News and agenda

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.

Robots can perform jobs underwater that are too complex or dangerous for humans. That is, if they can manage on their own, because no one can help them down there. The REMARO project works on its control systems and trains PhD students in programming work.

Ridesharing can benefit from using pick-up and drop-off points and asking users to walk a small distance. Researchers at TU Delft have analyzed this by using a real dataset of 10.000 Manhattan taxi trips. They have published their results online in Transportation Research Part C.

Researchers from TU Delft will work together in nine consortia with the entire knowledge chain and societal organisations, and conduct interdisciplinary research that will bring scientific and societal breakthroughs within reach. Faculty 3mE takes part in two consortia.

Self-driving cars can already do quite a bit, but driving as a human being requires something that algorithms cannot do very well: being insecure and careless. A new model that maps the mechanism behind human driving should change this.

Researchers from TU Delft have now developed a new model that describes driving behaviour on the basis of one underlying ‘human’ principle: managing the risk below a threshold level.