A major advancement was made in soft robotics, an emerging field that ditches rigid parts used in traditional robots in order to deal with uncertain and changing tasks and environments.
Engineers from Cornell and Harvard Universities created a shape-changing robot to be used in extreme conditions in ways robots never could be used before.
"The soft robot is safe to interact with during operations and its silicone body is innately resilient to a variety of adverse environmental conditions," a paper describing the technology stated.
"(These include) snow, puddles of water, direct exposure to flames, and the crushing force of being run over by an automobile."
