Robots

How Fire Ants Build Incredible Writhing Towers

Using X-rays, researchers find simple rules help the ants raise each other up, which could be useful in robotics

An artist's impression of the Restore-L craft, a space-based refueling station that will give new life to old satellites.

NASA Is Sending a Robotic Fueling Station to Space

How do you save a billion-dollar satellite? Send another robot up there after it

Meet Pedro the “Voder,” the First Electronic Machine to Talk

Pedro was an experiment in reproducing speech electronically, but took on a kind of life of its own

Exoskeletons, automaton pets and tiny toy humanoids (pictured) populate the Korea Institute of Robot and Convergence.

A Visit to Seoul Brings Our Writer Face-to-Face With the Future of Robots

In the world’s most futuristic city, a tech-obsessed novelist confronts the invasion of mesmerizing machines

Field. Oil on panel by PIX18 / Creative Machines Lab at Columbia University

Check Out This Year's Entries to the RobotArt Competition

Thirty-eight teams have submitted almost 200 artworks painted by robots, many guided by artsy artificial intelligence

A NASA Valkyrie robot picks up an item with its hand.

Making Robots That Can Work With Their Hands

For robots to be most useful when working alongside humans, they'll have to literally lend us a hand when our own two are not enough

A noninvasive brain-computer interface based on EEG recordings from the scalp.

Melding Mind and Machine: How Close Are We?

Researchers separate what's science from what's currently still fiction when it comes to brain-computer interfacing

Israeli company Intuition Robotics developed a talking device named ElliQ, now being tested by older adults.

How Will Artificial Intelligence Help the Aging?

The key, researchers say, is finding the right roles for machines

The latest iteration of the four-legged LEMUR exploration robot clings to a test rock surface in Aaron Parness’ lab in a recent test of its microspine capabilities.

A New Generation of Interplanetary Rovers Is Crawling Toward the Stars

These four-legged, wheel-less robots will explore asteroids and the frigid outer worlds of our Solar System

Children have been crippled by land mines in Cambodia.

The Historic Innovation of Land Mines—And Why We've Struggled to Get Rid of Them

A number of researchers are developing tools to defuse or detonate land mines without harming civilians

Dream Big: Engineering Our World began playing nationally on February 17th, and it will be shown internationally starting March 25th.

The New IMAX Film "Dream Big" Roots for the Underdogs in the Engineering World

Director Greg MacGillivray's latest documentary premieres at the National Air and Space Museum

Too sick to attend school in person, but perfectly able to participate with a robot’s help.

How Robots Could Help Chronically Ill Kids Attend School

Students with chronic illness often get only a few hours of education a week. Telepresence robots could let them participate fully

Robotic telemedicine can be used to assess patients with stroke.

Doctors Can Use Robotic Telemedicine to Assess Coma Patients

A new study shows that a remote specialist can be just as effective at reporting a comatose patient's condition than a medical professional in the room

Preening automaton

This Robotic Silver Swan Has Fascinated Fans for Nearly 250 Years

It preens, fishes and impresses

Soldiers schlepping heavy gear could one day use suits like these to help them walk farther, carry more, and experience less fatigue.

This Soft Exosuit Could Help People Walk Farther, Easier

Researchers at Harvard are developing an energy-saving supersuit that you might just wear one day

A gecko uses millions of tiny hairs to cling powerfully to surfaces. A new device exploits this adaptation by using ultraviolet light as a switch.

Scientists Can Turn This Gecko-Inspired Gripping Device On or Off With the Flick of a Light

The mighty lizard inspires yet another innovation that could prove a boon to robotics and manufacturing

When Robots Take All of Our Jobs, Remember the Luddites

What a 19th-century rebellion against automation can teach us about the coming war in the job market

Isaac Asimov at age 70.

If Isaac Asimov Had Named The Smartphone, He Might Have Called It The “Pocket Computer Mark II”

The sci-fi author correctly predicted a number of innovations that have come to pass

A cow is milked by a robotic voluntary milking system.

Rise of the (Cow Milking) Robots

The largest robotic dairy farm in the United States will be up and running in Michigan next year

The Robodoc married robots and computers to revolutionize the complicated task of joint replacement surgery.

Why This Robotic Medical Device Belongs in a Museum

William Bargar and Howard "Hap" Paul revolutionized joint replacement surgery by developing a robot to do the job

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