Robotics & AI

Novel drone shapeshifts mid-flight

01/19/22 — Interesting Engineering: Researchers at Berkeley's High Performance Robotics Laboratory (HiPeRLab) have developed an experimental drone called the Midair Reconfigurable Quadcopter that can shape-shift in midair, as seen in the lab's video.

AI-directed legged robot in uneven terrain

Awesome agility

11/15/21 — AI algorithms are equipping legged robots with an enhanced ability to navigate and adapt to unfamiliar terrain in real time.

The language of probabilities

11/15/21 — An AI system took first place in the 2021 American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, besting more than a thousand human contestants.

AI pioneer Stuart Russell named 2021 Reith Lecturer

10/14/21 — Premier series of annual lectures, sponsored by the BBC, aims to advance public understanding and discourse of the major issues confronting the world

Can bats help us design a better driverless car?

10/05/21 — Bakar Fellows: Bioengineer Michael Yartsev is translating bats’ neurological "rules of the road" into computational algorithms to guide development of navigation systems for driverless cars

High school students mark end of ROAR Academy with celebratory race

08/17/21 — Parts of the UC Berkeley campus were converted into a racecourse for high school students on Saturday (Aug. 14) as part of a Robot Open Autonomous Racing (ROAR) competition. The event capped the summer ROAR Academy in which dozens of students worked with autonomous driving algorithms and tested them in Python-based environments. The ROAR competition […]

New AI strategy enables robots to rapidly adapt to real-world environments

07/09/21 — Rapid motor adaptation system outperformed peers in navigating unfamiliar terrain

Insect-sized robot scurrying through scattered pieces of brick.

Insect-sized robot navigates mazes with the agility of a cheetah

07/02/21 — Flexible, durable robot developed by mechanical engineering professor Liwei Lin's team could become an asset for search and rescue operations

Nicholas Tomlin, Dan Klein, and Eric Wallace

The language of probabilities

05/13/21 — Professor Dan Klein and his Berkeley Natural Language Processing Group helped a computer win the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament

The robot surgeon will see you now

05/03/21 New York Times — Real scalpels, artificial intelligence — what could go wrong? That's what the researchers and doctors in Ken Goldberg's lab aim to find out.

Time-lapse photo of robotic arm grasping and moving various objects

Smooth operator

04/26/21 — A research team has developed AI software that allows robotic arms to quickly grasp and move objects in a steady motion.

Using AI to eliminate traffic jams

03/13/21 Fortune — ITS Director Alex Bayen explains how autonomous vehicles can help traffic flow more smoothly.

wearable biosensors in armband as hand makes gestures

Talk to the hand? New device can recognize gestures

12/21/20 — The armband, which combines wearable biosensors with artificial intelligence, could be used to control prosthetics or interact with electronic devices

Ambidextrous wins ‘Good Robot’ award for overall excellence

12/15/20 Silicon Valley Robotics — Berkeley-founded startup honored for its versatile e-commerce robots with an AI-enhanced operating system

UC Berkeley-led team receives $8.4M for AI-based approaches to cyber-physical systems

12/10/20 — Project proposes a novel approach that blends AI and machine learning with guidance from human and computational oracles

Deep learning helps robots grasp and move objects with ease

11/18/20 — Combining neural networks with motion planning software gives robots the speed and skill to assist in warehouse environments

UC Berkeley team advances food systems in new $20M research center

08/26/20 — Campus expertise in simulation technologies will play a key role in the new AI Institute for Next Generation Food Systems

Berkeley leads $10M program to probe foundations of deep learning

08/25/20 CDSS — EECS professors to head five-year, multi-institution research project funded by NSF, Simons Foundation

Robot see, robot do, AI-style

06/17/20 Engadget — Berkeley Engineering researchers, in collaboration with an Intel team, have taught a surgical robot to suture by showing it surgical videos of actual doctors.

Learning to learn

04/14/20 — Researchers are using deep reinforcement learning techniques to equip robots with cutting-edge artificial intelligence capabilities.