What You Say Is What You Did

A new European project hopes to make robots more trustworthy

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Year by year, robots become better and better at negotiating each time more complex social interactions with humans. However, much as their social intelligence has improved, these interactions still suffer from a lack of transparency. In other words, unlike humans, robots are not capable of understanding and explaining their actions in intentional terms, which prevents them from having more effective communication with humans. To the joy of robots and humans alike, this challenge is now addressed by the What You Say Is What You Did (WYSIWYD) project, launched earlier this year.

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Living Machines 2014

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The 3rd Conference on Biomimetic and Biohybrid Systems will be held this year from 30 July to 1 August in Milan. As has become a tradition, the three-day event, organised by the Convergent Science Network, will be hosted at a fantastic venue consistent with the spirit of the conference: the Da Vinci Museum of Science and Technology, one of the largest technology museums in Europe.

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Car-sized Crabster robot is the new king of the ocean floor

Crabs know their way around the ocean floor. These crawling creatures live in all the waters of the world, so if we want to learn something new about underwater exploration, it might be a good idea to take some cues from them. And this is precisely what a research team at the Korean Institute of Ocean Science and Technology did.

After two years of investigation, the team, led by Bong-Huan Jun, developed Crabster CR 200, a car-sized robot inspired by crustaceans and designed to survey shipwrecks and other areas of scientific interest.

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Festo unveils a jumping kangaroo robot

Source: Festo

Source: Festo

The German automation company has once again secured its place at the cutting edge of bionic technology.

This time Festo came up with a life-like kangaroo robot that realistically emulates the jumping dynamics of a natural kangaroo. The robot is expected to be officially unveiled this week at Hannover Messe.

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Wings and fins bend…in the same way

1024px-Southern_right_whale_caudal_fin-2_no_skyWhat do a bat, a jellyfish and a humpback whale have in common? For one thing, these animals use their natural propulsors, such as wings, bells and flukes, to move through their environment, be it air or water. Last week a group of researchers published a study in Nature Communications that indicates that these and many other animals from distantly related groups seem to have attended the same school of propulsion. And one of the subjects they studied there was all about being flexible.

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Swarm construction

Watch these termite-inspired robots in action 

Termites are some of nature’s most magnificent architects that can easily build complex mounds that exceed their own size by several orders of magnitude – occasionally reaching up to nine meters in height. Paradoxically enough, each of these tiny insects does not have even a remote idea of what kind of structure it is building, nor does it receive orders from any termite authority. In fact, the termites’ architectural prowess makes no sense except in the context of swarm intelligence.

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Biomimetic robots at Robot SafariEU in London

1470230_10152443459874676_205650588_nRoboticists from across Europe showcased the most advanced biomimetic robots so far at the Robot SafariEU, an event organized by the Science Museum of London. The Robot SafariEU offered its visitors a special experience with a unique landscape of synthetic creatures able to run very fast like robot cheetah, stretch their wings like the rob-bat, crawl like the robot salamander, swim like a fish or like the robotic turtle U-CAT that is built to explore the deep seas. Continue reading

IROS 2013

IROS 2013

This year’s International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS2013) was held in Tokyo, Japan— a globally recognized hotspot for some of the most fascinating robots on earth. Under the name of New Horizon, this conference aimed to get participants looking forward towards a new era of intelligent systems capable of meeting the needs of the fast-changing times we live in.
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Bio-Inspired Flight Takes Off

While creepy, crawly, or just plain gross, insects are in fact the object of many scientists’ affections.Those involved in the field of biomimicry are attempting to figure out exactly how some of these fascinating critters have honed in on some pretty amazing skills.
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Living Machines 2013

What’s the relationship between living and artificial systems? How can we combine the two to form sophisticated solutions to challenges in science and engineering? The annual conference Living Machines puts these questions under the microscope.
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