Robotics podcasts

Luca Pellegrino and Gabriele Intermite discuss a light-responsive synthetic skin inspired by cephalopod camouflage and specialised polymers used in protective clothing. Leonardo Maccari interviews Ion Turcanu about digital twins for autonomous and remote driving, connecting materials research with an applied technology discussion.

Hosted by Luca Pellegrino, Gabriele Intermite

Paul Middlebrooks and Patryk Laurent examine how principles drawn from brains could help artificial intelligence learn from the real world. Laurent connects experience in neuroscience and AI with questions about perception, action, prediction and generalization. The conversation considers learning from continuous video, what embodied robotic systems reveal about intelligence, the relationship between language models and other forms of learning, and which biological details may matter when developing more capable AI.

Hosted by Paul Middlebrooks

Heinrich Jaeger explains how granular jamming can turn a soft bag of particles into a rigid gripper capable of grasping objects with different shapes. The discussion connects the physics of interacting grains with the design of compliant robots and a universal gripper developed by an interdisciplinary research team. Andrzej Grzesiak then describes a bio-inspired manipulator developed with Festo: additive manufacturing, an elephant-trunk-like arm and a fish-fin-inspired gripping mechanism provide alternatives to conventional rigid industrial manipulators.