Category Physics

Next-generation optoelectronic systems (devices that convert light to electrical energy) leverage organic semiconductor-based indoor energy-autonomous architectures for cutting-edge applications. Notably, organic semiconductors possess mechanical flexibility, solution processability, and bandgap-tunable optoelectronic properties, making them highly lucrative for indoor power generation via organic photovoltaics (OPVs), as well as for spectrally selective photodetection through organic photodetectors (OPDs)...

A robot that can locate lost items on command, the latest development at the Technical University of Munich (TUM), combines knowledge from the internet with a spatial map of its surroundings to efficiently find the objects being sought. The new robot from Prof. Angela Schoellig’s TUM Learning Systems and Robotics Lab looks like a broomstick on wheels with a camera mounted at the top. It is one of the first robots that not only integrates image understanding but also applies it to a clearly defined task.

To find a pair of glasses misplaced in the kitchen, for example, the robot has to look around and build a three-dimensional image of the room. The camera initially provides two-dimensional images, but these pixels also contain depth information...

For years, the guiding assumption of artificial intelligence has been simple: an AI is only as good as the data it has seen. Feed it more, train it longer, and it performs better. Feed it less, and it stumbles. A new study from the USC Viterbi School of Engineering was accepted at the IEEE SoutheastCon 2026, taking place March 12–15. It suggests something far more surprising: with the right method in place, an AI model can dramatically improve its performance in territory it was barely trained on, pushing well past what its training data alone would ever allow.

The method was developed by Minda Li, a USC Viterbi undergraduate who has been pursuing research since her freshman year, working alongside her advisor Bhaskar Krishnamachari, a Faculty Fellow and S...

Northwestern University engineers have developed the first modular robots with athletic intelligence. They can be combined and recombined in the wild, recover from injury and keep moving no matter what’s thrown at them.

Called “legged metamachines,” the creations are made from autonomous, Lego-like modules that snap together into an endless number of configurations. Each module by itself is a complete robot with its own motor, battery and computer. Alone, a module can roll, turn and jump. But the real agility and indestructibility emerges when the modules combine.

The study was published i...