Robotics

“Machine, Platform, Crowd: Harnessing Our Digital Future,” by Andrew McAfee (top) and Erik Brynjolfsson, published by W.W. Norton.

Q&A: Running a company in an era of “crazy technological progress”

New book by Andrew McAfee and Erik Brynjolfsson surveys tech’s challenges for business.

June 27, 2017

One of the researchers' quadcopter drones with wheels.

Drones that drive

CSAIL team’s system of quadcopters that fly and drive suggest another approach to developing flying cars.

June 26, 2017

Engineers design drones that can stay aloft for five days

New design could provide communication support in disaster zones.

June 6, 2017

A GelSight sensor attached to a robot’s gripper enables the robot to determine precisely where it has grasped a small screwdriver, removing it from and inserting it back into a slot, even when the gripper screens the screwdriver from the robot’s camera.

Giving robots a sense of touch

GelSight technology lets robots gauge objects’ hardness and manipulate small tools.

June 5, 2017

MIT researchers are developing a new surgical approach that would allow amputees to receive sensory feedback from their prosthetic limbs and improve their ability to control them.

Making prosthetic limbs feel more natural

Muscle grafts could help amputees sense and control artificial limbs.

May 31, 2017

Engineers at MIT have come up with an algorithm to tune a Dynamic Vision Sensor (DVS) camera, simplifying a scene to its most essential visual elements and potentially enabling the development of faster drones.

Faster, more nimble drones on the horizon

New algorithm quickly makes sense of incoming visual data.

May 25, 2017

Cinematography on the fly

System directs camera-equipped drones to maintain framing of an aerial shot.

May 17, 2017

"The new frontier is learning how to design the relationships between people, robots, and infrastructure," says David Mindell, the Dibner Professor of the History of Engineering and Manufacturing, and a professor of aeronautics and astronautics. "We need new sensors, new software, new ways of architecting systems."

Q&A: On the future of human-centered robotics

Professor David Mindell, who researches the interaction between automation and human behavior, discusses the interdependence of people, robots, and infrastructure.

May 15, 2017

An Imperial Snowtrooper inspects a competitor’s entry at the 2017 MIT Mechanical Engineering 2.007 Student Design Final Robot Competition.

The Force was strong in this robot competition

MechE class ends semester with ingeniously designed robots battling on a “Star Wars”-themed playing field.

May 15, 2017

MIT doctoral candidate Claudia Pérez-D'Arpino discusses her work teaching the Optimus robot to perform various tasks, including picking up a bottle.

Teaching robots to teach other robots

CSAIL approach allows robots to learn a wider range of tasks using some basic knowledge and a single demo.

May 10, 2017

MIT spinout New Valence Robotics (NVBOTS) has brought to market the only fully automated commercial 3-D printer that’s equipped with cloud-based queuing and automatic part removal, making print jobs quicker and easier for multiple users, and dropping the cost per part.

Making 3-D printing as simple as printing on paper

Startup’s cloud-based system allows for project queuing by multiple users and automated part removal.

May 4, 2017

MIT researchers have designed a system that can 3-D print the basic structure of an entire building. The system consists of a tracked vehicle that carries a large industrial robotic arm, which has a smaller, precision-motion robotic arm at its end.

3-D printing offers new approach to making buildings

Technology developed at MIT could enable faster, cheaper, more adaptable building construction.

April 26, 2017

Making better decisions when outcomes are uncertain

A simple statistical trick could help make a ubiquitous model of decision processes more accurate.

March 21, 2017

Engineers have designed a microfluidic device they call a “tree-on-a-chip,” which mimics the pumping mechanism of trees and other plants.

Engineers design “tree-on-a-chip”

Microfluidic device generates passive hydraulic power, may be used to make small robots move.

March 20, 2017

The Nereis virens worm inspired new research out of the MIT Laboratory for Atomistic and Molecular Mechanics. Its jaw is made of soft organic material, but is as strong as harder materials such as human dentin.

Worm-inspired material strengthens, changes shape in response to its environment

A bio-inspired gel material developed at MIT could help engineers control movements of soft robots.