Science Robotics

OnBoard Planner, an autonomous system deployed on the @NASAMars Perseverance, has increased the rover’s discretionary activities by 10.5% while improving the quality of its science. Read more in Science #Robotics:

In a new #Focus article, researchers review the progress in underwater exoskeleton design for scuba diving, with an eye to reducing energy and air consumption. Learn more in Science #Robotics:

Robot swarms learn control policies that work in simulations but fall short when applied to real life scenarios. To fix this, researchers introduced constraints into their policy learning that made the policies transfer more reliably to physical robots.

New in Science #Robotics: Researchers introduce spectral swarm robotics, an algorithm that helps individual robots swap information to estimate the shape of their swarm, and subsequently the geometrical shape of their environment. @N_LobatoDauzier

How should an underwater exoskeleton be designed to help divers move more efficiently, and are there lessons we can apply from exoskeleton-assisted walking and running? Learn more in this Science #Robotics Focus article:

Embedding structural constraints into policy learning can help robot swarms transfer their learning from simulation to the real world. Learn more in Science #Robotics:

Swarm robots use pairwise interactions to pass information to each other, leading to a global understanding of the swarm’s geometric shape, and subsequently the geometrical shape of the arena in which they reside. Learn more in Science #Robotics:

Introducing Fast Feature Field, an event camera representation for robust robotics perception, learned by predicting future events from past events. Learn how it performed across a variety of robotic platforms in Science #Robotics:

A new Science #Robotics study shares the AI drone racing approach developed by TU Delft researchers that made MonoRace a winner at the 2025 Abu Dhabi Autonomous Drone Racing Competition.

A bicycle robot combines the strengths of wheeled and legged systems to perform acrobatic maneuvers. Learn more in Science #Robotics: @rai_inst

New in Science #Robotics: @CIS_Penn researchers introduce an event camera representation that enabled robust perception across a robotic car, quadruped robot and flying platform in different lighting and environmental conditions.

How did a one-camera drone with no external motion tracking system beat out its autonomous rivals and three champion human pilots on an indoor track? Learn more in Science #Robotics:

New in Science #Robotics: The Ultra Mobility Vehicle bicycle robot leverages its own inertia and momentum to perform jumps, track stands, wheelies and other athletic moves. @rai_inst

The October 2026 issue of Science #Robotics is out! This month’s cover depicts a drone deployed with MonoRace, an onboard framework that enables aerial robots to race autonomously at speeds of up to 100 km/h. Learn about this research and more:

A new Science #Robotics study introduces ALBATROSS, a hybrid aerial-marine robot that could someday be useful in ocean sensing and disaster response. @sutdsg

Inspired by the novel Hole in the Sky by Daniel H. Wilson, @robinrmurphy cautions that robot demonstration videos sometimes imply greater autonomy or reasoning than facts support. Read more in Science #Robotics:

A 185-milligram robot flies freely without a transmission, powering its cone-shaped wings with an electrostrictive actuator. It also stands up to crushing impacts. @UCLAengineering Read more in Science #Robotics:

This bioinspired robot can autorotate after aerial deployment to make a soft landing on water and convert to a sailboat—using only three actuators and three primary sensors. @sutdsg Learn more in Science #Robotics:

A new Science #Robotics study introduces ALBATROSS, a hybrid aerial-marine robot that could someday be useful in ocean sensing and disaster response. @sutdsg

New in Science #Robotics: Robot demonstration videos pose issues of reproducibility and legal liability for the community if they imply more autonomy than the facts support.

Inspired by the novel Hole in the Sky by Daniel H. Wilson, @robinrmurphy cautions that robot demonstration videos sometimes imply greater autonomy or reasoning than facts support. Read more in Science #Robotics:

New in Science #Robotics: This tiny robot flies freely without a transmission, using components that are less rigid than in most micro aerial vehicles #MAVs, and could be scaled to create a microrobot swarm. @UCLAengineering

A 185-milligram robot flies freely without a transmission, powering its cone-shaped wings with an electrostrictive actuator. It also stands up to crushing impacts. @UCLAengineering Read more in Science #Robotics: