I am beginning to think the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology has an obsession with biomimicry—in particular, how it lands. First, they created an ornithopter bot-bird that perches, and now the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne has developed an unmanned aerial vehicle that is literally a tree-hugger.
I think biomimicry for a bird is clearly more challenging than, say, land or water-based animals. Why? Because in addition to making it fly like a bird and perhaps look like one with feathers and all to blend in with the real birds, it has to land like one too. […]
It’s a car. It’s a quadruped. It’s a humanoid. No, it’s a Swiss-Mile Robot! Swiss-Mile here are two things: It’s a spinoff of ETH Zurich, the academic institution behind the Spot-like quadruped robot called ANYmal and it is the name of an improved version of ANYmal – especially in the […]
Nearly everyone one knows how to build a drone, but only a handful decided that they should do it differently and actually innovates. CycloTech, ADIFO, Festo, and Passerine are among some of the handful innovators, and now, Switzerland’s École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) aka Swiss Federal Institute of Technology […]
Electric car can hardly make the ideal mileage even with the space it has to pack more batteries. Having said that, an electric motorcycle’s performance in the rages department is far worst and that is precisely the problem a bunch of engineering students from ETH Zurich (Swiss Federal Institute of […]
Disaster is an inevitable part of life. While we can’t stop it from striking, we can, however, be prepared so that when it does strike, we have what it takes to salvage the situation and save lives. Thanks to technological advancement in the robotic development, more lives can be saved […]
When it comes to biomimicry, EPFL, or Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, is no stranger, but the Zebrafish robot you see here took the institute’s biomimicry technology to a new level of small because, Zebrafish. Granted, at 7 centimeters (2.75 inches) long, this bares-it-all tiny robotic fish is a tad […]
When we think robots, we think of two things: conflicts and how they can replace manual work, but not in the case of Pleurobot, a salamander-like robot developed by Biorobotics Laboratory (BioRob) of Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL). This particular robot mimics the natural movements of the beautiful amphibious […]
The term “wheelchair-friendly” may well be a thing of the past – thanks to a group of 10 Swiss mechanical and electrical engineering students from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and the Zurich University of the Arts who have invented a new, futuristic wheelchair that climbs stairs. And when […]
The now-popular configuration of drone, i.e. quad or multi rotor setup, makes them difficult to stowaway. Even the smallest of drones can’t fit into your pocket without breaking a rotor or two. That’s probably not a concern for hobbyists who rather the drone be bigger for visual clarity sake when […]