Category Archives: Research

Soft actuators help MIT power nano drones

MIT researchers have demonstrated diminutive drones that can zip around with bug-like agility and resilience, which could eventually perform these tasks. The soft actuators that propel these microrobots are very durable, but they require much higher voltages than similarly-sized rigid actuators. The featherweight robots can’t carry the necessary power electronics that would allow them fly on their own. Continue reading

Building Future Air Taxis to See Through the Fog

The frame of an unmanned aerial vehicle is installed at the end of a 180-foot-long chamber filled with fog at Sandia National Labs in Albuquerque, New Mexico

While the sun beat down on the New Mexico desert, inside, a dense fog hung in the air. In a special facility outside Albuquerque, a team of NASA researchers was working with the kind of fog that’s so thick you can’t see three feet in front of you. Continue reading

Stanford Engineers Create Perching Bird-Like Robot

Like snowflakes, no two branches are alike. They can differ in size, shape and texture; some might be wet or moss-covered or bursting with offshoots. And yet birds can land on just about any of them. This ability was of great interest to the labs of Stanford University engineers Mark Cutkosky and David Lentink – now at University of Groningen in the Netherlands – which have both developed technologies inspired by animal abilities. Continue reading