10 Years of Automaton's Most Popular Stories
We've been writing about robots here at IEEE Spectrum for a long, long time. Erico started covering robotics for Spectrum in 2007, about the same time that Evan started BotJunkie.com. We joined forces in 2011, and have published thousands of articles since then, chronicling as many aspects of the field as we could. Autonomous cars, humanoids, legged robots, drones, robots in space-the last decade in robotics has been incredible.
To kick off 2020, we're taking a look back at our most popular posts of the last 10 years. In order, listed below are the 100 articles with the highest total page views, providing a cross-section of what was the most interesting in robotics from 2010 until now.
Also, sometime in the next several weeks, we plan to post a selection of our favorite stories, focusing on what we think were the biggest developments in robotics of the past decade (including a few things that, surprisingly, did not make the list below). If you have suggestions of important robot stories we should include, let us know. Thank you for reading!
#1
How Google's Self-Driving Car Works Google engineers explain the technology behind their self-driving car and show videos of road tests
By Erico Guizzo
Posted 18 Oct 2011
This Robot Can Do More Push-Ups Because It Sweats A robot that uses artificial sweat can cool its motors without bulky radiators
By Evan Ackerman
Posted 13 Oct 2016
Meet Geminoid F, a Smiling Female Android Geminoid F displays facial expressions more naturally than previous androids
By Erico Guizzo
Posted 3 Apr 2010
Latest Geminoid Is Incredibly Realistic Geminoid DK is a realistic android nearly indistinguishable from a real human
By Evan Ackerman
Posted 5 Mar 2011
The Next Generation of Boston Dynamics' ATLAS Robot Is Quiet, Robust, and Tether Free The latest ATLAS is by far the most advanced humanoid robot in existence
By Evan Ackerman & Erico Guizzo
Posted 23 Feb 2016
The Uncanny Valley: The Original Essay by Masahiro Mori "The Uncanny Valley" by Masahiro Mori is an influential essay in robotics. This is the first English translation authorized by Mori.
By Masahiro Mori
Posted 12 Jun 2012
NASA JSC Unveils Valkyrie DRC Robot NASA's DARPA Robotics Challenge entry is much more than Robonaut with legs: it's a completely new humanoid robot
By Evan Ackerman
Posted 10 Dec 2013
Origami Robot Folds Itself Up, Does Cool Stuff, Dissolves Into Nothing Tiny self-folding magnetically actuated robot creates itself when you want it, disappears when you don't
By Evan Ackerman
Posted 28 May 2015
Robots Bring Couple Together, Engagement Ensues Yes, you really can find love at an IEEE conference
By Evan Ackerman & Erico Guizzo
Posted 31 Mar 2014
Facebook AI Director Yann LeCun on His Quest to Unleash Deep Learning and Make Machines Smarter The Deep Learning expert explains how convolutional nets work, why Facebook needs AI, what he dislikes about the Singularity, and more
By Lee Gomes
Posted 18 Feb 2015
This Is the Most Amazing Biomimetic Anthropomorphic Robot Hand We've Ever Seen Luke Skywalker, your new robotic hand is ready
By Evan Ackerman
Posted 17 Feb 2016
Dutch Police Training Eagles to Take Down Drones Attack eagles are training to become part of the Dutch National Police anti-drone arsenal
By Evan Ackerman
Posted 1 Feb 2016
Sebastian Thrun and Peter Norvig are offering Stanford's "Introduction to Artificial Intelligence" course online, for free, grades and all
By Evan Ackerman
Posted 4 Aug 2011
Watch this high-speed robot hand cheat at rock, paper, scissors
By Evan Ackerman
Posted 26 Jun 2012
Using just a single spinning hemisphere mounted on a gimbal, this robot demonstrates some incredible agility
By Evan Ackerman
Posted 7 Jul 2011
An anonymous worker at Japan's Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant has written dozens of blog posts describing his experience as a lead robot operator at the crippled facility
By Erico Guizzo
Posted 23 Aug 2011
Should Quadrotors All Look Like This? Researchers say we've been designing quadrotors the wrong way
By Evan Ackerman
Posted 13 Nov 2013
Boston Dynamics' PETMAN Humanoid Robot Walks and Does Push-Ups Boston Dynamics releases stunning video showing off its most advanced humanoid robot
By Erico Guizzo
Posted 31 Oct 2011
Boston Dynamics' Spot Robot Dog Goes on Sale Here's everything we know about Boston Dynamics' first commercial robot
By Erico Guizzo
Posted 24 Sep 2019
Agility Robotics Introduces Cassie, a Dynamic and Talented Robot Delivery Ostrich One day, robots like these will be scampering up your steps to drop off packages
By Evan Ackerman
Posted 9 Feb 2017
Tokyo University researchers develop scanner that can capture 200 pages in one minute
By Erico Guizzo
Posted 17 Mar 2010
Masaaki Kumagai has built wheeled robots, crawling robots, and legged robots. Now he's built a robot that rides on a ball
By Erico Guizzo
Posted 29 Apr 2010
Microsoft's Kinect 3D motion detector has been hacked into lots of awesome robots, and here are our 10 favorites
By Evan Ackerman
Posted 7 Mar 2011
New video shows Boston Dynamics and DARPA putting AlphaDog through its paces
By Evan Ackerman
Posted 11 Sep 2012
How South Korea's DRC-HUBO Robot Won the DARPA Robotics Challenge This transformer robot took first place because it was fast, adaptable, and didn't fall down
By Erico Guizzo & Evan Ackerman
Posted 9 Jun 2015
U.S. Army Considers Replacing Thousands of Soldiers With Robots The U.S. Army could slash personnel numbers and toss in more robots instead
By Evan Ackerman
Posted 22 Jan 2014
Google Acquires Seven Robot Companies, Wants Big Role in Robotics The company is funding a major new robotics group and acquiring a bunch of robot startups
By Evan Ackerman & Erico Guizzo
Posted 4 Dec 2013
Who Is SCHAFT, the Robot Company Bought by Google and Winner of the DRC? Here's everything we know about this secretive robotics startup
By Erico Guizzo & Evan Ackerman
Posted 6 Feb 2014
Trains that levitate on cushions of air could be the future of fast and efficient travel, if this robot can figure out how to keep them stable
By Evan Ackerman
Posted 10 May 2011
I don't know where this little robot got its awesome bicycle, but it sure knows how to ride
By Evan Ackerman
Posted 24 Oct 2011
SRI Demonstrates Abacus, the First New Rotary Transmission Design in 50 Years Finally a gear system that could replace costly harmonic drives
By Evan Ackerman
Posted 19 Oct 2016
Robotic Micro-Scallops Can Swim Through Your Eyeballs Tiny robots modeled on scallops are able to swim through all the fluids in your body
By Evan Ackerman
Posted 4 Nov 2014
Boston Dynamics Officially Unveils Its Wheel-Leg Robot: "Best of Both Worlds" Handle is a humanoid robot on wheels, and it's amazing
By Erico Guizzo & Evan Ackerman
Posted 27 Feb 2017
iRobot Brings Visual Mapping and Navigation to the Roomba 980 The new robot vacuum uses VSLAM to navigate and clean larger spaces in satisfyingly straight lines
By Evan Ackerman & Erico Guizzo
Posted 16 Sep 2015
When Will We Have Robots To Help With Household Chores? Google, Microsoft, and Apple are investing in robots. Does that mean home robots are on the way?
By Satyandra K. Gupta
Posted 2 Jan 2014
Robots Playing Ping Pong: What's Real, and What's Not? Kuka's robot vs. human ping pong match looks to be more hype than reality
By Evan Ackerman
Posted 12 Mar 2014
BigDog Throws Cinder Blocks with Huge Robotic Face-Arm I don't know why BigDog needs a fifth limb to throw cinder blocks, but it's incredibly awesome
By Evan Ackerman
Posted 28 Feb 2013
Children Beating Up Robot Inspires New Escape Maneuver System Japanese researchers show that children can act like horrible little brats towards robots
By Kate Darling
Posted 6 Aug 2015
Boston Dynamics has just released some absolutely incredible video of their huge new quadruped robot, AlphaDog
By Evan Ackerman
Posted 30 Sep 2011
Building a Super Robust Robot Hand Researchers have built an anthropomorphic robot hand that can endure even strikes from a hammer without breaking into pieces
By Erico Guizzo
Posted 25 Jan 2011
Who's Afraid of the Uncanny Valley? To design the androids of the future, we shouldn't fear exploring the depths of the uncanny valley
By Erico Guizzo
Posted 2 Apr 2010
Why AlphaGo Is Not AI Google DeepMind's artificial intelligence AlphaGo is a big advance but it will not get us to strong AI
By Jean-Christophe Baillie
Posted 17 Mar 2016
Freaky Boneless Robot Walks on Soft Legs This soft, inflatable, and totally creepy robot from Harvard can get up and walk on four squishy legs
By Evan Ackerman
Posted 29 Nov 2011
Sweep Is a $250 LIDAR With Range of 40 Meters That Works Outdoors Finally an affordable LIDAR for robots and drones
By Evan Ackerman
Posted 6 Apr 2016
How Google Wants to Solve Robotic Grasping by Letting Robots Learn for Themselves 800,000 grasps is just the beginning for Google's large-scale robotic grasping project
By Evan Ackerman
Posted 28 Mar 2016
Whoa: Boston Dynamics Announces New WildCat Quadruped Robot A new robot from Boston Dynamics can run outdoors, untethered, at up to 25 km/h
By Evan Ackerman
Posted 3 Oct 2013
SCHAFT Unveils Awesome New Bipedal Robot at Japan Conference SCHAFT demos a new bipedal robot designed to "help society"
By Evan Ackerman & Erico Guizzo
Posted 8 Apr 2016
It only has one wheel, but Honda's futuristic personal mobility device is no pedal-pusher
By Anne-Marie Corley
Posted 12 Apr 2010
These little robots make up their own words to tell each other where they are and where they want to go
By Evan Ackerman
Posted 17 May 2011
Disney Robot With Air-Water Actuators Shows Off "Very Fluid" Motions Meet Jimmy, a robot puppet powered by fluid actuators
By Erico Guizzo
Posted 1 Sep 2016
What can you do with a $14 robot? Not much. What can you do with a thousand $14 robots? World domination
By Evan Ackerman
Posted 16 Jun 2011
Honda Robotics Unveils Next-Generation ASIMO Robot We heard some rumors that Honda was working on something big, and here it is: a brand new ASIMO
By Evan Ackerman
Posted 7 Nov 2011
Cybernetic Third Arm Makes Drummers Even More Annoying It keeps proper time and comes with an off switch, making this robotic third arm infinitely better than a human drummer
By Evan Ackerman
Posted 18 Feb 2016
"I am not a robot. I am a unicorn."
By Evan Ackerman
Posted 29 Aug 2011
Dean Kamen's "Luke Arm" Prosthesis Receives FDA Approval This advanced bionic arm for amputees has been approved for commercialization
By Erico Guizzo
Posted 13 May 2014
Over the next two years, robotics will be revolutionized, and here's how it's going to happen
By Evan Ackerman
Posted 24 Oct 2012
ReWalk Robotics's New Exoskeleton Lets Paraplegic Stroll the Streets of NYC Yesterday, a paralyzed man strapped on a pair of robotic legs and stepped out a hotel door in midtown Manhattan
By Eliza Strickland
Posted 15 Jul 2015
Drone Uses AI and 11,500 Crashes to Learn How to Fly Crashing into objects has taught this drone to fly autonomously, by learning what not to do
By Evan Ackerman
Posted 10 May 2017
Lego Announces Mindstorms EV3, a More 'Hackable' Robotics Kit Lego's latest Mindstorms kit has a new IR sensor, runs on Linux, and is compatible with Android and iOS apps
By Erico Guizzo & Stephen Cass
Posted 7 Jan 2013
Boston Dynamics' Marc Raibert on Next-Gen ATLAS: "A Huge Amount of Work" The founder of Boston Dynamics describes how his team built one of the most advanced humanoids ever
By Erico Guizzo & Evan Ackerman
Posted 24 Feb 2016
Other projects included a leashed auto-tweeting drone, and code to control a swarm of drones all at once
By Evan Ackerman
Posted 6 Dec 2012
DARPA Robotics Challenge: A Compilation of Robots Falling Down Gravity is a bad thing for robots
By Erico Guizzo & Evan Ackerman
Posted 6 Jun 2015
Bosch's Giant Robot Can Punch Weeds to Death A modular agricultural robot from Bosch startup Deepfield Robotics deals with weeds the old fashioned way: violently
By Evan Ackerman
Posted 12 Nov 2015
Japanese roboticists demonstrate a female android singing and dancing along with a troupe of human performers
By Erico Guizzo
Posted 2 Nov 2010
Five years ago few people had even heard of quadcopters. Now they seem to be everywhere
By Markus Waibel
Posted 19 Feb 2010
Video Friday: Professor Ishiguro's New Robot Child, and More Your weekly selection of awesome robot videos
By Evan Ackerman, Erico Guizzo & Fan Shi
Posted 3 Aug 2018
Drone Provides Colorado Flooding Assistance Until FEMA Freaks Out Drones can provide near real-time maps in weather that grounds other aircraft, but FEMA has banned them
By Evan Ackerman
Posted 16 Sep 2013
A Thousand Kilobots Self-Assemble Into Complex Shapes This is probably the most robots that have ever been in the same place at the same time, ever
By Evan Ackerman
Posted 14 Aug 2014
Boston Dynamics' SpotMini Is All Electric, Agile, and Has a Capable Face-Arm A fun-sized version of Spot is the most domesticated Boston Dynamics robot we've seen
By Evan Ackerman
Posted 23 Jun 2016
Kenshiro Robot Gets New Muscles and Bones This humanoid is trying to mimic the human body down to muscles and bones
By Angelica Lim
Posted 10 Dec 2012
Roomba Inventor Joe Jones on His New Weed-Killing Robot, and What's So Hard About Consumer Robotics The inventor of the Roomba tells us about his new solar-powered, weed-destroying robot
By Evan Ackerman
Posted 6 Jul 2017
George Devol: A Life Devoted to Invention, and Robots George Devol's most famous invention-the first programmable industrial robot-started a revolution in manufacturing that continues to this day
By Bob Malone
Posted 26 Sep 2011
Here's an estimate of the number of industrial and service robots worldwide
By Erico Guizzo
Posted 14 Apr 2010
U.S. Senator Calls Robot Projects Wasteful. Robots Call Senator Wasteful U.S. Senator Tom Coburn criticizes the NSF for squandering "millions of dollars on wasteful projects," including three that involve robots
By Erico Guizzo
Posted 14 Jun 2011
Inception Drive: A Compact, Infinitely Variable Transmission for Robotics A novel nested-pulley configuration forms the heart of a transmission that could make robots safer and more energy efficient
By Evan Ackerman & Celia Gorman
Posted 20 Sep 2017
iRobot has released video showing a Warrior robot deploying an anti-personnel obstacle breaching system
By John Palmisano
Posted 30 May 2010
Nearly a quarter of the year is already behind us, but we thought we'd spend some time looking at the months ahead and make some predictions about what's going to be big in robotics
By Erico Guizzo & Travis Deyle
Posted 20 Mar 2012
DRC Finals: CMU's CHIMP Gets Up After Fall, Shows How Awesome Robots Can Be The most amazing run we saw all day came from CHIMP, which was the only robot to fall and get up again
By Evan Ackerman & Erico Guizzo
Posted 5 Jun 2015
Lethal Microdrones, Dystopian Futures, and the Autonomous Weapons Debate The future of weaponized robots requires a reasoned discussion, not scary videos
By Evan Ackerman
Posted 15 Nov 2017
For just $200, this kit from a CMU spinoff company is a great way for total beginners to get started building robots
By Evan Ackerman
Posted 11 Jul 2012
Beautiful Fluid Actuators from Disney Research Make Soft, Safe Robot Arms Routing forces through air and water allows for displaced motors and safe, high-performance arms
By Evan Ackerman
Posted 9 Oct 2014
Watch a brand new video of Boston Dynamics' Sand Flea robot jumping 10 meters into the air
By Evan Ackerman
Posted 28 Mar 2012
Canadian filmmaker Rob Spence has replaced his false eye with a bionic camera eye. He showed us his latest prototype
By Tim Hornyak
Posted 11 Jun 2010
We Should Not Ban 'Killer Robots,' and Here's Why What we really need is a way of making autonomous armed robots ethical, because we're not going to be able to prevent them from existing
By Evan Ackerman
Posted 28 Jul 2015
Yale's Robot Hand Copies How Your Fingers Work to Improve Object Manipulation These robotic fingers can turn friction on and off to make it easier to manipulate objects with one hand
By Evan Ackerman
Posted 12 Sep 2018
France Developing Advanced Humanoid Robot Romeo Nao, the small French humanoid robot, is getting a big brother
By Erico Guizzo
Posted 13 Dec 2010
Soldiers controlling bipedal robot surrogates on the battlefield? It's not science fiction, it's DARPA's 2012 budget
By Evan Ackerman
Posted 17 Feb 2012
Whoa: Quadrotors Play Catch With Inverted Pendulum Watch these quadrotors balance a stick on its end, and then toss it back and forth
By Evan Ackerman
Posted 21 Feb 2013
Why We Should Build Humanlike Robots Humans are brilliant, beautiful, compassionate, and capable of love. Why shouldn't we aspire to make robots humanlike in these ways?
By David Hanson
Posted 1 Apr 2011
DARPA Robotics Challenge Finals: Know Your Robots All 25 robots in a single handy poster-size image
By Erico Guizzo & Evan Ackerman
Posted 3 Jun 2015
Here's That Extra Pair of Robot Arms You've Always Wanted MIT researchers develop wearable robotic arms that can give you an extra hand (or two)
By Evan Ackerman
Posted 2 Jun 2014
Rat Robot Beats on Live Rats to Make Them Depressed A robotic rat can be used to depress live rats to make them suitable for human drug trials
By Evan Ackerman
Posted 13 Feb 2013
MIT Cheetah Robot Bounds Off Tether, Outdoors The newest version of MIT's Cheetah is fast, it's quiet, and it jumps
By Evan Ackerman
Posted 15 Sep 2014
Bizarre Soft Robots Evolve to Run These simulated robots may be wacky looking, but they've evolved on their own to be fast and efficient
By Evan Ackerman
Posted 11 Apr 2013
In the future, robots will blow through intersections without stopping, and you won't be able to handle it
By Evan Ackerman
Posted 13 Mar 2012
iRobot's New Roomba 800 Series Has Better Vacuuming With Less Maintenance A redesigned cleaning system makes the new vacuum way better at dealing with hair (and everything else)
By Evan Ackerman
Posted 12 Nov 2013
Sawyer: Rethink Robotics Unveils New Robot It's smaller, faster, stronger, and more precise: meet Sawyer, Rethink Robotics' new manufacturing robot
By Evan Ackerman & Erico Guizzo
Posted 19 Mar 2015
Cynthia Breazeal Unveils Jibo, a Social Robot for the Home The famed MIT roboticist is launching a crowdfunding campaign to bring social robots to consumers
By Erico Guizzo
Posted 16 Jul 2014
These Robots Will Teach Kids Programming Skills Startup Play-i says its robots can make computer programming fun and accessible
By Erico Guizzo
Posted 30 Oct 2013
Watch a Swarm of Flying Robots Build a 6-Meter Brick Tower This is what happens when a bunch of roboticists and architects get together in an art gallery
By Erico Guizzo
Posted 2 Dec 2011