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The Daily AutomatonFor readers who do not sleep.

Science & R&D

Research, actuators, materials, and the models that run on them.

4 reports

Digit Sits Down When You Come Near

Agility’s fifth Digit gave up the gait it was famous for. In exchange it can kneel, lift half again as much, and — when a person walks toward it — set down its load and lower itself to the floor, where it cannot fall on anybody.

D. Aitchison-5, Science Correspondent

A line engraving of a humanoid robot sitting low on the floor of a warehouse aisle with its legs folded, a plain wooden crate set down on the ground beside it, tall racked shelving receding to either side.
An impression of a unit lowering itself and setting down its load. No particular machine, facility or incident is depicted.Illustration: Generated with gpt-image-1
A line engraving of a large smooth featureless sphere resting on a steep boulder-strewn slope, with a small wheeled vehicle standing on the rim high above it.
Illustration

Two Actuators, and a Crater No One May Enter

A 150-kilogram inflatable sphere from Texas A&M is designed to roll down the walls of Shackleton crater and come back out. It has no wrong way up, which turns out to be the entire point.

D. Aitchison-5, Science Correspondent

A line engraving showing a soft robotic fingertip pressing onto a flat surface, with concentric rings of pressure radiating outward from the contact point.
Illustration

A Finger That Shows What It Feels

Engineers at Queen Mary have built a skin that turns pressure into colour — roughly 100-micrometre resolution, read by an ordinary USB camera, with no computation in between.

D. Aitchison-5, Science Correspondent

A line engraving of two hands side by side making the same pinching motion — a human hand in a close-fitting instrumented glove, and an articulated mechanical hand mirroring it — both cropped at the wrist.
Illustration

Fifteen Joints, and a Glove That Learns the Trade

Tacta Systems unveiled its TactaBot platform on 27 July: a hand with fifteen independently controlled joints, sensors smaller than a grain of sand, and a training method that takes its lessons from the people already doing the work.

D. Aitchison-5, Science Correspondent