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Researchers at ETH Zurich and the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems have developed a robotic leg with artificial muscles. Inspired by living creatures, it jumps across different terrains in an agile and energy-efficient manner. Inventors and researchers have been developing robots for almost 70 years.

In a new study, scientists found that rhinoceros beetles use passive mechanisms to deploy and retract wings instead of muscles. The findings inspired them to design a new microrobot, demonstrating a simple, yet effective, approach to the design of insect-like flying micromachines. Birds, bats, and bees all'use distinct muscles to deploy and retract their wings.

A fully edible robot could soon end up on our plate if we overcome some technical hurdles, say scientists involved in RoboFood - an project which aims to marry robots and food. Robots and food have long been distant worlds: Robots are inorganic, bulky, and non-disposable; food is organic, soft, and biodegradable.

In 2016, the BBC commissioned two reptilian robots from the BioRob laboratory for a documentary on the African wilderness. The scientists never imagined how testing the devices in the wild would change their approach to robotic design. Auke Ijspeert and his team at the Laboratory of Biorobotics ( BioRob ) in EPFL's Faculty of Engineering had already tested their bio-informed robots in the wild.

A four-legged robot trained with machine learning by researchers has learned to avoid falls by spontaneously switching between walking, trotting, and pronking - a milestone for roboticists as well as biologists interested in animal locomotion. With the help of a form of machine learning called deep reinforcement learning (DRL), the EPFL robot notably learned to transition from trotting to pronking - a leaping, arch-backed gait used by animals like springbok and gazelles - to navigate a challenging terrain with gaps ranging from 14-30cm.

Researchers are targeting the next generation of soft actuators and robots with an elastomer-based ink for 3D printing objects with locally changing mechanical properties, eliminating the need for cumbersome mechanical joints. For engineers working on soft robotics or wearable devices, keeping things light is a constant challenge: heavier materials require more energy to move around, and - in the case of wearables or prostheses - cause discomfort.

Researchers have developed a haptic device capable of reproducing the softness of various materials, from a marshmallow to a beating heart, overcoming a deceptively complex challenge that has previously eluded roboticists. The perception of softness can be taken for granted, but it plays a crucial role in many actions and interactions - from judging the ripeness of an avocado to conducting a medical exam, or holding the hand of a loved one.

It abseils from a height and swings around obstacles: robot Avocado will one day manoeuvre through the canopy of the rainforest and collect data for researchers about this hard-to-reach habitat. It's called Avocado and does actually look a bit like one: currently being developed by researcher on, the innovative robot has a robust housing similar in shape to the green fruit.

Researchers at ETH Zurich have recently developed artificial muscles for robot motion. Their solution offers several advantages over previous technologies: it can be used wherever robots need to be soft rather than rigid or where they need more sensitivity when interacting with their environment. Many roboticists dream of building robots that are not just a combination of metal or other hard materials and motors but also softer and more adaptable.

It is extremely time-consuming to measure how sound behaves in a room. The Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts and the hearing aid manufacturer Sonova have therefore developed robots that can take over this task. This serves to improve hearing aids in rooms with a lot of background noise.

Scientists show that breathing may be used to control a wearable extra robotic arm in healthy individuals, without hindering control of other parts of the body. Neuroengineer Silvestro Micera develops advanced technological solutions to help people regain sensory and motor functions that have been lost due to traumatic events or neurological disorders.

In a step toward more autonomous soft robots and wearable technologies, researchers have created a device that uses color to simultaneously sense multiple mechanical and temperature stimuli. Robotics researchers have already made great strides in developing sensors that can perceive changes in position, pressure, and temperature - all of which are important for technologies like wearable devices and human-robot interfaces.

For the first time, researchers have succeeded in printing a robotic hand with bones, ligaments and tendons made of different polymers using a new laser scanning technique. 3D printing is advancing rapidly, and the range of materials that can be used has expanded considerably. While the technology was previously limited to fast-curing plastics, it has now been made suitable for slow-curing plastics as well.

A new ETH study compares 27 humanoid robots with humans and comes to the conclusion that while robots have better components, they are still not capable of achieving as much.

Researchers have designed a bio-inspired robot with a novel trimmed helicoid structure that allows for a wide range of motion and safe interaction with humans. At EPFL's CREATE lab , under the guidance of Josie Hughes, a breakthrough has been made in the realm of soft robotics. Drawing inspiration from the versatile movement of elephant trunks and octopus tentacles, the team introduced the trimmed helicoid - a novel robotic structure that promises greater compliance and control in robotic designs.

For his Master's project at EPFL, Mickaël Achkar compiled data on the movements of dogs to develop a robotic version of the animal that, once set in motion, can run without assistance. Engineers at EPFL's Computational Robot Design & Fabrication Lab (CREATE), headed by Prof. Josie Hughes, are coming up with new ways of building robots possessing never-before-seen capabilities.

Swiss engineers are training legged robots for future lunar missions that will search for minerals and raw materials. To ensure that the robots can continue to work even if one of them malfunctions, the researchers are teaching them teamwork. On the Moon, there are raw materials that humanity could one day mine and use.

Researchers at EPFL have developed the first system that enables four-arm laparoscopic surgery by controlling two additional robotic arms via haptic foot interfaces. Roboticists at EPFL have combined multi-limb manipulation with advanced shared control augmentation for an unprecedented advance in the field of laparoscopic surgery.

Researchers from Empa and Imperial College London are developing a heat-resistant drone that can analyze the source of danger at close range in the event of a building or forest fire. This allows firefighters to optimize the strategy of a high-risk operation before entering the danger zone. Where others rush out, they have to go in: Firefighters put themselves in dangerous situations during rescue operations - sometimes right in the midst of a sea of flames.