is also not noticed by security tools.

The Indy Autonomous Challenge team PoliMOVE from Politecnico di Milano (Italy), and the University of Alabama (Alabama) won the second annual Autonomous Challenge at  CES reaching max speeds of 180 mph, a new autonomous speed world record for a racetrack.

A new technological development by Tel Aviv University has made it possible for a robot to smell using a biological sensor. The sensor sends electrical signals as a response to the presence of a nearby odor, which the robot can detect and interpret.