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Imagine you could feel the brush strokes of Van Gogh, the fur of your beloved pet on a zoom call, fabrics in online shopping or tissues in medical images. Yasemin Vardar, assistant professor at the department of Cognitive Robotics (CoR), wants to enable this breakthrough by developing friction-modulation haptic displays. This week she received Veni funding from NWO for her research idea.

Javier Alonso-Mora at the Department of Cognitive Robotics (CoR) has been awarded a European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grant, while Daniel Tam at the Department of Process and Energy (P&E) has been awarded an ERC Consolidator Grant.

Together with Renault, Delft robot engineers developed the Proactive Eco Mode, a new system that enables drivers to reach the desired speed faster, based on predictions of the future, while maintaining the eco fuel benefits. They have successfully demonstrated the system on French roads.

Robots that safely navigate busy corridors to deliver medicines to nurses. And drones that manoeuvre around people, rubbish bins and poles without smashing things up. This is possible thanks to the models developed by researcher Javier Alonso-Mora.

How can humans instantly estimate the slipperiness of a surface and adjust their gripping, for instance when picking up a wet glass? Researchers have demonstrated that a (radial) strain of the skin of the fingertip is involved in the perception of slipperiness during initial contact. Robotics could use this information, for instance to improve prosthetics and grippers. The results will be published in PNAS.