Soft robotics—machines made of flexible, muscle-like materials—can bend and stretch in fluid ways that put the rigid robots of old sci-fi movies to shame. But the flexibility that lets them pick ripe ...

Researchers have developed an AI control system that enables soft robotic arms to learn a wide repertoire of motions and tasks once, then adjust to new scenarios on the fly without needing retraining ...

Elizabeth Blackert is a Rice University doctoral alumna who is the first author on a study published in Advanced Intelligent Systems. HOUSTON – (June 9, 2025) – Researchers at Rice University have ...

Soon, a flexible octopus-like robot could be completely free of wires or internal electronics. Engineers at Rice University have unveiled a new soft robotic arm controlled by laser beams.

Researchers at Rice University, Houston, TX, have developed a soft robotic arm capable of performing complex tasks such as navigating around an obstacle or hitting a ball, guided and powered remotely ...

Prosthetic hands have long struggled to replicate the dexterity and functionality of natural hands, often limiting users to a single grasp function at a time. This limitation has made everyday tasks, ...

What if you could wear a robotic device that boosted your strength and endurance, making heavy lifting and other physical tasks feel almost effortless? In some labs and factories, that high-tech ...

In order for a VR environment to seem real, it definitely helps if you can experience the sensation of touch within that virtual world. A special sleeve could soon allow people to better do so, using ...

The day is coming when you may walk past a robot and have no idea it was a robot. Over years of engineering, we've given ...

This system is equipped with a hydraulic-driven 3 DOF-soft cutting arm and a 3-jaw teleoperated soft grasper system for cutting and grasping lesions inside the colon, respectively. The soft ...