The Robotics Collection

This expert in biohybrid robotics is rewriting the book on how to build autonomous machines. That’s why she’s on Mechanical Engineering’s Watch List 2025.

Reliable machines—mechanical versions of human shoulders, arms, and hands—do most of the industrial pulling, pushing, pressing, and lifting and are now moving out of the factories into the real world.

New wearable technology has implications for both social and medical applications as the knitted sleeve allows wearers to interact with the world through pressure-based haptics.

Roboticists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have developed a tiny, yet powerful robot that more accurately mimics the bumblebee.

Leo Ma, founder and CEO of AI robotics startup RoboForce, chats with ASME TechCast about his “Robo-Labor” system and what it takes to go from concept to commercialization.

Using the central nervous system as inspiration, researchers from Université Libre de Bruxelles have developed a hybrid approach to programming self-organizing groups of robots.

MobiPrint—a mobile 3D printer—can produce custom designs directly where needed to help users with accessibility or to add an extra bit of fun to any living space.

Researchers at the University of Michigan have developed a new kind of exoskeleton to better support lifting and carrying.

The one-time trailblazer, Rethink Robotics has introduced a new line of robots to meet the needs of industry.

Attach an auxetic structure—that expands when pulled on—to a servo motor and you’ve got a more useful hardy soft robot.

A shape memory polymer allows the gripper to be more efficient than a purely hydraulic system. Roboticists may soon create miniature tools for minimally invasive surgery.

Like schools of fish or flocks of birds, “smart swarms” of micro-robots move in concert based on what’s happening in the environment.

With six arms, a Kiwi drive, and custom detectors designed for contact-based pollination, the precision Stickbug reaches flowers growing above the greenhouse floor while navigating narrow plant rows.

As an add-on to electric or hydraulic motors, an efficient spring-assisted actuator could be a “game changer” for robotics.

Northwestern University researchers have developed a method that allows robots to learn to perform new tasks reliably and safely using less data.

Despite advances in robotic components, a new study finds that modern robots lack the integration capabilities to support locomotion at the same level as the animals that often inspire their design.

Toyota Research Institute’s Punyo soft robot is an innovation in whole-body manipulation research.

Discover what a cognizant engineer is, and why it's important to broaden the engineering pipeline.

After contemplating a Lego, researchers at Carnegie Mellon have developed a small robot with complex mobility.