It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
EPFL roboticists have shown that when a modular robot shares power, sensing, and communication resources among its individual units, it is significantly more resistant to failure than traditional robotic systems
If the goal of a robot is to perform a function, then minimizing the possibility of failure is a top priority when it comes to robotic design. But this minimization is at odds with the robotic raison d’être: systems with multiple units, or agents, can perform more diverse functions, but they also have more different parts that can potentially fail.
Researchers led by Jamie Paik, head of the Reconfigurable Robotics Laboratory (RRL) in EPFL’s School of Engineering, have not only circumvented this problem, but flipped it: they have designed a modular robot that actually lowers its odds of failure by sharing resources among its individual agents.
“For the first time, we have found a way to reverse the trend of increasing odds of failure with increasing function,” Paik explains. “We introduce local resource sharing as a new paradigm in robotics, reducing the failure rate with a larger number of modules.”
In a paper published in Science Robotics, the team showed how exploiting redundant resources and sharing them locally enabled a modular origami robot to successfully navigate a complex terrain, even when one module was completely deprived of power, sensing, and wireless communication.
Sharing is caring
The RRL team took inspiration for their innovation from nature, where the problem of failure is often solved collectively. Birds share local sensing information through flocking behavior, some trees communicate threats to neighbors using airborne signals, and cells continuously transport nutrients across their membranes so that the death of any individual doesn’t significantly impact the overall organism.
Modular robots, which are composed of multiple units that connect to form a complete system, are analogous to multicellular or collective organisms, but until now, their design has been a source of vulnerability: the failure of one module often disables some, if not all, of the robot’s ability to perform tasks. Some modular robots get around this problem with built-in backup resources or self-reconfiguration abilities, but these approaches usually don’t completely restore functionality.
For their study, the RRL team used something called hyper-redundancy: the sharing of all critical power, communication, and sensing resources across all modules, without any change to the robot’s physical structure.
“We found that sharing just one or two resources was not enough: if each resource had an equal chance of failure, system reliability would continue to drop with an increasing number of agents. But when all resources were shared, this this trend was reversed,” Paik says.
In a locomotion task experiment with the Mori3 robot, which is composed of four triangular modules, the team experimented with cutting battery power, wireless communication, and sensing to the central module. Normally, this ‘dead’ central module would block the articulation and movement of the other three, but thanks to hyper-redundancy, the neighboring modules fully compensated for its lack of resources. This allowed the Mori3 to successfully ‘walk’ toward a barrier and contort itself effectively to pass underneath it.
"Essentially, our methodology allowed us to ‘revive’ a dead module in a collective and bring it back to full functionality. Our local resource-sharing framework therefore has the potential to support highly adaptive robots that can operate with unprecedented reliability, finally resolving the reliability-adaptability conflict,” summarizes RRL researcher and first author Kevin Holdcroft.
The researchers say that future work could focus on applying their resource sharing framework to more complex systems with increasing numbers of agents. In particular, the same concept could be extended to robotic swarms, with hardware adaptations that allow swarm members to dock to each other for energy and information transfer.
Thanks to resource-sharing the Mori3 can still perform a locomotion task with a dead module. 2026 EPFL CC BY SA
Scalable robot collective resilience by sharing resources
Article Publication Date
11-Feb-2026
Sunday, February 15, 2026
When heat flows like water
EPFL researchers have shown theoretically that, in highly ordered materials, heat can flow toward warmer regions without violating the laws of thermodynamics. Their work could help design electronics that minimize heat loss
To understand how heat normally flows, you could study the second law of thermodynamics – or wrap your hands around a hot mug of coffee. Both tell us that heat tends to flow toward cooler regions. As a material’s thermal energy increases, its atoms vibrate, and quantum mechanics describes these vibrations as phonons: quasiparticles that transport heat. Normally, collisions between phonons cause heat to dissipate slowly. But in highly ordered, pure crystals, these collisions can result in a fluid-like, directional heat flow known as phonon hydrodynamics.
Researchers from the group of Theory and Simulation of Materials, led by Nicola Marzari, in EPFL’s School of Engineering have demonstrated theoretically that hydrodynamic heat flow can cause heat to swirl into vortices, and even move from cooler regions back toward warmer ones. Using simulations, they show how to maximize hydrodynamic heat flow in a 2D strip of crystalline graphite. In addition to revealing the underlying physics of this phenomenon for the first time, their analytical model offers a powerful tool for harnessing heat ‘backflow’ to manage thermal energy in electronic devices.
“Previous work relied on numerical modelling, which describes temperature patterns but doesn’t fully explain how physical quantities influence each other,” explains first author and former EPFL researcher Enrico Di Lucente, now a postdoc at Columbia University. “Thanks to our analytical framework, we have shown that heat backflow is maximized when the flow is nearly incompressible. Our approach will allow us to guide experimentalists in developing electronic devices that leverage this effect to manage heat more efficiently.”
The researchers say their work, recently published in Physical Review Letters, could impact heat management across multiple sectors, ranging from consumer electronics and industry to energy storage, data centers, and cloud computing.
A path to cooler, faster electronics
Although experimental evidence of phonon hydrodynamics dates back to the 1960s, researchers have lacked the fundamental theoretical understanding required to fully exploit the fluid-like nature of hydrodynamic heat flow.
The EPFL team’s analytical framework reveals that the temperature profile of a hydrodynamic system can be broken down into vorticity (how heat flow swirls) and compressibility (how it is squeezed). This explains why heat backflow is maximized when compressibility is minimized: when heat flow is incompressible, it cannot be squeezed or bunched up when it encounters resistance but is instead redirected backward. This localized reversal enables more efficient, coordinated flow by reducing heat buildup, which can lead to overheating and impaired performance in electronic devices.
“In hydrodynamic heat backflow, heat flows from cooler regions to warmer ones, leading to a negative temperature difference and overall negative thermal resistance across the device,” Di Lucente says. “This effect is very small, but now we can design experiments to maximize it, potentially changing how we think about energy loss in electronic systems. For example, you could imagine a smartphone with a hydrodynamic component to direct thermal energy away from the battery, so it doesn’t overheat.”
Marzari emphasizes that the formulations can be used to study any other microscopic carrier, from electrons to more complex quantum particles, and that the ease with which these carriers travel can be calculated directly from quantum mechanics’ fundamental equations (first principles).
“In addition to this impactful theoretical development, our first-principles simulations provide a realistic description of physical systems quickly and inexpensively compared to the cost of building new experimental setups. At the same time, they can indicate where experimental efforts should be focused to develop more heat-efficient electronics,” he says.
Funding This research was supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) Grant No. CR-SII5 189924 (“Hydronics” project) and NCCR MARVEL, a National Centre of Competence in Research, funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (Grant No. 205602).
A memorial for the victims the mass shooting in Tumbler Ridge, Canada - Copyright AFP Paige Taylor White
Ben Simon
A grief-stricken community in northern Canada will mourn with Prime Minister Mark Carney on Friday, who is headed to the remote town of Tumbler Ridge to honor victims of a mass shooting.
Carney is travelling to the Rocky Mountain mining town with the heads of all opposition parties, a show of national solidarity after one of the deadliest outbursts of violence in Canadian history.
In the days since Tuesday’s killings at the Tumbler Ridge Secondary School, more information has emerged about both the victims and the shooter, an 18-year-old transgender woman named Jesse Van Rootselaar.
A Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer remained stationed outside Van Rootselaar’s home on Friday.
The modest brown house on a quiet, unassuming street was cordoned-off with police tape. Two overturned bicycles rested against the snow in the front yard.
Van Rootselaar killed her 39-year-old mother and 11-year-old stepbrother in the house before heading to the school, where she shot dead six more people — five students and a teacher — then killed herself.
The shooter’s estranged father, Justin Van Rootselaar, has sent a statement to the public broadcaster CBC, offering condolences for a “senseless and unforgivable act of violence.”
“As the biological father of the individual responsible, I carry a sorrow that is difficult to put into words,” the statement said, according to the CBC.
The RCMP on Friday released a photo of the shooter — who was known to have mental health issues. She is shown wearing a hoodie with an expressionless face.
– Vigil at town hall –
Carney is expected to lead a vigil for the victims outside the town hall in Tumbler Ridge, which was built 45 years ago, 1,180 kilometers (733 miles) north of Vancouver.
The town was quiet early Friday and residents have voiced weariness over the influx of media attention following the tragedy.
A sign ordering media to stay out was taped at the entrance of the community center on Friday.
But inside the center on Thursday, there were hints of life inching back towards normal, including an ice rink packed with children playing hockey or working on their skating.
In the evening, the mother of a victim, Sarah Lampert, addressed the media at the center, saying she wanted to speak for 12-year-old daughter Tacaria who had “a beautiful, strong voice that was silenced.”
“She is forever my baby, because that’s what she was. She was a baby,” Lampert said, fighting to contain her tears as she addressed a room full of cameras.
Also killed at school was 12-year-old Zoey Benoit.
“She was so resilient, vibrant, smart, caring and the strongest little girl you could meet,” a statement from her family said.
Peter Schofield’s 13-year-old grandson Ezekial was one of the six murdered students.
“Everything feels so surreal. The tears just keep flowing,” he posted on Facebook.
Carney made an emotional address to parliament after the shootings, saying “these children and their teachers bore witness to unheard-of cruelty.”
He described Tumbler Ridge as a town of miners, teachers and construction workers who represent “the very best of Canada: resilient, compassionate and strong.”
The prime minister had been scheduled to attend the Munich Security Conference to discuss transatlantic defense with allies, but cancelled his plans following the shooting.
Canada stunned by deadliest school shooting in decades
Canada's Prime Minister Mark Carney spoke to media in the aftermath of a rare mass shooting - Copyright AFP Dave Chan
Ben Simon
Canada was in mourning Wednesday, Prime Minister Mark Carney said, after a lone shooter killed at least nine people, including seven at a school, and injured dozens more in a remote western town.
An emotional Carney said in brief remarks to reporters that “the nation mourns” with British Columbia’s Tumbler Ridge after Tuesday’s shooting. “Canada stands by you.”
He said he had requested flags to be lowered to half-mast for seven days over the tragedy, among the deadliest shootings in Canada’s history, and that numerous world leaders had reached out to offer their condolences.
Tumbler Ridge, a small town of about 2,400 residents, lies in the foothills of the Canadian Rockies near the provincial border with Alberta, hundreds of kilometers from any major city.
Emergency responders found six people shot dead at the town’s secondary school on Tuesday, while a seventh person died in transit to hospital, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said in a statement.
Two others were killed at a nearby residence, while at least 25 people sustained injuries in the attack.
The suspect, described by police in an initial emergency alert as a “female in a dress with brown hair,” was found dead with an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound at the school.
Police have not yet released any identifying information about the shooter or the victims.
“We will get through this. We will learn from this. But right now, it’s a time to come together, as Canadians always do in these situations, these terrible situations, to support each other, to mourn together and to grow together,” Carney said.
King Charles, the monarch of Canada, said in a statement that he and Queen Camilla were “profoundly shocked and saddened” to learn of the attack.
“In a such a closely connected town, every child’s name will be known and every family will be a neighbour,” he said.
While several mass killings have occurred in recent years in Canada, deadly attacks on schools are very rare, especially compared to the neighboring United States.
In 1989, a self-described anti-feminist man killed 13 female students and a secretary at Montreal’s Ecole Polytechnique.
After the country’s deadliest shooting attack, which left 22 people dead in Nova Scotia in 2020, Canada banned some 1,500 models of assault weapons.
– ‘Off the rails’ –
Tumbler Ridge student Darian Quist told public broadcaster CBC that he was in his mechanics class when there was an announcement that the school was in lockdown.
He said that initially he “didn’t think anything was going on,” but started receiving “disturbing” photos about the carnage.
“It set in what was happening,” Quist said.
He said he stayed in lockdown for more than two hours until police stormed in, ordering everyone to put their hands up before escorting them out of the school.
Trent Ernst, a local journalist and a former substitute teacher at Tumbler Ridge, expressed shock over the shooting at the school, where one of his children has just graduated.
He noted that school shootings have been a rarity occurring every few years in Canada compared with the United States, where they are far more frequent.
“I used to kind of go: ‘Look at Canada, look at who we are.’ But then that one school shooting every 2.5 years happens in your town and things… just go off the rails,” he told AFP.
Ken Floyd, commander of the police’s northern district, said Tuesday: “This has been an incredibly difficult and emotional day for our community, and we are grateful for the cooperation shown as officers continue their work to advance the investigation.”
Floyd told reporters the shooter was the same suspect police described as “female” in a prior emergency alert to community members, but declined to provide any details on the suspect’s identity.
The police said officers were searching other homes and properties in the community to see if there were additional sites connected to the incident.
Reversible, detachable robotic hand redefines dexterity
A robotic hand developed at EPFL surpasses the limits of human dexterity with a dual-thumbed, reversible-palm design that can detach from its robotic ‘arm’ to reach and grasp multiple objects.
With its opposable thumb, multiple joints and gripping skin, human hands are often considered to be the pinnacle of dexterity, and many robotic hands are designed in their image. But having been shaped by the slow process of evolution, human hands are far from optimized, with the biggest drawbacks including our single, asymmetrical thumbs and attachment to arms with limited mobility.
“We can easily see the limitations of the human hand when attempting to reach objects underneath furniture or behind shelves, or performing simultaneous tasks like holding a bottle while picking up a chip can,” says Aude Billard, head of the Learning Algorithms and Systems Laboratory (LASA) in EPFL’s School of Engineering. “Likewise, accessing objects positioned behind the hand while keeping the grip stable can be extremely challenging, requiring awkward wrist contortions or body repositioning.”
A team composed of Billard, LASA researcher Xiao Gao, and Kai Junge and Josie Hughes from the Computational Robot Design and Fabrication Lab designed a robotic hand that overcomes these challenges. Their device, which can support up to six identical silicone-tipped fingers, fixes the problem of human asymmetry by allowing any combination of fingers to form opposing pairs in a thumb-like pinch. Thanks to its reversible design, the ‘back’ and ‘palm’ of the robotic hand are interchangeable. The hand can even detach from its robotic arm and ‘crawl’, spider-like, to grasp and carry objects beyond the arm’s reach.
“Our device reliably and seamlessly performs ‘loco manipulation’ — stationary manipulation combined with autonomous mobility – which we believe has great potential for industrial, service, and exploratory robotics,” Billard summarizes. The research has been published in Nature Communications.
Human applications – and beyond
While the robotic hand looks like something from a futuristic sci-fi movie, the researchers say they drew inspiration from nature.
“Many organisms have evolved versatile limbs that seamlessly switch between different functionalities like grasping and locomotion. For example, the octopus uses its flexible arms both to crawl across the seafloor and open shells, while in the insect world, the praying mantis use specialized limbs for locomotion and prey capture,” Billard says.
Indeed, the EPFL robot can crawl while maintaining a grip on multiple objects, holding them under its ‘palm’, on its ‘back’, or both. With five fingers, the device can replicate most of the traditional human grasps. When equipped with more than five fingers, it can single-handedly tackle tasks usually requiring two human hands – such as unscrewing the cap on a large bottle or driving a screw into a block of wood with a screwdriver.
“There is no real limitation in the number of objects it can hold; if we need to hold more objects, we simply add more fingers,” Billard says.
The researchers foresee applications of their innovative design in real-world settings that demand compactness, adaptability, and multi-modal interaction. For example, the technology could be used to retrieve objects in confined environments or expand the reach of traditional industrial arms. And while the proposed robotic hand is not itself anthropomorphic, they also believe it could be adapted for prosthetic applications.
“The symmetrical, reversible functionality is particularly valuable in scenarios where users could benefit from capabilities beyond normal human function,” Billard says. “For example, previous studies with users of additional robotic fingers demonstrate the brain’s remarkable adaptability to integrate additional appendages, suggesting that our non-traditional configuration could even serve in specialized environments requiring augmented manipulation abilities.”
From right: NTU Robotics Research Centre Director Assoc Prof Ang Wei Tech, research associates Chen Jiaye, Yuan Yuan and Wang Youlong, with the DRBA robots.
Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore), Lions Befrienders (LB), the Smart Urban Co-Innovation Lab (SUCIL), and Lumens have announced a landmark multi-sector collaboration to deploy a new rehabilitation robot that supports seniors with mobility issues, allowing them to exercise without fear of falling.
As Singapore journeys toward becoming a super-aged society, how do we help our seniors move beyond the fear of falling and reclaim their independence? This initiative marks a milestone in answering that question, representing a true blueprint for community building in Singapore through a “Triple-Helix Innovation”. By uniting the private sector, academia, and social services, the partners have successfully translated high-tech research into life-changing community care.
Called the Data-driven Robotic Balance Assistant (DRBA), the robot was developed in collaboration with Tan Tock Seng Hospital at the Rehabilitation Research Institute of Singapore (RRIS) – a joint research institute between NTU Singapore, Agency for Science, Technology and Research and NHG Health. The robot aims to support elderly users by improving their balance, assisting with daily activities such as standing and walking, and reducing the burden on caregivers. If a potential fall is detected, the robot provides immediate stability support to catch its user and prevent injuries.
Community trials have successfully concluded at Lions Befrienders’ Active Ageing Centres in Tampines. During these sessions, seniors participated in Zumba and other group exercise classes, with some of them testing DRBA, which provided "intelligent" support that restores confidence without compromising autonomy.
Associate Professor Ang Wei Tech from NTU’s School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, who invented DRBA, said: “Falls often result in serious injuries and loss of independence for seniors. With DRBA, our goal is to give seniors confidence to stay active, while enabling caregivers and community partners to provide effective support. By taking rehabilitation beyond hospitals and into neighbourhood centres, we hope to make healthy ageing more accessible for all.”
Ms Karen Wee, Chief Executive Officer, Lions Befrienders, said the partnership has created a safer and more inclusive environment for seniors. “Many seniors may refrain from participating in certain exercises or social activities because they have a risk of falling. By working with NTU and introducing DRBA into our active ageing centres, we are creating a safer and more inclusive environment where seniors can regain confidence, stay active and enjoy a better quality of life.”
This collaboration was made possible through the unique contributions of each partner. While NTU provided the technological soul of the project, Lumens ensured the "mobility of quality of life" by facilitating the logistical transport and deployment of the units, and the Smart Urban Co-Innovation Lab acted as the catalyst to bridge the gap between high-tech research and industry scalability.
Mr. Chiam Soon Chian, Chief Operating Officer, Lumens Pte Ltd, said: “Mobility is the bridge between independence and quality of life. As Singapore ages, Lumens' role is not just to move people from place to place, but also to use of our fleet to help transport quality of life to the people. Helping transport DRBA to Lions Befrienders is a showcase of using mobility to transport quality of life.”
Mr. Koon Kok Kwong, CTO of the Smart Urban Co-Innovation Lab, added: “Addressing global mobility challenges and the need for better support for patients, caregivers, and physiotherapists, DRBA has shown it can enhance post-hospital rehabilitation in familiar settings. By integrating eldercare and robotics innovations, the Smart Urban Co-Innovation Lab is proud to partner with Lions Befrienders, Lumens, and Nanyang Technological University in this trial and is encouraged by today’s results.”
Preventing falls and improving quality of life
The development of DRBA, powered by advanced algorithms and robotics, is aligned with NTU’s goal of driving innovations with societal impact, tackling some of humanity’s greatest challenges through technology.
Falls are among the top causes of injury-related hospitalisations among seniors in Singapore. With the nation’s population ageing rapidly, there is a real need for innovative solutions that promote mobility and prevent accidents among seniors.
DRBA addresses these challenges by combining robotics with real-time data analysis to personalise rehabilitation programmes for each senior. It collects and analyses data from users to create customised training plans. It can also assist seniors with activities such as sitting, standing, and walking, and quickly intervenes if a fall is detected.
The success of this program is a testament to the cross-sector partnership between NTU, Lions Befrienders, SUCIL, and Lumens, showcasing how collective action across different industries can solve deep-seated societal challenges for Singapore’s elderly.
Commercialisation efforts
The robot is now being commercialised through Assoc Prof Ang’s spin-off company, Ability Robotics. The start-up is supported by the NTU Innovation and Entrepreneurship initiative and is co-founded by Assoc Prof Ang and his former researcher, Dr Li Lei.
They hope to scale the technology for wider use in Singapore and to enter other rapidly ageing markets in the region. The deep tech start-up is seeking to partner and work with community centres and healthcare organisations to deploy DRBA robots for institutional use, so that more seniors can benefit from the technology. Concurrently, they are also working on MRBA – short for Mobile Robotic Balance Assistant – which is expected to reach the market by 2026.
This collaboration between NTU Singapore, Lions Befrienders, Smart Urban Co-Innovation Lab, and Lumens is a great example of how Singapore can promote healthy ageing by leveraging innovation to help seniors remain active, independent, and engaged in the community.
From right: Mr Leow Cher Hwa, senior participant and stroke survivor using the DRBA robot for Zumba class; Mr Koon Kok Kwong, CTO, Smart Urban Co-Innovation Lab; Ms Karen Wee, Chief Executive Officer, Lions Befrienders; and MP for Tampines GRC, Asst Prof Charlene Chen, Nanyang Business School, NTU Singapore (middle in white)
From left: NTU Robotics Research Centre Director Assoc Prof Ang Wei Tech; Mr Leow Cher Hwa, senior participant and stroke survivor who used DRBA in a trial; Ms Karen Wee, Chief Executive Officer, Lions Befrienders; and Mr Koon Kok Kwong, CTO, Smart Urban Co-Innovation Lab
