Robotics | MIT News | Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Oct 28, 2024 · Combining next-token prediction and video diffusion in computer vision and robotics. A new method can train a neural network to sort corrupted data while anticipating next steps. It can make flexible plans for robots, generate high-quality video, and help AI agents navigate digital environments.
What is a robot? - New Scientist
The word “robot” was coined by the Czech writer Karel Čapek in a 1920 play called Rossum’s Universal Robots, and is derived from the Czech robota, meaning “drudgery” or “servitude”.
Computer-aided creativity in robot design - MIT News
Nov 30, 2020 · Choosing the best robot design requires controlling each robot’s movements and evaluating its function. “Up until now, these robots are just structures,” says Zhao. The controller is the set of instructions that brings those structures to life, governing the movement sequence of the robot’s various motors.
A better way to control shape-shifting soft robots
May 10, 2024 · Here, a reconfigurable robot learns to elongate and curve its soft body to weave around obstacles and reach a target. Image: Courtesy of the researchers “Such a robot could have thousands of small pieces of muscle to control, so it is very hard to learn in a traditional way,” says Chen.
Helping robots zero in on the objects that matter - MIT News
Sep 30, 2024 · MIT engineers have developed a method that enables robots to make similarly intuitive, task-relevant decisions. The team’s new approach, named Clio, enables a robot to identify the parts of a scene that matter, given the tasks at hand. With Clio, a robot takes in a list of tasks described in natural language and, based on those tasks, it then ...
Designing customized “brains” for robots - MIT News
Jan 21, 2021 · MIT researchers have developed an automated way to design customized hardware, or “brains,” that speeds up a robot’s operation. Contemporary robots can move quickly. “The motors are fast, and they’re powerful,” says Sabrina Neuman. Yet in complex situations, like interactions with people, robots often don’t move quickly.
The new wave of robotic automation - MIT News
Jun 16, 2021 · Peter Howard SM ’84 is the CEO of Realtime Robotics, a startup transforming autonomous robot motion planning to enable seamless, affordable human-robot collaboration. Realtime Robotics has developed a combination of proprietary software and hardware that reduces system deployment time by 70 percent or more, reduces deployment costs by 30 ...
Massachusetts Institute of Technology - MIT News
Mar 6, 2017 · Intuitive human-robot interaction. Past work in EEG-controlled robotics has required training humans to “think” in a prescribed way that computers can recognize. For example, an operator might have to look at one of two bright light displays, each of which corresponds to a different task for the robot to execute.
Dexterous robotic hands manipulate thousands of objects with ease
Nov 12, 2021 · Not only does the robot need to manipulate the object, but also circumvent gravity so it doesn’t fall down. The team found that a simple approach could solve complex problems. They used a model-free reinforcement learning algorithm (meaning the system has to figure out value functions from interactions with the environment) with deep learning ...
How to help humans understand robots - MIT News
Mar 2, 2022 · Researchers from MIT and Harvard suggest that applying theories from cognitive science and educational psychology to the area of human-robot interaction can help humans build more accurate mental models of their robot collaborators, which could boost performance and improve safety in cooperative workspaces. Credits. Image: MIT News, iStockphoto.