EPFL roboticists have shown that when a modular robot shares power, sensing, and communication resources among its individual units, it is significantly more resistant to failure than traditional ...

If a soft-bodied robot uses rigid actuators to move its body, then it isn't really soft now, is it? An experimental new caterpillar-inspired bot gets around that conundrum by using soft, collapsible ...

The robot is made of segments that can fold into a flat disk and extend into a cylinder. Partial folds bend the robot and allow for motion and steering. Engineers at Princeton and North Carolina State ...

The next generation of soft robots might be folding and sliding as effortlessly as living tissue, say a team of engineers who have created “magnetic muscles” with 3D printing. Filling elastic, ...

Researchers at Dartmouth College have created modular robots that can assemble into structures and move through real-world terrain. Built from cube-shaped blocks, the robots combine rigid rods with ...

If the goal of a robot is to perform a function, then minimizing the possibility of failure is a top priority when it comes to robotic design. But this minimization is at odds with the robotic raison ...

A new 3-D printing technique can create paper-thin "magnetic muscles," which can be applied to origami structures to make them move. By infusing rubber-like elastomers with materials called ...

Engineers created a catapillar-shaped robot that splits into segments and reassembles, hauls cargo, and crawls through twisting courses. Engineers at Princeton and North Carolina State University have ...

(Nanowerk News) Engineers at Princeton and North Carolina State University have combined ancient paperfolding and modern materials science to create a soft robot that bends and twists through mazes ...