Computer science and technology

MIT team places sixth at international DARPA Robotics Challenge

CSAIL team just misses winning the grand prize after programming a 400-lb humanoid robot to lift beams, climb stairs, and drive a car.

June 8, 2015

Researchers are using a small group of robotic helicopters to address the problem of drone package delivery. The scenario includes base stations (marked with a "B") and destinations (marked with a "D"). The colored lines represent the planned paths of the 4 helicopters.

Helping robots handle uncertainty

Algorithm for planning multirobot collaborations makes complex models practical.

June 2, 2015

A new tool measures the distance between phonon collisions

Tabletop setup provides more nuanced picture of heat production in microelectronics.

June 1, 2015

MIT researchers have trained their robotic cheetah to see and jump over hurdles as it runs — making this the first four-legged robot to run and jump over obstacles autonomously.

MIT cheetah robot lands the running jump

Robot sees, clears hurdles while bounding at 5 mph.

May 29, 2015

MIT researchers tested the viability of their algorithm by using it to guide a crew of three robots in the assembly of a chair.

Helping robots put it all together

New algorithm lets autonomous robots divvy up assembly tasks on the fly.

May 27, 2015

"sound" icon, with soundwaves emanating and hitting a pole

Gauging materials’ physical properties from video

“Visual microphone” technology could lead to noninvasive identification of objects’ structural defects.

May 21, 2015

To handle big data, shrink it

Algorithm reduces size of data sets while preserving their mathematical properties.

May 20, 2015

Beth Hadley and Margaret Marie at The Boston Home

Empowerment through mobile technology and co-design

MIT students improve the quality of life, safety, and independence of The Boston Home residents with InstaAid mobile application.

May 18, 2015

Learn a language while you text

Graduate student's “WaitChatter” app teaches vocabulary during moments in between text and instant-message replies.

May 14, 2015

Photo of green apples, in front of a camera with viewfinder showing green apples

Removing reflections from photos taken through windows

New algorithm exploits multiple reflections in individual images to distinguish reflection from transmission.

May 11, 2015

The first layers (1 and 2) of a neural network trained to classify scenes seem to be tuned to geometric patterns of increasing complexity, but the higher layers (3 and 4) appear to be picking out particular classes of objects.

Object recognition for free

System designed to label visual scenes according to type turns out to detect particular objects, too.

May 8, 2015

Researchers watch underwater footage taken by various AUVs exploring Australia's Scott Reef.

MIT engineers hand “cognitive” control to underwater robots

With MIT-developed algorithms, robots plan underwater missions autonomously.

May 6, 2015

MIT spinout Verayo has created technology that tracks random variations in silicon chips to assign them unique "fingerprints." Integrated into radio frequency identification tags (shown here), the chips can be scanned by a mobile device or reader to determine if the tag is authentic.

“Fingerprinting” chips to fight counterfeiting

MIT spinout uses random variations in silicon chips as authentication identifiers for consumer products.

April 30, 2015

A new memory-access protocol assigns every memory address to a single path (green) through a data structure known as a tree. But a given node of the tree will often lie along multiple paths (blue).

Cloud security reaches silicon

System for defending against memory-access attacks implemented in chips.

April 23, 2015

Graduate students Justin Chen and Neal Wadhwa set up a video camera to record the movement of MIT's Green Building.

Magnifying vibrations in bridges and buildings

Researchers apply computer vision technique to see tiny vibrations in large structures.