Robotics

“Hydrogels are soft, wet, biocompatible, and can form more friendly interfaces with human organs,” says Xuanhe Zhao, associate professor of mechanical engineering and civil and environmental engineering at MIT.

Transparent, gel-based robots can catch and release live fish

Made from hydrogel, robots may one day assist in surgical operations, evade underwater detection.

February 1, 2017

Fadel Adib has joined the Media Lab faculty to head the new research group Signal Kinetics.

Fadel Adib joins Media Lab faculty

Adib is directing a new research group at the Media Lab, aiming to uncover, analyze, and engineer natural and human-made networks.

January 27, 2017

Professor Daniela Rus stands with autonomous SMART vehicles on the MIT campus.

SMART automation

MIT Professor Daniela Rus combines automation and mobility to create a smarter world.

January 19, 2017

The Ethics and Governance of Artificial Intelligence Fund will support work around the world that advances the development of artificial intelligence in the public interest.

MIT Media Lab to participate in $27 million initiative on AI ethics and governance

Fund establishes a global initiative to advance artificial intelligence research for the public good.

January 10, 2017

In 2016, MIT CSAIL researchers worked on a range of projects in robotics, theory, wireless technology, software systems, and other disciplines.

Ingestible robots, glasses-free 3-D, and computers that explain themselves

A look at 16 of the coolest things that happened at the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory in 2016.

December 16, 2016

“Say there are toxic gases leaking in a building, and you need to close a valve inside, but it’s dangerous to send people in,” says Sangbae Kim, associate professor of mechanical engineering at MIT. “Now, there is no single robot that can do this kind of job. I want to create a robotic first responder that can potentially do more than a human and help in our lives.”

Taking a leap in bioinspired robotics

Mechanical engineer Sangbae Kim builds animal-like machines for use in disaster response.

December 16, 2016

A new technique devised by MIT researchers can take data sets with huge numbers of variables and find approximations of them with far fewer variables.

Making big data manageable

Technique shrinks data sets while preserving their fundamental mathematical relationships.

December 14, 2016

A four-rotor "bunnycopter" developed at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory features propellers at different heights.

Design your own custom drone

CSAIL system lets users design and fabricate drones with a wide range of shapes and structures.

December 5, 2016

An autonomous mobility scooter and related software were designed by researchers from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), the National University of Singapore, and the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART).

Driverless-vehicle options now include scooters

Self-driving scooter demonstrated at MIT complements autonomous golf carts and city cars.

November 7, 2016

Electric motors find new roles in robots, ships, cars, and microgrids

James Kirtley discusses the transition from gas to electric motors and the impact these motors have had on modern technologies.

October 24, 2016

“One thing you realize working in this lab is that we are really far away from the robot apocalypse,” says MIT senior Sarah Hensley, who is working with a team of researchers to prepare Valkyrie, a humanoid robot, for future space missions.

Prepping a robot for its journey to Mars

Senior Sarah Hensley aims to improve Earth's most advanced humanoid robot, in advance of its trip to the Red Planet.

October 18, 2016

MIT researchers outfitted their cube robot with shock-absorbing “skins” (left) that transfer less than half of the energy that would normally be transferred to the ground.

3-D-printed robots with shock-absorbing skins

By “programming” customized soft materials, CSAIL team can 3-D print safer, nimbler, more durable robots.

October 3, 2016

ROBOAT, a new collaboration between researchers from MIT and partner institutions in the Netherlands, seeks to design and deploy a fleet of autonomous boats on the canals of Amsterdam.

An autonomous fleet for Amsterdam

MIT, AMS Institute will collaborate to solve complex urban problems for Amsterdam with the development of autonomous "roboats."

September 19, 2016

A new system that can anticipate room assignments and suggest which nurses to assign to patients for C-sections and other procedures provided satisfactory recommendations to nurses 90 percent of the time.

Robot helps nurses schedule tasks on labor floor

System from Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab suggests where to move patients and who should do C-sections.

July 13, 2016

“It’s intuitive that if a bunch of people are randomly walking around an area, the number of times they bump into each other will be a surrogate of the population density,” says Cameron Musco, an MIT graduate student in electrical engineering and computer science. “What we’re doing is giving a rigorous analysis behind that intuition, and also saying that the estimate is a very good estim...

Exploring networks efficiently

Analysis of ant colony behavior could yield better algorithms for network communication.