Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your friends at IEEE Spectrum robotics. We also post a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next few months. Please send us your events for inclusion. ICRA 2026 : 1–5 June 2026, VIENNA Enjoy today’s videos! We’re excited to announce the product version of our Atlas® robot. This enterprise-grade humanoid robot offers impressive strength and range of motion, precise manipulation, and intelligent adaptability—designed to power the new industrial revolution. [ Boston Dynamics ] I appreciate the creativity and technical innovation here, but realistically, if you’ve got more than one floor in your house? Just get a second robot. That single-step sunken living room though.... [ Roborock ] Wow, SwitchBot’s CES 2026 video show almost as many robots in their fantasy home as I have in my real home. [ SwitchBot ] What is happening in robotics right now that I can derive more satisfaction from watching robotic process automation than I can from watching yet another humanoid video? [ ABB ] Yes, this is definitely a robot I want in close proximity to my life. [ Unitree ] The video below demonstrates a MenteeBot learning, through mentoring, how to replace a battery in another MenteeBot. No teleoperation is used. [ Mentee Robotics ] Personally, I think that we should encourage humanoid robots to fall much more often, just so that we can see whether they can get up again. [ Agility Robotics ] Achieving long-horizon, reliable clothing manipulation in the real world remains one of the most challenging problems in robotics. This live test demonstrates a strong step forward in embodied intelligence, vision-language-action systems, and real-world robotic autonomy. [ HKU MMLab ] Millions of people around the world need assistance with feeding. Robotic feeding systems offer the potential to enhance autonomy and quality of life for individuals with impairments and reduce caregiver workload. However, their widespread adoption has been limited by technical challenges such as estimating bite timing, the appropriate moment for the robot to transfer food to a user’s mouth. In this work, we introduce WAFFLE: Wearable Approach For Feeding with LEarned Bite Timing, a system that accurately predicts bite timing by leveraging wearable sensor data to be highly reactive to natural user cues such as head movements, chewing, and talking. [ CMU RCHI ] Humanoid robots are now available as platforms, which is a great way of sidestepping the whole practicality question. [ PNDbotics ] We’re introducing Spatially-Enhanced Recurrent Units (SRUs) — a simple yet powerful modification that enables robots to build implicit spatial memories for navigation. Published in the International Journal of Robotics Research (IJRR), this work demonstrates up to +105% improvement over baseline approaches, with robots successfully navigating 70+ meters in the real world using only a single forward-facing camera. [ ETHZ RSL ] Looking forward to the DARPA Triage Challenge this fall! [ DARPA ] Here are a couple of good interviews from the Humanoids Summit 2025. [ Humanoids Summit ]

Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your friends at IEEE Spectrum robotics. We also post a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next few months. Please send us your events for inclusion. ICRA 2026 : 1–5 June 2026, VIENNA Enjoy today’s videos! I always love seeing robots progress from research projects to commercial products . [ Ground Control Robotics ] Well this has to be one of the most “watch a robot do this task entirely through the magic of jump cuts” I’ve ever seen. [ UBTECH ] Very satisfying sound on this one. [ Pudu Robotics ] Welcome to the AgileX Robotics Data Collection Facility—where real robots build the foundation for universal embodied intelligence. Our core mission? Enable large-scale data sharing and reuse across dual-arm teleoperation robots of diverse morphologies, breaking down data silos that slow down AI progress. [ AgileX ] I’m not sure how much thought was put into this, but giving a service robot an explicit cat face could be a good way of moderating expectations on its behavior and interactivity. [ Pudu Robotics ] UBTECH says they have built 1000 of their Walker S2 humanoid robots , over 500 of which are “delivered & working.” I would very much like to know what “working” means in this context. [ UBTECH ] Every story has its beginning, and ours started in 2023—a year defined by the unknown. Let technology return to passion; let trials catalyze evolution. Embracing growth, embarking on a new journey. We’ll see you at the next stop. Please, please hire someone to do some HRI (human-robot interface) design. [ PNDbotics ]

Last September, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) unleashed teams of robots on simulated mass-casualty scenarios , including an airplane crash and a night ambush. The robots’ job was to find victims and estimate the severity of their injuries, with the goal of helping human medics get to the people who need them the most. Kimberly Elenberg Kimberly Elenberg is a principal project scientist with the Auton Lab of Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Institute. Before joining CMU, Elenberg spent 28 years as an army and U.S. Public Health Service nurse, which included 19 deployments and serving as the principal strategist for incident response at the Pentagon. The final event of the DARPA Triage Challenge will take place in November, and Team Chiron from Carnegie Mellon University will be competing, using a squad of quadruped robots and drones. The team is led by Kimberly Elenberg , whose 28-year career as an army and U.S. Public Health Service nurse took her from combat surgical teams to incident response strategy at the Pentagon. Why do we need robots for triage? Kimberly Elenberg: We simply do not have enough responders for mass-casualty incidents. The drones and ground robots that we’re developing can give us the perspective that we need to identify where people are, assess who’s most at risk, and figure out how responders can get to them most efficiently. When could you have used robots like these? Elenberg: On the way to one of the challenge events, there was a four-car accident on a back road. For me on my own, that was a mass casualty event. I could hear some people yelling and see others walking around, and so I was able to reason that those people could breathe and move. In the fourth car, I had to crawl inside to reach a gentleman who was slumped over with an occluded airway. I was able to lift his head until I could hear him breathing. I could see that he was hemorrhaging and feel that he was going into shock because his skin was cold. A robot couldn’t have gotten inside of the car to make those assessments. This challenge involves enabling robots to remotely collect this data—can they detect heart rate from changes in skin color or hear breathing from a distance? If I’d had these capabilities, it would have helped me identify the person at greatest risk and gotten to them first. How do you design tech for triage? Elenberg: The system has to be simple. For example, I can’t have a device that’s going to force a medic to take their hands away from their patient. What we came up with is a vest-mounted Android phone that flips down at chest height to display a map that has the GPS location of all of the casualties on it and their triage priority as colored dots, autonomously populated from the team of robots. Are the robots living up to the hype? Elenberg: From my time in service, I know the only way to understand true capability is to build it, test it, and break it. With this challenge, I’m learning through end-to-end systems integration—sensing, communications, autonomy, and field testing in real environments. This is art and science coming together, and while the technology still has limitations, the pace of progress is extraordinary. What would be a win for you? Elenberg: I already feel like we’ve won. Showing responders exactly where casualties are and estimating who needs attention most—that’s a huge step forward for disaster medicine. The next milestone is recognizing specific injury patterns and the likely life-saving interventions needed, but that will come. This article appears in the January 2026 print issue as “Kimberly Elenberg.”

Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your friends at IEEE Spectrum robotics. We also post a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next few months. Please send us your events for inclusion. ICRA 2026 : 1–5 June 2026, VIENNA Enjoy today’s videos! Happy Holidays from Boston Dynamics! I would pay any amount of money for that lamp. [ Boston Dynamics ] What if evolution wasn’t carbon-based — but metal instead? This short film explores an alternative, iron-based evolution through robots, simulation, and real-world machines. Inspired by biological evolution, this Christmas lab film imagines a world where machines evolve instead of organisms. [ ETH Zurich Robotics System Lab ] Happy Holidays from FieldAI! [ FieldAI ] Happy Holidays from the Institute of Robotics and Machine Intelligence at Poznan University of Technology ! [ Poznan University of Technology IRMI ] Happy Holidays from BruBotics! [ AugmentX ] Thanks, Bram! [ Humanoid ] Check out how SCUTTLE tackles the dull, dirty, and dangerous tasks of the pest control industry. [ Ground Control Robotics ] Happy Holidays from LimX Dynamics! [ LimX Dynamics ] Happy (actually maybe not AI?) Holidays from Kawasaki Robotics! [ Kawasaki Robotics ] Happy Holidays from AgileX Robotics [ AgileX Robotics ] Big news: Badminton just got a new training partner. Our humanoid robot can rally with a human in continuous exchanges, combining fast returns with stable movement. Peak return speed reaches 19.1 m/s. [ Phybot ] Well, here’s one way of deploying a legged robot. [ Kepler ] Today, we present the world’s first demo video of a full-size robot taking on the challenging Charleston dance. [ PNDbotics ] The DR02 humanoid robot from DEEP Robotics showcases remarkable versatility and agility. From the graceful flow of Tai Chi to the energetic moves of street dance, DR02 combines precision, strength, and artistry with ease! [ Deep Robotics ] Decreasing the Cost of Morphing in Adaptive Morphogenetic Robots: By using kirigami laminar jamming flippers, the Jamming Amphibious Robotic Turtle (JART) can quickly morph its limbs to adapt to changing terrain. This pneumatic layer jamming technology enables multi-environment locomotion on land and water by changing the robot’s flipper shape and stiffness to decrease the cost of transport. [ Paper ] Super Odometry is a resilient sensor-fusion framework that delivers accurate, real-time state estimation in challenging environments by integrating external and inertial sensing. For decades, SLAM has depended on external sensors like cameras and LiDAR. We argue it’s time to reverse this hierarchy: true robustness begins from within. By placing inertial sensing at the core of state estimation, robots gain an inner sense of motion. We believe the systems that not only see, but also feel, learn, and adapt. [ AirLab ]

Usually, I start off these annual highlights posts by saying that it was the best year ever for robotics. But this year, I’m not so sure. At the end of 2024 , it really seemed like AI and humanoid robots were poised to make a transformative amount of progress towards some sort of practicality. While it’s certainly true that progress has been made, it’s hard to rationalize what’s actually happened in 2025 with the amount of money and hype that has suffused robotics over the course of the year. And for better or worse, humanoids are overshadowing everything else, raising questions about what will happen if the companies building them ultimately do not succeed. We’ll be going into 2026 with both optimism and skepticism, and we’ll keep doing what we always do: talking to the experts, asking as many hard questions as we can, and making sure to share all the cool robots, even (or especially) the ones that you won’t see anywhere else. So thanks for reading, and to all you awesome robotics folks out there, thanks for sharing your work with us! IEEE Spectrum has a bunch of exciting new stuff planned for 2026, and as we close out 2025, here’s a quick look back at some of our best robotics stories of the year. 1. Reality Is Ruining the Humanoid Robot Hype Eddie Guy Humanoid robots are hard, and they’re hard in lots of different ways. For some of those ways, we at least understand the problems and what the solutions will likely involve. But there are other problems that have no clear solutions, and most humanoid companies, especially the well-funded ones, seem quite happy to wave those problems away while continuing to raise extraordinary amounts of money. We’re going to keep calling this out whenever we see it, and expect even more skepticism in 2026. 2. Exploit Allows for Takeover of Fleets of Unitree Robots CFOTO/Future Publishing/Getty Images Security is one of those pesky little things that is super important in robotics but that early-stage robotics companies typically treat as an afterthought because it doesn’t drive investment. Chinese manufacturer Unitree is really the one company with humanoids robots that are available enough and affordable enough for clever people to perform a security audit on them. And to the surprise of no one, Unitree’s robots had serious vulnerabilities , which as of yet have not all been fixed. 3.Amazon’s Vulcan Robots Now Stow Items Faster Than Humans Amazon The thing I appreciate about the folks at Amazon Robotics is how relentless they are in finding creative solutions for problems at scale . Amazon simply doesn’t have time to mess around, and they’re designing robots to do what robots do best: specific repetitive tasks in structured environments . In the current climate of robotics hype, it’s refreshing, honestly. 4. Large Behavior Models Are Helping Atlas Get to Work Boston Dynamics Did I mention that humanoids robots are hard? Whether or not anyone can deliver on the promises being made about them (and personally, I’m leaning more and more strongly towards not), progress is being made towards humanoids that are much more capable and versatile than they ever have been . The collaboration between Toyota Research and Boston Dynamics on large behavior models is just one example of how far we’ve come , and how far we still have to go. 5. iRobot’s Cofounder Weighs In on Company’s Bankruptcy Lindsey Nicholson/Universal Images Group/Getty Images My least favorite story to write happened right at the end of the year—iRobot filed for bankruptcy . This was not a total surprise; regulators shutting down an acquisition by Amazon in 2024 essentially gutted the company, and it’s been limping along towards the inevitable since then. Right after the news was announced, we spoke with iRobot co-founder and ex-CEO Colin Angle, who had plenty to share about where things went wrong, and what we can learn from it. 6. How Dairy Robots Are Changing Work for Cows (and Farmers) Evan Ackerman My favorite story of 2025 was as much about cows as it was about robots. I was astonished to learn just how many fully autonomous robots are hard at work on dairy farms around the world , and utterly delighted to also learn that these robots are actively improving the lives of both dairy farmers and the dairy cows themselves. Dairy farming is endless hard work, but thanks to these robots, small family farms are able to keep themselves sustainable (and sane). Everybody wins, thanks to the robots.

Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your friends at IEEE Spectrum robotics. We also post a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events. Please send us your events for inclusion. ICRA 2026 : 1–5 June 2026, VIENNA Enjoy today’s videos! Happy Holidays from FZI Living Lab! [ FZI ] Thanks, Georg! Happy Holidays from Norlab! I should get a poutine... [ Norlab ] Happy Holidays from Fraunhofer IOSB! [ Fraunhofer ] Thanks, Janko! Happy Holidays from HEBI Robotics! [ HEBI Robotics ] Thanks, Trevor! Happy Holidays from the Learning Systems and Robotics Lab! [ Learning Systems and Robotics Lab ] Happy Holidays from Toyota Research Institute! [ Toyota Research Institute ] Happy Holidays from Clearpath Robotics! [ Clearpath Robotics ] Happy AI Holidays from Robotnik! [ Robotnik ] Happy AI Holidays from ABB Robotics! [ ABB Robotics ] With its unique modular configuration, TRON 2 lets you freely configure Dual-arm, Bipedal, or Wheeled setups to fit your mission. [ LimX Dynamics ] Thanks, Jinyan! I love this robot but can someone please explain why what happens at 2:00 makes me physically uncomfortable? [ Paper ] Thanks, Ayato! This robot, REWW-ARM, is a remote wire-driven mobile robot that separates and excludes electronics from the mobile part, so that the mobile robot can operate in harsh environments. A novel transmission mechanism enables efficient and long-distance electronics-free power transmission, closed-loop control which estimates the distal state from wire. It demonstrated locomotion and manipulation on land and underwater. [ JSK Lab ] Thanks, Takahiro! DEEP Robotics has deployed China’s first robot dog patrol team for forest fire protection in the West Lake area. Powered by embodied AI, these quadruped robots support early detection, patrol, and risk monitoring—using technology to protect nature and strengthen emergency response. [ DEEP Robotics ] In this video we show how we trained our robot to fold a towel from start to finish. Folding a towel might seem simple, but for a robot it means solving perception, planning, and dexterous manipulation all at once, especially when dealing with soft, deformable fabric. We walk through how the system sees the towel, identifies key features, and executes each fold autonomously. [ Kinisi Robotics ] This may be the first humanoid app store, but it’s far from the first app store for robots. Problem is, for an app store to gain traction, there needs to be a platform out there that people will buy for its core functionality first. [ Unitree ] You can tell that this isn’t U.S. government funded research because it involves a robot fetching drinks . [ Flexiv ] This video shows the Perseverance Mars Rover’s point of view during a record-breaking drive that occurred June 19, 2025, the 1,540th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. Perseverance rover was traveling northbound and covered 1,350.7 feet (411.7 meters) on that sol, over the course of about 4 hours and 24 minutes. This distance eclipsed its previous record of distance traveled in a single sol: 1,140.7 feet (347.7 meters), which was achieved on April 3, 2023 (Sol 753). [ NASA ] Automation is what’s helped keep lock maker Wilson Bohannan based in America for more than 150 years while all of its competitors relocated overseas. Using two high-speed and high-precision FANUC M-10 series robots, Acme developed a simple but highly sophisticated system that uses innovative end-of-arm tooling to accommodate 18 different styles of padlocks. As a result of Acme’s new system using FANUC robots, Wilson Bohannan production rocketed from 1,500-1,800 locks finished per eight-hour shift to more than 5,000. [ Fanuc ] In this conversation, Zack Jackowski, General Manager and Vice President, Atlas and Alberto Rodriguez, Director of Robot Behavior sit down to discuss the path to generalist humanoid robots working at scale and how we approach research & development to both push the boundaries of the industry and deliver valuable applications. [ Boston Dynamics ]

On Sunday evening, legendary robotics company iRobot, manufacturer of the Roomba robotic vacuum, filed for bankruptcy . The company will be handing over all of its assets to its Chinese manufacturing partner, Picea. According to iRobot’s press release, “this agreement represents a critical step toward strengthening iRobot’s financial foundation and positioning the Company for long-term growth and innovation,” which sounds like the sort of thing that you put in a press release when you’re trying your best to put a positive spin on really, really bad news. This whole situation started back in August of 2022, when iRobot announced a US $1.7 billion acquisition by Amazon. Amazon’s interest was obvious—some questionable hardware decisions had left the company struggling to enter the home robotics market. And iRobot was at a point where it needed a new strategy to keep ahead of lower cost (and increasingly innovative) home robots from China. Some folks were skeptical of this acquisition, and admittedly, I was one of them . My primary worry was that iRobot would get swallowed up and effectively cease to exist, which tends to happen with acquisitions like these, but regulators in the United States had much more pointed concerns: Namely, that Amazon would leverage its marketplace power to restrict competition . The European Commission expressed similar objections . By late January 2024, the deal had fallen through , iRobot laid off a third of its staff, suspended research and development, and CEO and co-founder Colin Angle left the company. Since then, iRobot has seemed resigned to its fate, coasting along on a few lackluster product announcements and not much else, and so Sunday’s announcement of bankruptcy was a surprise to no one—perhaps least of all to Angle. iRobot’s Bankruptcy and Amazon Deal Collapse “iRobot’s bankruptcy filing was really just a public-facing outcome of the tragedy that happened a year and a half ago,” Angle told IEEE Spectrum on Monday. “Today sucks, but I’ve already mourned. I mourned when the deal with Amazon got blocked for all the wrong reasons.” Angle points out that by the early 2020s, iRobot was no longer monopolizing the robot vacuum market. This was especially true in Europe, where iRobot’s market share was 12 percent and decreasing. But from Angle’s perspective, regulators were more focused on making a point about big tech than they were about the actual merits and risks of the merger. Co-founder Colin Angle says that iRobot’s bankruptcy filing was unsurprising after a failed acquisition by Amazon a year and a half ago. Charles Krupa/AP “We were roadkilled in a larger agenda,” Angle says. “And this kind of regulation is incredibly destructive to the innovation economy. The whole concept of starting a tech company and having it acquired by a bigger tech company is far and away the most common positive outcome. For that to be taken away is not a good thing.” And for iRobot, it was fatal. A common criticism of iRobot even before the attempted Amazon merger is that the company was simply being out-innovated in the robot vacuum space, and Angle doesn’t necessarily disagree. “By 2020, China had become the largest market in the world for robot vacuums, and Chinese robotics companies with government support were investing two or three times as much as iRobot was in R&D. We simply didn’t have the capital to move as quickly as we wanted to. In order for iRobot to continue to innovate and lead the industry, we needed to do so as part of a larger entity, and Amazon was very aligned with our vision for the home.” This situation is not unique to iRobot, and there is significant concern in robotics about how companies can effectively compete against the massive advantage that China has in the production of low-cost hardware. In some sense, what happened to iRobot is an early symptom of what Angle (and others ) see as a fundamental problem with robotics in the United States: lack of government support. In China, long-term government support for robotics and embodied AI (in the form of both policy and direct investment) can be found across industry and academia, something that neither the United States nor the European Union has been able to match. “Robotics is in a global competition against some very fearsome competitors,” Angle says. “ We have to decide whether we want to support our innovation economy. And if the answer is no, then the innovation economy g oes elsewhere.” The consequence of companies like iRobot losing this competition can be more than just bankruptcy. In iRobot’s case, a Chinese company now owns iRobot’s intellectual property and app infrastructure, which gives it access to data from millions of highly sensorized autonomous mobile robots in homes across the world. I asked Angle whether or not Roomba owners should be concerned about this. “When I was running the company, we talked a lot about this, and put a lot of effort into privacy and security,” he says. “This was fundamental to Roomba’s design. But now, I don’t know.” While Angle has moved on from iRobot, and has since co-founded a more-mysterious-than-we’d-like company called Familiar Machines and Magic , he still feels strongly that what has happened to iRobot should be a warning to both robotics companies and policymakers. “Make no mistake: China is good at robots. So we need to play this hard. There’s a lot to learn from what we did at iRobot, and a lot of ways to do it better.” On a personal note, I’m choosing to remember the iRobot that was—not just the company that that built a robot vacuum out of nothing and conquered the world with it for nearly two decades, but also the company that built the PackBot to save lives, as well as all of these other crazy robots . I’m not sure there’s ever been a company quite like iRobot, and there may never be again. It will be missed.

Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your friends at IEEE Spectrum robotics. We also post a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next few months. Please send us your events for inclusion. ICRA 2026 : 1–5 June 2026, VIENNA Enjoy today’s videos! Suzumori Endo Lab, Science Tokyo has developed a dog musculoskeletal robot using thin McKibben muscles. This robot mimics the flexible “hammock-like” shoulder structure to investigate the biomechanical functions of dog musculoskeletal systems. [ Suzimori Endo Robotics Laboratory ] HOLEY SNAILBOT!!! [ Freeform Robotics ] We present a system that transforms speech into physical objects using 3D generative AI and discrete robotic assembly. By leveraging natural language, the system makes design and manufacturing more accessible to people without expertise in 3D modeling or robotic programming. [ MIT ] Meet the next generation of edge AI. A fully self-contained vision system built for robotics, automation, and real-world intelligence. Watch how OAK 4 brings compute, sensing, and 3D perception together in one device. [ Luxonis ] Thanks, Max! Inspired by vines’ twisty tenacity, engineers at MIT and Stanford University have developed a robotic gripper that can snake around and lift a variety of objects, including a glass vase and a watermelon, offering a gentler approach compared to conventional gripper designs. A larger version of the robo-tendrils can also safely lift a human out of bed. [ MIT ] The paper introduces an automatic limb attachment system using soft actuated straps and a magnet-hook latch for wearable robots. It enables fast, secure, and comfortable self-donning across various arm sizes, supporting clinical-level loads and precise pressure control. [ Paper ] Thanks, Bram! Autonomous driving is the ultimate challenge for AI in the physical world. At Waymo, we’re solving it by prioritizing demonstrably safe AI, where safety is central to how we engineer our models and AI ecosystem from the ground up. [ Waymo ] Built by Texas A&M engineering students, this AI-powered robotic dog is reimagining how robots operate in disaster zones. Designed to climb through rubble, avoid hazards and make autonomous decisions in real time, the robot uses a custom multimodal large language model (MLLM) combined with visual memory and voice commands to see, remember and plan its next move like a first responder. [ Texas A&M ] So far, aerial microrobots have only been able to fly slowly along smooth trajectories, far from the swift, agile flight of real insects — until now. MIT researchers have demonstrated aerial microrobots that can fly with speed and agility that is comparable to their biological counterparts. A collaborative team designed a new AI-based controller for the robotic bug that enabled it to follow gymnastic flight paths, such as executing continuous body flips. [ MIT ] In this audio clip generated by data from the SuperCam microphone aboard NASA’s Perseverance, the sound of an electrical discharge can be heard as a Martian dust devil flies over the Mars rover. The recording was collected on Oct. 12, 2024, the 1,296th Martian day, or sol, of Perseverance’s mission on the Red Planet. [ NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory ] In this episode, we open the archives on host Hannah Fry’s visit to our California robotics lab. Filmed earlier this year, Hannah interacts with a new set of robots—those that don’t just see, but think, plan, and do. Watch as the team goes behind the scenes to test the limits of generalization, challenging robots to handle unseen objects autonomously. [ Google DeepMind ] This GRASP on Robotics Seminar is by Parastoo Abtahi from Princeton University, on “When Robots Disappear – From Haptic Illusions in VR to Object-Oriented Interactions in AR”. Advances in audiovisual rendering have led to the commercialization of virtual reality (VR); however, haptic technology has not kept up with these advances. While a variety of robotic systems aim to address this gap by simulating the sensation of touch, many hardware limitations make realistic touch interactions in VR challenging. In my research, I explore how, by understanding human perception through the lens of sensorimotor control theory, we can design interactions that not only overcome the current limitations of robotic hardware for VR but also extend our abilities beyond what is possible in the physical world. In the first part of this talk, I will present my work on redirection illusions that leverage the limits of human perception to improve the perceived performance of encountered-type haptic devices in VR, such as the position accuracy of drones and the resolution of shape displays. In the second part, I will share how we apply these illusory interactions to physical spaces and use augmented reality (AR) to facilitate situated and bidirectional human-robot communication, bridging users’ mental models and robotic representations. [ University of Pennsylvania GRASP Laboratory ]

Ghost Robotics is today announcing a major upgrade for their Vision 60 quadruped: an arm. Ghost, a company which originated at the GRASP Lab at the University of Pennsylvania , specializes in exceptionally rugged quadrupeds, and while many of its customers use its robots for public safety and disaster relief, it also provides robots to the United States military, which has very specific needs when it comes to keeping humans out of danger. In that context, it’s not unreasonable to assume that Ghost’s robots may sometimes be used to carry weapons, and despite the proliferation of robots in many roles in the Ukraine war, the idea of a legged robot carrying a weapon is not a comfortable one for many people. IEEE Spectrum spoke with Ghost co-founder and current CEO Gavin Kenneally to learn more about the new arm, and to get his perspective on selling robots to the military. The Vision 60’s new arm has six degrees of freedom. Ghost Robotics Robots for the Military Ghost Robotics initially made a name for itself with its very impressive early work with the Minitaur direct-drive quadruped in 2016. The company also made headlines in late 2021, when a now-deleted post on Twitter (now X) went viral because it included a photograph of one of Ghost’s Vision 60 quadrupeds with a rifle mounted on its back . That picture resulted in a very strong reaction , although as IEEE Spectrum reported at the time, robots with guns affixed to them wasn’t new: To mention one early example, the U.S. military had already deployed weapons on mobile robots in Iraq in 2007 . And while several legged robot companies pledged in 2022 not to weaponize their general purpose robots , the Chinese military in 2024 displayed quadrupeds from Unitree equipped with guns. (Unitree, based in China, was one of the signers of the 2022 pledge.) The issue of weaponized robots goes far beyond Ghost Robotics, and far beyond robots with legs. We’ve covered both the practical and ethical perspectives on this extensively at IEEE Spectrum , and the intensity of the debates show that there is no easy answer. But to summarize one important point made by some ethicists, some military experts, and Ghost Robotics itself: robots are replaceable, humans are not. “Customers use our robots to keep people out of harm’s way,” Ghost CEO Kenneally tells Spectrum. It’s also worth pointing out that even the companies who signed the pledge not to weaponize their general purpose robots acknowledge that military robots exist, and are accepting of that, provided that such robots are used under existing legal doctrines and operate within those safeguards—and that what constraints should or should not be imposed on these kinds of robots is best decided by policymakers rather than industry. This is essentially Ghost Robotics’ position as well, says Kenneally. “We sell our robots to U.S. and allied governments, and as part of that, the robots are used in defense applications where they will sometimes be weaponized. What’s most critical to us is that the decisions about how to use these robots are happening systematically and ethically at the government policy level.” To some extent, these decisions are already being made within the U.S. government. Department of Defense Directive 3000.09 , ‘Autonomy in Weapon Systems,’ lays out the responsibilities and limitations for how autonomous or human-directed robotics weapons systems should be developed and deployed, including requirements for human use-of-force judgements. At least in the U.S., this directive implies that there are rules and accountability for robotic weapons. Vision 60’s Versatile Arm Capabilities Ghost sees its Vision 60 quadruped as a system that its trusted customers can use as they see fit, and the manipulator enables many additional capabilities. “The primary purpose of the robot has been as a sensor platform,” Kenneally says, “but sometimes there are doors in the way, or objects that need to be moved, or you might want the robot to take a sample. So the ability to do all of that mobile manipulation has been hugely valuable for our customers.” As it turns out, arms are good for more than manipulation. “One thing that’s been very interesting is that our customers have been using the arm as a sensor boom, which is something that we hadn’t anticipated,” says Kenneally. Ghost’s robot has plenty of cameras, but they’re mostly at the viewpoint of a moderately-sized dog. The new arm offers a more human-like vantage and a way to peek around corners or over things without exposing the whole robot. Ghost was not particularly interested in building their own arm, and tried off-the-shelf options to get the manipulation bit working. And they did get the manipulation working; what didn’t work were any of those arms after the 50 kilogram robot rolled over on them. “We wanted to make sure that we could build an arm that could stand up to the same intense rigors of our customers’ operations that the rest of the robot can,” says Kenneally. “Morphologically, we actually consider the arm to be a fifth leg, so that the robot operates as a unified system for whole-body control.” The rest of the robot is exceptionally rugged, which is what makes it appealing to customers with unique needs, like special forces teams. Enough battery life for more than three hours of walking (or more than 20 hours on standby) isn’t bad, and the Vision 60 is sealed against sand and dust, and can survive complete submergence in shallow water. It can operate in extreme temperatures ranging from -40 °C to 55 °C, which has been a particular challenge for robots. And if you do manage to put it in a situation where it physically breaks one of its legs, it’s easy to swap in a spare in just a few minutes, even out in the field. The Vision 60 can open doors withe high-level direction from a human operator. Ghost Robotics Quadruped Robot Competition From China Despite Ghost quietly selling over a thousand quadrupeds to date, Kenneally is cautious about the near future for legged robots, as is anyone who has seriously considered buying one, because it’s impossible to ignore the option of just buying one from a Chinese company at about a tenth the cost of a quadruped from a company based in the U.S. or Europe. “China has identified legged robotics as a lynchpin technology that they are strategically funding,” Kenneally says. “I think it’s an extremely serious threat in the long term, and we have to take these competitors very seriously despite their current shortcomings.” There is a technological moat, for now, but if the market for legged robots follows the same trajectory as the market for drones did, that moat will shrink drastically over the next few years. The United States is poised to ban consumer drone sales from Chinese manufacturer DJI , and banned DJI drone use by federal agencies in 2017 . But it may be too late in some sense, as DJI’s global market share is something like 90 percent . Meanwhile, Unitree may have already cornered somewhere around 70 percent of the global market for quadrupeds, despite the recent publication of exploits that allow the robots to send unauthorized data to China. In the United States in particular, private sector robotics funding is unpredictable at the best of times, and Kenneally argues that to compete with Chinese-subsidized robot-makers American companies like Ghost who produce these robots domestically will need sustained U.S. government support, too. That doesn’t mean the government has to pick which companies will be the winners, but that it should find a way to support the U.S. robotics industry as a whole, if it still wants to have a meaningful one. “The quadruped industry isn’t a science project anymore,” says Kenneally. “It’s matured, and quadruped robots are going to become extremely important in both commercial and government applications. But it’s only through continued innovation that we’ll be able to stay ahead.”

Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your friends at IEEE Spectrum robotics. We also post a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next few months. Please send us your events for inclusion. ICRA 2026 : 1–5 June 2026, VIENNA Enjoy today’s videos! EPFL scientists have integrated discarded crustacean shells into robotic devices, leveraging the strength and flexibility of natural materials for robotic applications. [ EPFL ] Finally, a good humanoid robot demo! Although having said that, I never trust videos demos where it works really well once, and then just pretty well every other time. [ LimX Dynamics ] Thanks, Jinyan! I understand how these structures work, I really do. But watching something rigid extrude itself from a flexible reel will always seem a little magical. [ AAAS ] Thanks, Kyujin! I’m not sure what “industrial grade” actually means, but I want robots to be “automotive grade,” where they’ll easily operate for six months or a year without any maintenance at all. [ Pudu Robotics ] Thanks, Mandy! When you start to suspect that your robotic EV charging solution costs more than your car. [ Flexiv ] Yeah uh if the application for this humanoid is actually making robot parts with a hammer and anvil, then I’d be impressed. [ EngineAI ] Researchers at Columbia Engineering have designed a robot that can learn a human-like sense of neatness. The researchers taught the system by showing it millions of examples, not teaching it specific instructions. The result is a model that can look at a cluttered tabletop and rearrange scattered objects in an orderly fashion. [ Paper ] Why haven’t we seen this sort of thing in humanoid robotics videos yet? [ HUCEBOT ] While I definitely appreciate in-the-field testing, it’s also worth asking to what extent your robot is actually being challenged by the in-the-field field that you’ve chosen. [ DEEP Robotics ] Introducing HMND 01 Alpha Bipedal — autonomous, adaptive, designed for real-world impact. Built in 5 months, walking stably after 48 hours of training. [ Humanoid ] Unitree says that “this is to validate the overall reliability of the robot” but I really have to wonder how useful this kind of reliability validation actually is. [ Unitree ] This University of Pennsylvania GRASP on Robotics Seminar is by Jie Tan from Google DeepMind, on “Gemini Robotics: Bringing AI into the Physical World.” Recent advancements in large multimodal models have led to the emergence of remarkable generalist capabilities in digital domains, yet their translation to physical agents such as robots remains a significant challenge. In this talk, I will present Gemini Robotics, an advanced Vision-Language-Action (VLA) generalist model capable of directly controlling robots. Furthermore, I will discuss the challenges, learnings and future research directions on robot foundation models. [ University of Pennsylvania GRASP Laboratory ]

Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your friends at IEEE Spectrum robotics. We also post a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next few months. Please send us your events for inclusion. SOSV Robotics Matchup : 1–5 December 2025, ONLINE ICRA 2026 : 1–5 June 2026, VIENNA Enjoy today’s videos! Step behind the scenes with Walt Disney Imagineering Research & Development and discover how Disney uses robotics, AI, and immersive technology to bring stories to life! From the brand new self-walking Olaf in World of Frozen and BDX Droids to cutting-edge attractions like Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run, see how magic meets innovation. [ Disney Experiences ] We just released a new demonstration of Mentee’s V3 humanoid robots completing a real world logistics task together. Over an uninterrupted 18-minute run, the robots autonomously move 32 boxes from eight piles to storage racks of different heights. The video shows steady locomotion, dexterous manipulation, and reliable coordination throughout the entire task. And there’s an uncut 18 minute version of this at the link. [ MenteeBot ] Thanks, Yovav! This video contains graphic depictions of simulated injuries. Viewer discretion is advised. In this immersive overview, guided by the DARPA Triage Challenge program manager, retired Army Col. Jeremy C. Pamplin, M.D., you’ll experience how teams of innovators, engineers, and DARPA are redefining the future of combat casualty care. Be sure to look all around! Check out competition runs, behind-the-scenes of what it takes to put on a DARPA Challenge, and glimpses into the future of lifesaving care. Those couple of minutes starting at 6:50 with the human medic and robotic teaming was particularly cool. [ DARPA ] You don’t need to build a humanoid robot if you can just make existing humanoids a lot better. I especially love 0:45 because you know what? Humanoids should spend more time sitting down, for all kinds of reasons. And of course, thank you for falling and getting up again, albeit on some of the squishiest grass on the planet. [ Flexion ] “Human-in-the-Loop Gaussian Splatting” wins best paper title of the week. [ Paper ] via [ IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters in IEEE Xplore ] Scratch that, “Extremum Seeking Controlled Wiggling for Tactile Insertion” wins best paper title of the week. [ University of Maryland PRG ] The battery swapping on this thing is... Unfortunate. [ LimX Dynamics ] To push the boundaries of robotic capability, researchers in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University in collaboration with The University of Washington and Google Deepmind, have developed a new tactile sensing system that enables four-legged robots to carry unsecured, cylindrical objects on their backs. This system, known as LocoTouch, features a network of tactile sensors that spans the robot’s entire back. As an object shifts, the sensors provide real-time feedback on its position, allowing the robot to continuously adjust its posture and movement to keep the object balanced. [ Carnegie Mellon University ] This robot is in more need of googly eyes than any other robot I’ve ever seen. [ Zarrouk Lab ] DPR Construction has deployed Field AI’s autonomy software on a quadruped robot at the company’s job site in Santa Clara, CA, to greatly improve its daily surveying and data collection processes. By automating what has traditionally been a very labor intensive and time consuming process, Field AI is helping the DPR team operate more efficiently and effectively, while increasing project quality. [ FieldAI ] In our second episode of AI in Motion, our host, Waymo AI researcher Vincent Vanhoucke, talks with a robotics startup founder Sergey Levine, who left a career in academic research to build better robots for the home and workplace. [ Waymo ]

Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your friends at IEEE Spectrum robotics. We also post a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next few months. Please send us your events for inclusion. SOSV Robotics Matchup : 1–5 December 2025, ONLINE ICRA 2026 : 1–5 June 2026, VIENNA Enjoy today’s videos! Researchers at the RAI Institute have built a low-impedance platform to study dynamic robot manipulation. In this demo, robots play a game of catch and participate in batting practice, both with each other and with skilled humans. The robots are capable of throwing 70mph [112 kph], approaching the speed of a strong high school pitcher. The robots can catch and bat at short distances (23 feet [7 m]) requiring quick reaction times to catch balls thrown at up to 41 mph [66kph] and hit balls pitched at up to 30 mph [48kph]. That’s a nice touch with the custom “RAI” baseball gloves, but what I really want to know is how long a pair of robots can keep themselves entertained. [ RAI Institute ] This week’s best bacronym winner is GIRAF: Greatly Increased Reach AnyMAL Function. And if that arm looks like magic, that’s because it is, although with some careful pausing of the video you’ll be able to see how it works. [ Stanford BDML ] DARPA concluded the second year of the DARPA Triage Challenge on October 4, awarding top marks to DART and MSAI in Systems and Data competitions, respectively. The three-year prize competition aims to revolutionize medical triage in mass casualty incidents where medical resources are limited. [ DARPA ] We propose a robot agnostic reward function that balances the achievement of a desired end pose with impact minimization and the protection of critical robot parts during reinforcement learning. To make the policy robust to a broad range of initial falling conditions and to enable the specification of an arbitrary and unseen end pose at inference time, we introduce a simulation-based sampling strategy of initial and end poses. Through simulated and real-world experiments, our work demonstrates that even bipedal robots can perform controlled, soft falls. [ Moritz Baecher ] Oh look, more humanoid acrobatics. My prediction: once humanoid companies run out of mocapped dance moves, we’ll start seeing some freaky stuff that leverages the degrees of freedom that robots have and humans do not. You heard it here first, folks. [ MagicLab ] I challenge the next company that makes a “lights-out” video to just cut to just a totally black screen with a little “Successful Picks” counter in the corner that just goes up and up and up. [ Brightpick ] Thanks, Gilmarie! The terrain stuff is cool and all but can we just talk about the trailer instead? [ LimX Dynamics ] Presumably very picky German birblets are getting custom nesting boxes manufactured with excessively high precision by robots. [ TUM ] All those UBTECH Walker S2 robots weren’t fake, it turns out. [ UBTECH ] This is more automation than what we’d really be thinking of as robotics at this point, but I could still watch it all day. [ Motoman ] Brad Porter (Cobot) and Alfred Lin (Sequoia Capital) discuss the future of robotics, AI, and automation at the Human[X] Conference, moderated by CNBC’s Kate Rooney. They explore why collaborative robots are accelerating now, how AI is transforming physical systems, the role of humanoids, labor market shifts, and the investment trends shaping the next decade of robotics. [ Cobot ] Humanoid robots have long captured our imagination. Interest has skyrocketed along with the perception that robots are getting closer to taking on a wide range of labor-intensive tasks. In this discussion, we reflect on what we’ve learned by observing factory floors, and why we’ve grown convinced that chasing generalization in manipulation—both in hardware and behavior—isn’t just interesting, but necessary. We’ll discuss AI research threads we’re exploring at Boston Dynamics to push this mission forward, and highlight opportunities our field should collectively invest more in to turn the humanoid vision, and the reinvention of manufacturing, into a practical, economically viable product. [ Boston Dynamics ] On November 12, 2025, Tom Williams presented “Degrees of Freedom: On Robotics and Social Justice” as part of the Michigan Robotics Seminar Series. [ Michigan Robotics ] Ask the OSRF Board of Directors anything! Or really, listen to other people ask them anything. [ ROSCon ]

While there are many useful questions to ask when encountering a new robot, “can I eat it” is generally not one of them. I say ‘generally,’ because edible robots are actually a thing —and not just edible in the sense that you can technically swallow them and suffer both the benefits and consequences , but ingestible , where you can take a big bite out of the robot , chew it up, and swallow it. Yum. But so far these ingestible robots have included a very please-don’t-ingest-this asterisk: the motor and battery, which are definitely toxic and probably don’t taste all that good. The problem has been that soft, ingestible actuators run on gas pressure, requiring pumps and valves to function, neither of which are easy to make without plastic and metal. But in a new paper , researchers from Dario Floreano’s Laboratory of Intelligent Systems at EPFL in Switzerland have demonstrated ingestible versions of both of batteries and actuators, resulting in what is, as far as I know, the first entirely ingestible robot capable of controlled actuation. EPFL Let’s start with the battery on this lil’ guy. In a broad sense, a battery is just a system for storing and releasing energy. In the case of this particular robot, the battery is made of gelatin and wax. It stores chemical energy in chambers containing liquid citric acid and baking soda, both of which you can safely eat. The citric acid is kept separate from the baking soda by a membrane, and enough pressure on the chamber containing the acid will puncture that membrane, allowing the acid to slowly drip onto the baking soda. This activates the battery and begins to generate CO2 gas, along with sodium citrate (common in all kinds of foods, from cheese to sour candy) as a byproduct. EPFL The CO2 gas travels through gelatin tubing into the actuator, which is of a fairly common soft robotic design that uses interconnected gas chambers on top of a slightly stiffer base that bends when pressurized. Pressurizing the actuator gets you one single actuation, but to make the actuator wiggle (wiggling being an absolutely necessary skill for any robot), the gas has to be cyclically released. The key to doing this is the other major innovation here: an ingestible valve. EPFL The valve operates based on the principle of snap-buckling, which means that it’s happiest in one shape (closed), but if you put it under enough pressure, it rapidly snaps open and then closed again once the pressure is released. The current version of the robot operates at about four bending cycles per minute over a period of a couple of minutes before the battery goes dead. And so there you go: a battery, a valve, and an actuator, all ingestible, makes for a little wiggly robot, also ingestible. Great! But why ? “A potential use case for our system is to provide nutrition or medication for elusive animals, such as wild boars,” says lead author Bokeon Kwak. “Wild boars are attracted to live moving prey, and in our case, it’s the edible actuator that mimics it.” The concept is that you could infuse something like a swine flu vaccine into the robot. Because it’s cheap to manufacture, safe to deploy, completely biodegradable, and wiggly, it could potentially serve as an effective strategy for targeted mass delivery to the kind of animals that nobody wants to get close to. And it’s obviously not just wild boars—by tuning the size and motion characteristics of the robot, what triggers it, and its smell and taste, you could target pretty much any animal that finds wiggly things appealing. And that includes humans! Kwak says that if you were to eat this robot, the actuator and valve would taste a little bit sweet, since they have glycerol in them, with a texture like gummy candy. The pneumatic battery would be crunchy on the outside and sour on the inside (like a lemon) thanks to the citric acid. While this work doesn’t focus specifically on taste, the researchers have made other versions of the actuator that were flavored with grenadine. They served these actuators out to humans earlier this year , and are working on an ‘analysis of consumer experience’ which I can only assume is a requirement before announcing a partnership with Haribo. Eatability, though, is not the primary focus of the robot, says PI Dario Floreano. “If you look at it from the broader perspective of environmental and sustainable robotics, the pneumatic battery and valve system is a key enabling technology, because it’s compatible with all sorts of biodegradable pneumatic robots.” And even if you’re not particularly concerned with all the environmental stuff, which you really should be, in the context of large swarms of robots in the wild it’s critical to focus on simplicity and affordability just to be able to usefully scale. This is all part of the EU-funded RoboFood project , and Kwak is currently working on other edible robots. For example, the elastic snap-buckling behavior in this robot’s valve is sort of battery-like in that it’s storing and releasing elastic energy, and with some tweaking, Kwak is hoping that edible elastic power sources might be the key for tasty little jumping robots that jump right off the dessert plate and into your mouth . Edible Pneumatic Battery for Sustained and Repeated Robot Actuation , by Bokeon Kwak, Shuhang Zhang, Alexander Keller, Qiukai Qi, Jonathan Rossiter, and Dario Floreano from EPFL, is published in Advanced Science .

Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your friends at IEEE Spectrum robotics. We also post a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next few months. Please send us your events for inclusion. ICRA 2026 : 1–5 June 2026, VIENNA Enjoy today’s videos! Current multirotor drones provide simplicity, affordability, and ease of operation; however, their primary limitation is their low payload-to-weight ratio, which typically falls at 1:1 or less. The DARPA Lift Challenge aims to shatter the heavy lift bottleneck, seeking novel drone designs that can carry payloads more than four times their weight, which would revolutionize the way we use drones across all sectors. [ DARPA ] Huge milestone achieved! World’s first mass delivery of humanoid robots has completed! Hundreds of UBTECH Walker S2 have been delivered to our partners. I really hope that’s not how they’re actually shipping their robots. [ UBTECH ] There is absolutely no reason to give robots hands if you can just teach them to lasso stuff instead. [ ArcLab ] Saddle Creek deployed Carter in its order fulfillment operation for a beauty client. It helps to automate and optimize tote delivery operations between multiple processing and labeling lines and more than 20 designated drop-off points. In this capacity, Carter functions as a flexible, non-integrated “virtual conveyor” that streamlines material flow without requiring fixed infrastructure. [ Robust.ai ] This is our latest work on an aerial–ground robot team, the first time a language–vision hierarchy achieves long-horizon navigation and manipulation on the real UAV + quadruped using only 2D cameras. The article is published open-access in Advanced Intelligent Systems. [ DRAGON Lab ] Thanks, Moju! I am pretty sure that you should not use a quadrupedal robot to transport your child. But only pretty sure, not totally certain. [ DEEP Robotics ] Building Behavioral Foundation Models (BFMs) for humanoid robots has the potential to unify diverse control tasks under a single, promptable generalist policy. However, existing approaches are either exclusively deployed on simulated humanoid characters, or specialized to specific tasks such as tracking. We propose BFM-Zero, a framework that learns an effective shared latent representation that embeds motions, goals, and rewards into a common space, enabling a single policy to be prompted for multiple downstream tasks without retraining. [ BFM-Zero ] Welcome to the very, very near future of manual labor. [ AgileX ] MOMO (Mobile Object Manipulation Operator) has been one of KIMLAB’s key robots since its development about two years ago and has featured as a main actor in several of our videos. The design and functionalities of MOMO were recently published in IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine. [ Paper ] via [ KIMLAB ] We are excited about our new addition to our robot fleet! As a shared resource for our faculty members, this robot will facilitate multiple research activities within our institute that target significant future funding. Our initial focus for this robot will be on an agricultural application but we have big plans for the robot in human-robot interaction projects. [ Ingenuity Labs ] The nice thing about robots that pick grapes in vineyards is that they don’t just eat the grapes, like I do. [ Extend Robotics ] How mobile of a mobile manipulator do you need? [ Clearpath Robotics ] Robotics professor, Dr. Christian Hubicki, talks about the NEO humanoid announcement on October 29th, 2025. While explaining the technical elements and product readiness, he refuses to show any emotion whatsoever. [ Optimal Robotics Lab ]

Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your friends at IEEE Spectrum robotics. We also post a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next few months. Please send us your events for inclusion. ICRA 2026 : 1–5 June 2026, VIENNA Enjoy today’s videos! Unlike existing hybrid designs, Duawlfin eliminates the need for additional actuators or propeller-driven ground propulsion by leveraging only its standard quadrotor motors and introducing a differential drivetrain with one-way bearings. The seamless transitions between aerial and ground modes further underscore the practicality and effectiveness of our approach for applications like urban logistics and indoor navigation. [ HiPeR Lab ] I appreciate the softness of NEO’s design, but those fingers look awfully fragile. [ 1X ] Imagine reaching into your backpack to find your keys. Your eyes guide your hand to the opening, but once inside, you rely almost entirely on touch to distinguish your keys from your wallet, phone, and other items. This seamless transition between sensory modalities (knowing when to rely on vision versus touch) is something humans do effortlessly but robots struggle with. The challenge isn’t just about having multiple sensors. Modern robots are equipped with cameras, tactile sensors, depth sensors, and more. The real problem is **how to integrate these different sensory streams**, especially when some sensors provide sparse but critical information at key moments. Our solution comes from rethinking how we combine modalities. Instead of forcing all sensors through a single network, we train separate expert policies for each modality and learn how to combine their action predictions at the policy level. Multi-university Collaboration presented via [ GitHub ] Thanks, Haonan! Happy (somewhat late) Halloween from Pollen Robotics! [ Pollen Robotics ] In collaboration with our colleagues from Iowa State and University of Georgia, we have put our pipe-crawling worm robot to test in the field. See it crawls through corrugated drainage pipes in a stream, and a smooth section of a subsurface drainage system. [ Paper ] from [ Smart Microsystems Laboratory, Michigan State University ] Heterogeneous robot teams operating in realistic settings often must accomplish complex missions requiring collaboration and adaptation to information acquired online. Because robot teams frequently operate in unstructured environments — uncertain, open-world settings without prior maps — subtasks must be grounded in robot capabilities and the physical world. We present SPINE-HT, a framework that addresses these limitations by grounding the reasoning abilities of LLMs in the context of a heterogeneous robot team through a three-stage process. In real-world experiments with a Clearpath Jackal, a Clearpath Husky, a Boston Dynamics Spot, and a high-altitude UAV, our method achieves an 87% success rate in missions requiring reasoning about robot capabilities and refining subtasks with online feedback. [ SPINE-HT ] from [ GRASP Lab, University of Pennsylvania ] Astribot keeping itself busy at IROS 2025. [ Astribot ] In two papers published in Matter and Advanced Science, a team of scientists from the Physical Intelligence Department at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Stuttgart, Germany, developed control strategies for influencing the motion of self-propelling oil droplets. These oil droplets mimic single-celled microorganisms and can autonomously solve a complex maze by following chemical gradients. However, it is very challenging to integrate external perturbation and use these droplets in robotics. To address these challenges, the team developed magnetic droplets that still possess life-like properties and can be controlled by external magnetic fields. In their work, the researchers showed that they are able to guide the droplet’s motion and use them in microrobotic applications such as cargo transportation. [ Max Planck Institute ] Everyone has fantasized about having an embodied avatar! Full-body teleoperation and full-body data acquisition platform is waiting for you to try it out! [ Unitree ] It’s not a humanoid , but it right now safely does useful things and probably doesn’t cost all that much to buy or run. [ Naver Labs ] This paper presents a curriculum-based reinforcement learning framework for training precise and high-performance jumping policies for the robot `Olympus’. Separate policies are developed for vertical and horizontal jumps, leveraging a simple yet effective strategy. Experimental validation demonstrates horizontal jumps up to 1.25 m with centimeter accuracy and vertical jumps up to 1.0 m. Additionally, we show that with only minor modifications, the proposed method can be used to learn omnidirectional jumping. [ Paper ] from [ Autonomous Robots Lab, Norwegian University of Science and Technology ] Heavy payloads are no problem for it: The new KR TITAN ultra moves payloads of up to 1500 kg, making the heavy lifting extreme in the KUKA portfolio. [ Kuka ] Good luck getting all of the sand out of that robot. Perhaps a nice oil bath is in order? [ DEEP Robotics ] This CMU RI Seminar is from Yuke Zhu at University of Texas at Austin, on “Toward Generalist Humanoid Robots: Recent Advances, Opportunities, and Challenges.” In an era of rapid AI progress, leveraging accelerated computing and big data has unlocked new possibilities to develop generalist AI models. As AI systems like ChatGPT showcase remarkable performance in the digital realm, we are compelled to ask: Can we achieve similar breakthroughs in the physical world — to create generalist humanoid robots capable of performing everyday tasks? In this talk, I will outline our data-centric research principles and approaches for building general-purpose robot autonomy in the open world. I will present our recent work leveraging real-world, synthetic, and web data to train foundation models for humanoid robots. Furthermore, I will discuss the opportunities and challenges of building the next generation of intelligent robots. [ Carnegie Mellon University Robotics Institute ]

Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your friends at IEEE Spectrum robotics. We also post a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next few months. Please send us your events for inclusion. ICRA 2026 : 1–5 June 2026, VIENNA Enjoy today’s videos! Happy Halloween from UCL! [ University College London ] Happy Halloween from KIMLAB ! [ Kinetic Intelligent Machine Lab ] Happy Halloween from the DRAGON Lab ! [ DRAGON Lab, University of Tokyo ] Thanks, Moju! Happy Halloween from Agility Robotics ! [ Agility Robotics ] Happy Halloween from HEBI Robotics! [ HEBI Robotics ] You can now pay 1X $500/mo to collect data in your home. And it’s about what you’d expect: [ 1X ] via [ WSJ ] At our test warehouse, we recreate our customers’ inbound operations, from the dock configuration and conveyors, to the freight and beyond. Step inside our Stretch testing facility to learn about the the latest developments in warehouse automation and explore how we ensure robust, reliable performance in the real world. [ Boston Dynamics ] Well this is just mean. Important, but mean. [ Istituto Italiano de Tecnologia ] SpikeATac is a a multimodal tactile finger combining a taxelized and highly sensitive dynamic response (PVDF) with a static transduction method (capacitive) for multimodal touch sensing. Named for its `spiky’ response, SpikeATac’s multitaxel PVDF film provides fast, sensitive dynamic signals to the very onset and breaking of contact, providing the ability to stop quickly and delicately when grasping fragile, deformable objects. [ ROAM Lab, Columbia University ] Effectively integrating diverse sensory representations is crucial for robust robotic manipulation. However, the typical approach of feature concatenation is often suboptimal: dominant modalities such as vision can overwhelm sparse but critical signals like touch in contact-rich tasks, and monolithic architectures cannot flexibly incorporate new or missing modalities without retraining. Our method factorizes the policy into a set of diffusion models, each specialized for a single representation (e.g., vision or touch), and employs a router network that learns consensus weights to adaptively combine their contributions, enabling incremental integration of new representations. [ GitHub ] Thanks, Haonan! General-purpose robots should possess human-like dexterity and agility to perform tasks with the same versatility as us. A human-like form factor further enables the use of vast datasets of human-hand interactions. However, the primary bottleneck in dexterous manipulation lies not only in software but arguably even more in hardware. We present the open-source ORCA hand, a reliable and anthropomorphic 17-DoF tendon-driven robotic hand with integrated tactile sensors, fully assembled in less than eight hours and built for a material cost below 2,000 CHF. [ ORCA ] University of Chicago computer scientist Sarah Sebo is programming robots to give empathetic responses and perform nonverbal social cues like nodding to better build trust and rapport with humans. The goal is to develop robots that can improve performance in human-robot teams , such as enhancing learning outcomes for children. [ University of Chicago ] DJI has a robot vacuum now, which is fine. As far as I can make out, we’ve reached the point where just about every robot vacuum is (for better or worse) just that: fine. [ DJI ] This ICRA 2025 keynote is from Angela Schoellig at Technical University of Munich, on “Powering Robotics with AI.” [ ICRA 2025 ] This Carnegie Mellon University, Robotics Institute (CMU RI) Seminar is from Nancy Pollard, on “Bringing Dexterity to Robot Hands in the Real World.” Dexterous manipulation is a grand challenge of robotics, and fine manipulation skills are required for many robotics applications that we envision. In this overview talk, I will discuss my view of some major factors that contribute to dexterity and discuss how we can incorporate them into our robots and systems. [ CMU RI ]

Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your friends at IEEE Spectrum robotics. We also post a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next few months. Please send us your events for inclusion. ROSCon 2025 : 27–29 October 2025, SINGAPORE Enjoy today’s videos! Welcome to this world—standing 180 cm tall and weighing 70 kg. The H2 bionic humanoid—born to serve everyone safely and friendly. Starting at US$29,900 plus tax and shipping. [ Unitree ] The title of this one, “Eagle Stole our FPV Drone,” pretty much sums it up. [ Team BlackSheep ] Historically, small robots couldn’t have arms because the necessary motors made them too heavy. We addressed this challenge by replacing multiple motors with a single motor and miniature electrostatic clutches. This innovation allowed us to create a high-DOF, lightweight arm for small robots, which can even hitch onto a drone. [ Seoul National University ] Thanks, Kyu-Jin! Just FYI, any robot that sounds like a tasty baked good is guaranteed favorable coverage on Video Friday. [ Cleo Robotics ] Oli now pulls off a smooth, coordinated whole-body sequence from lying down to getting back up. Standing 165 cm tall and powered by 31 degrees of freedom, Oli continues to demonstrate natural and fluid motion. [ LimX Dynamics ] Thanks, Jinyan! Friend o’ the blog Bram Vanderborght tours the exhibit floor at IROS 2025 in Hanghzou, China. [ IROS 2025 ] In a fireside chat with Professor Sam Madden, Tye Brady, Chief Technologist at Amazon Robotics , will discuss the trajectory of robotics and how generative AI plays a role in robotics innovation. [ MIT Generative AI Impact Consortium ] Prof. Dimitrios Kanoulas gave an invited talk at the Workshop on The Art of Robustness: Surviving Failures in Robotics at IROS 2025. [ IROS 2025 ] This University of Pennsylvania GRASP talk is by Suraj Nair from Physical Intelligence, on “Scaling Robot Learning with Vision-Language-Action Models.” The last several years have witnessed tremendous progress in the capabilities of AI systems, driven largely by foundation models that scale expressive architectures with diverse data sources. While the impact of this technology on vision and language understanding is abundantly clear, its use in robotics remains in its infancy. Scaling robot learning still presents numerous open challenges—from selecting the right data to scale, to developing algorithms that can effectively fit this data for closed-loop operation in the physical world. At Physical Intelligence, we aim to tackle these questions. This talk will present our recent work on building vision-language-action models, covering topics such as architecture design, data scaling, and open research directions. [ University of Pennsylvania GRASP Laboratory ]

Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your friends at IEEE Spectrum robotics. We also post a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next few months. Please send us your events for inclusion. IROS 2025 : 19–25 October 2025, HANGZHOU, CHINA Enjoy today’s videos! Caltech’s Center for Autonomous Systems and Technologies (CAST) and the Technology Innovation Institute in Abu Dhabi, UAE, recently conducted a demonstration of X1, a multirobot system developed as part of a three-year collaboration between the two institutes. During the demo, M4, a multimodal robot developed by CAST, launches in drone-mode from a humanoid robot’s back. It lands and converts into driving mode and then back again, as needed. The demonstration underscored the kind of progress that is possible when engineers from multiple institutions at the forefront of autonomous systems and technologies truly collaborate. [ Caltech Center for Autonomous Systems and Technologies ] Spot robot performs dynamic whole-body manipulation using a combination of reinforcement learning and sampling-based control. Behavior shown in the video is fully autonomous, including the dynamic selection of contacts on the arm, legs, and body, and coordination between the manipulation and locomotion processes. The tire weighs 15 kg (33 lbs), making its mass and inertial energy significant compared to the weight of the robot. An external motion capture system was used to simplify perception and an external computer linked by WiFi performed the intensive computational operations. Spot’s arm is stronger than I thought. Also, the arm-foot collaboration is pretty wild. [ Robotics and AI Institute ] Figure 03 represents an unprecedented advancement in taking humanoid robots from experimental prototypes to deployable, scalable products. By uniting advanced perception and tactile intelligence with home-safe design and mass-manufacturing readiness, Figure has built a platform capable of learning, adapting, and working across both domestic and commercial settings. Designed for Helix, the home, and the world at scale, Figure 03 establishes the foundation for true general-purpose robotics - one capable of transforming how people live and work. The kid and the dog in those clips make me very, very nervous. [ Figure ] Researchers have invented a new super agile robot that can cleverly change shape thanks to amorphous characteristics akin to the popular Marvel anti-hero Venom. Researchers used a special material called electro-morphing gel (e-MG) which allows the robot to show shapeshifting functions, allowing them to bend, stretch, and move in ways that were previously difficult or impossible, through manipulation of electric fields from ultralightweight electrodes. [ University of Bristol ] This is very preliminary of course, but I love the idea of quadrupedal robots physically assisting each other to surmount obstacles like this. [ Robot Perception and Learning Lab ] Have we reached peak dynamic humanoid yet? [ Unitree ] Dynamic manipulation, such as robot tossing or throwing objects, has recently gained attention as a novel paradigm to speed up logistic operations. However, the focus has predominantly been on the object’s landing location, irrespective of its final orientation. In this work, we present a method enabling a robot to accurately “throw-flip” objects to a desired landing pose (position and orientation). [ LASA ] I don’t care all that much about “industry-oriented” quadrupeds. I do care very much about “rideable” quadrupeds. [ MagicLab ] I am not yet at the point where I would trust any humanoid around priceless ancient relics. Any humanoid, not just the robotic ones. [ LimX ] This CMU RI Seminar is from Matt Mason, Professor Emeritus at CMU, entitled “A Manipulation Journey.” The talk will revisit my career in manipulation research, focusing on projects that might offer some useful lessons for others. We will start with my beginnings at the MIT AI Lab and my MS thesis, which is still my most cited work, then continue with my arrival at CMU, a discussion with Allen Newell, an exercise to envision a coherent research program, and how that led to a second and third childhood. The talk will conclude with some discussion of lessons learned. [ Carnegie Mellon University Robotics Institute ] Dr. Christian Hubicki highlights and explains the past year of humanoid robotics research and news. [ Florida State University ] More excellent robotics discussions from ICRA@40 . [ ICRA@40 ]

Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your friends at IEEE Spectrum robotics. We also post a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next few months. Please send us your events for inclusion. World Robot Summit : 10–12 October 2025, OSAKA, JAPAN IROS 2025 : 19–25 October 2025, HANGZHOU, CHINA Enjoy today’s videos! There are two things that I really appreciate about this video on grippers from Boston Dynamics . First, building a gripper while keeping in mind that the robot will inevitably fall onto it, because I’m seeing lots of very delicate looking five-fingered hands on humanoids and I’m very skeptical of their ruggedness. And second, understanding that not only is a five-fingered hand very likely unnecessary for the vast majority of tasks, but also robot hands don’t have to be constrained by a human hand’s range of motion. [ Boston Dynamics ] Yes, okay, it’s a fancy looking robot, but I’m still stuck on what useful, practical things can it reliably and cost effectively and safely DO. - YouTube youtu.be [ Figure ] Life on Earth has evolved in constant relation to gravity, yet we rarely consider how deeply it shapes living systems, until we imagine a place without it. In MycoGravity, pink oyster mushrooms grow inside a custom-built bioreactor mounted on a KUKA robotic arm. Inspired by NASA’s random positioning machines, the robot’s programmed movement simulates altered gravity. Over time, sculptural mushrooms emerge, shaped by their environment without a stable gravitational direction. [ MycoGravity ] A new technological advancement gives robotic systems a natural sense of touch without extra skins or sensors. With advanced force sensing and deep learning, this robot can feel where you touch, recognize symbols, and even use virtual buttons—paving the way for more natural and flexible human-robot interaction. [ Science Robotics ] Thanks, Maged! The creator of Mini Pupper introduces Hey Santa , which can be yours for under $60. [ Kickstarter campaign ] I think humanoid robotics companies are starting to realize that they’re going to need to differentiate themselves somehow. [ DEEP Robotics ] Drone swarm performances---synchronized, expressive aerial displays set to music---have emerged as a captivating application of modern robotics. Yet designing smooth, safe choreographies remains a complex task requiring expert knowledge. We present SwarmGPT, a language-based choreographer that leverages the reasoning power of large language models (LLMs) to streamline drone performance design. [ SwarmGPT ] Dr. Mark Draelos, assistant professor of robotics and ophthalmology, received the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director’s New Innovator Award for a project which seeks to improve how delicate microsurgeries are conducted by scaling up tissue to a size where surgeons could “walk across the retina” in virtual reality and operate on tissue as if “raking leaves.” [ University of Michigan ] The intricate mechanisms of the most sophisticated laboratory on Mars are revealed in Episode 4 of the ExoMars Rosalind Franklin series, called “Sample processing.” [ European Space Agency ] There’s currently a marketplace for used industrial robots, and it makes me wonder what’s next. Used humanoids, anyone? [ Kuka ] On October 2, 2025, the 10th “Can We Build Baymax?” Workshop Part 10: What Can We Build Today? & BYOB (Bring Your Own Baymax) was held in Seoul, Korea. To celebrate the 10th anniversary, Baymax delivered a special message from his character designer, Jin Kim. [ Baymax ] I am only sharing this to declare that iRobot has gone off the deep end with their product names: Meet the “Roomba® Max 705 Combo Robot + AutoWash™ Dock.” [ iRobot ] Daniel Piedrahita, Navigation Team Lead, presents on his team’s recent work rebuilding Digit’s navigation stack, including a significant upgrade to foostep path planning. [ Agility Robotics ] A bunch of videos from ICRA@40 have just been posted, and here are a few of my favorites. [ ICRA@40 ]

Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your friends at IEEE Spectrum robotics. We also post a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next few months. Please send us your events for inclusion. World Robot Summit : 10–12 October 2025, OSAKA, JAPAN IROS 2025 : 19–25 October 2025, HANGZHOU, CHINA Enjoy today’s videos! We demonstrate a new landing system that lets drones safely land on moving vehicles at speeds up to 110 km/h. By combining lightweight shock absorbers with reverse thrust, our approach drastically expands the landing envelope, making it far more robust to wind, timing, and vehicle motion. This breakthrough opens the door to reliable high-speed drone landings in real-world conditions. [ Createk Design Lab ] Thanks, Alexis! This video presents an academic parody inspired by KAIST’s humanoid robot moonwalk. While KAIST demonstrated the iconic move with robot legs, we humorously reproduced it using the Tesollo DG-5F robot hand. A playful experiment to show that not only humanoid robots but also robotic fingers can “dance.” [ Hangyang University ] 20 years ago, Universal Robots built the first collaborative robot . You turned it into something bigger. Our cobot was never just technology. In your hands, it became something more: a teammate, a problem-solver, a spark for change. From factories to labs, from classrooms to warehouses. That’s the story of the past 20 years. That’s what we celebrate today. [ Universal Robots ] The assistive robot Maya, newly developed at DLR, is designed to enable people with severe physical disabilities to lead more independent lives. The new robotic arm is built for seamless wheelchair integration, with optimized kinematics for stowing, ground-level access, and compatibility with standing functions. [ DLR ] Contoro and HARCO Lab have launched an open-source initiative, ROS-MCP-Server, which connects AI models (e.g., Claude, GPT, Gemini) with robots using ROS and MCP. This software enables AI to communicate with multiple ROS nodes in the language of robots. We believe it will allow robots to perform tasks previously impossible due to limited intelligence, help robotics engineers program robots more efficiently, and enable non-experts to interact with robots without deep robotics knowledge. [ GitHub ] Thanks, Mok! Here’s a quick look at the Conference on Robotic Learning (CoRL) exhibit hall, thanks to PNDbotics. [ PNDbotics ] Old and busted: sim to real. New hotness: real to sim! [ Paper ] Any humanoid video with tennis balls should be obligated to show said humanoid failing to walk over them. [ LimX ] Thanks, Jinyan! The correct answer to the question, ‘can you beat a robot arm at Tic-Tac-Toe’ should be no, no you cannot. And you can’t beat a human, either, if they know what they’re doing. [ AgileX ] It was an honor to host the team from Microsoft AI as part of their larger educational collaboration with The University of Texas at Austin. During their time here, they shared this wonderful video of our lab facilities. Moody lighting is second only to random primary colored lighting when it comes to making a lab look sciency. [ The University of Texas at Austin HCRL ] Robots aren’t just sci-fi anymore. They’re evolving fast. AI is teaching them how to adapt, learn and even respond to open-ended questions with advanced intelligence. Aaron Saunders, CTO of Boston Dynamics, explains how this leap is transforming everything, from simple controls to full-motion capabilities. While there are some challenges related to safety and reliability, AI is significantly helping robots become valuable partners at home and on the job. [ IBM ]

One of the robotics projects that I’ve been most excited about for years now is iRonCub , from Daniele Pucci’s Artificial and Mechanical Intelligence Lab at IIT in Genoa, Italy. Since 2017 , Pucci has been developing a jet propulsion system that will enable an iCub robot (originally designed to be the approximate shape and size of a five year old child) to fly like Iron Man. Over the summer, after nearly 10 years of development, iRonCub3 achieved liftoff and stable flight for the first time , with its four jet engines lifting it 50 centimeters off the ground for several seconds. The long-term vision is for iRonCub (or a robot like it) to operate as a disaster response platform, Pucci tells us. In an emergency situation like a flood or a fire, iRonCub could quickly get to a location without worrying about obstacles, and then on landing, start walking for energy efficiency while using its arms and hands to move debris and open doors. “We believe in contributing to something unique in the future,” says Pucci. “We have to explore new things, and this is wild territory at the scientific level.” Obviously, this concept for iRonCub and the practical experimentation attached to it is really cool. But coolness in of itself is usually not enough of a reason to build a robot, especially a robot that’s a (presumably rather expensive) multi-year project involving a bunch of robotics students, so let’s get into a little more detail about why a flying robot baby is actually something that the world needs. In an emergency situation like a flood or a fire, iRonCub could quickly get to a location without worrying about obstacles, and then on landing, start walking for energy efficiency while using its arms and hands to move debris and open doors. IIT Getting a humanoid robot to do this sort of thing is quite a challenge. Together, the jet turbines mounted to iRonCub’s back and arms can generate over 1000 N of thrust, but because it takes time for the engines to spool up or down, control has to come from the robot itself as it moves its arm-engines to maintain stability. “What is not visible from the video,” Pucci tells us, “is that the exhaust gas from the turbines is at 800 degrees Celsius and almost supersonic speed. We have to understand how to generate trajectories in order to avoid the fact that the cones of emission gasses were impacting the robot.” Even if the exhaust doesn’t end up melting the robot, there are still aerodynamic forces involved that have until this point really not been a consideration for humanoid robots at all—in June, Pucci’s group published a paper in Nature Engineering Communications , offering a “comprehensive approach to model and control aerodynamic forces [for humanoid robots] using classical and learning techniques.” “The exhaust gas from the turbines is at 800 degrees Celsius and almost supersonic speed.” —Daniele Pucci, IIT Whether or not you’re on board with Pucci’s future vision for iRonCub as a disaster response platform, derivatives of current research can be immediately applied beyond flying humanoid robots. The algorithms for thrust estimation can be used with other flying platforms that rely on directed thrust, like eVTOL aircraft. Aerodynamic compensation is relevant for humanoid robots even if they’re not airborne, if we expect them to be able to function when it’s windy outside. More surprising, Pucci describes a recent collaboration with an industrial company developing a new pneumatic gripper. “At a certain point, we had to do force estimation for controlling the gripper, and we realized that the dynamics looked really similar to those of the jet turbines, and so we were able to use the same tools for gripper control. That was an ‘ah-ha’ moment for us: first you do something crazy, but then you build the tools and methods, and then you can actually use those tools in an industrial scenario. That’s how to drive innovation.” What’s Next for iRonCub: Attracting Talent and Future Enhancements There’s one more important reason to be doing this, he says: “It’s really cool.” In practice, a really cool flagship project like iRonCub not only attracts talent to Pucci’s lab, but also keeps students and researchers passionate and engaged. I saw this firsthand when I visited IIT last year, where I got a similar vibe to watching the DARPA Robotics Challenge and DARPA SubT —when people know they’re working on something really cool , there’s this tangible, pervasive, and immersive buzzing excitement that comes through. It’s projects like iRonCub that can get students to really love robotics. In the near future, a new jetpack with an added degree of freedom will make yaw control of iRonCub easier, and Pucci would also like to add wings for more efficient long distance flight. But the logistics of testing the robot are getting more complicated—there’s only so far that the team can go with their current test stand (which is on the roof of their building), and future progress will likely require coordinating with the Genoa airport. It’s not going to be easy, but as Pucci makes clear, “this is not a joke. It’s something that we believe in. And that feeling of doing something exceptional, or possibly historical, something that’s going to be remembered—that’s something that’s kept us motivated. And we’re just getting started.”

Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your friends at IEEE Spectrum robotics. We also post a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next few months. Please send us your events for inclusion. CoRL 2025 : 27–30 September 2025, SEOUL IEEE Humanoids : 30 September–2 October 2025, SEOUL World Robot Summit : 10–12 October 2025, OSAKA, JAPAN IROS 2025 : 19–25 October 2025, HANGZHOU, CHINA Enjoy today’s videos! Gemini Robotics 1.5 is our most capable vision-language-action (VLA) model that turns visual information and instructions into motor commands for a robot to perform a task. This model thinks before taking action and shows its process, helping robots assess and complete complex tasks more transparently. It also learns across embodiments, accelerating skill learning . [ Google DeepMind ] A simple “force pull” gesture brings Carter straight into her hand. This is a fantastic example of how an intuitive interaction can transform complex technology into an extension of our intent. [ Robust.ai ] I can’t help it, I feel bad for this poor little robot. [ Urban Robotics Laboratory, KAIST ] Hey look, no legs! [ Kinisi Robotics ] Researchers at the University of Michigan and Shanghai Jiao Tong University have developed a soft robot that can crawl along a flat path and climb up vertical surfaces using its unique origami structure. The robot can move with an accuracy typically seen only in rigid robots. [ University of Michigan Robotics ] Unitree G1 has learned the “Anti-Gravity” mode: stability is greatly improved under any action sequence, and even if it falls, it can quickly get back up. [ Unitree ] Kepler Robotics has commenced mass production of the K2 Bumblebee, the world’s first commercially available humanoid robot powered by Tesla’s hybrid architecture. [ Kepler Robotics ] Reinforcement learning (RL)-based legged locomotion controllers often require meticulous reward tuning to track velocities or goal positions while preserving smooth motion on various terrains. Motion imitation methods via RL using demonstration data reduce reward engineering but fail to generalize to novel environments. We address this by proposing a hierarchical RL framework in which a low-level policy is first pre-trained to imitate animal motions on flat ground, thereby establishing motion priors. Real-world experiments with an ANYmal-D quadruped robot confirm our policy’s capability to generalize animal-like locomotion skills to complex terrains, demonstrating smooth and efficient locomotion and local navigation performance amidst challenging terrains with obstacles. [ ETHZ RSL ] I think we have entered the ‘differentiation-through-novelty’ phase of robot vacuums. [ Roborock ] In this work, we present Kinethreads: a new full-body haptic exosuit design built around string-based motor-pulley mechanisms, which keeps our suit lightweight ( [ ACM Symposium on User Interface and Software Technology ] In this episode of the IBM AI in Action podcast, Aaron Saunders, CTO of Boston Dynamics, delves into the transformative potential of AI-powered robotics, highlighting how robots are becoming safer, more cost-effective and widely accessible through Robotics as a Service (RaaS). [ IBM ] This CMU RI Seminar is by Michael T. Tolley from UCSD, on ‘Biologically Inspired Soft Robotics.’ Robotics has the potential to address many of today’s pressing problems in fields ranging from healthcare to manufacturing to disaster relief. However, the traditional approaches used on the factory floor do not perform well in unstructured environments. The key to solving many of these challenges is to explore new, non-traditional designs. Fortunately, nature surrounds us with examples of novel ways to navigate and interact with the real world. Dr. Tolley’s Bioinspired Robotics and Design Lab seeks to borrow the key principles of operation from biological systems and apply them to robotic design. [ Carnegie Mellon University Robotics Institute ]

A critical vulnerability in the Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) Wi-Fi configuration interface used by several different Unitree robots can result in a root level takeover by an attacker, security researchers disclosed on 20 September . The exploit impacts Unitree’s Go2 and B2 quadrupeds and G1 and H1 humanoids. Because the vulnerability is wireless, and the resulting access to the affected platform is complete, the vulnerability becomes wormable, say the researchers , meaning “an infected robot can simply scan for other Unitree robots in BLE range and automatically compromise them, creating a robot botnet that spreads without user intervention.” Initially discovered by security researchers Andreas Makris and Kevin Finisterre, UniPwn takes advantage of several security lapses that are still present in the firmware of Unitree robots as of 20 September, 2025. As far as IEEE Spectrum is aware, this is the first major public exploit of a commercial humanoid platform. Unitree Robots’ BLE Security Flaw Exposed Like many robots, Unitree’s robots use an initial BLE connection to make it easier for a user to set up a Wi-Fi network connection. The BLE packets that the robot accepts are encrypted, but those encryption keys are hardcoded and were published on X (formerly Twitter) by Makris in July. Although the robot does validate the contents of the BLE packets to make sure that the user is authenticated, the researchers say that all it takes to become an authenticated user is to encrypt the string ‘unitree’ with the hardcoded keys and the robot will let someone in. From there, an attacker can inject arbitrary code masquerading as the Wi-Fi SSID and password, and when the robot attempts to connect to Wi-Fi, it will execute that code without any validation and with root privileges. “A simple attack might be just to reboot the robot, which we published as a proof-of-concept,” explains Makris. “But an attacker could do much more sophisticated things: It would be possible to have a trojan implanted into your robot’s startup routine to exfiltrate data while disabling the ability to install new firmware without the user knowing. And as the vulnerability uses BLE, the robots can easily infect each other, and from there the attacker might have access to an army of robots.” Makris and Finisterre first contacted Unitree in May in an attempt to responsibly disclose this vulnerability. After some back and forth with little progress, Unitree stopped responding to the researchers in July, and the decision was made to make the vulnerability public. “We have had some bad experiences communicating with them,” Makris tells us, citing an earlier backdoor vulnerability he discovered with the Unitree Go1. “So we need to ask ourselves—are they introducing vulnerabilities like this on purpose, or is it sloppy development? Both answers are equally bad.” Unitree has not responded to a request for comment from IEEE Spectrum as of press time. “Unitree, as other manufacturers do, has simply ignored prior security disclosures and repeated outreach attempts,” says Víctor Mayoral-Vilches, the founder of robotics cybersecurity company Alias Robotics . “This is not the right way to cooperate with security researchers.” Mayoral-Vilches was not involved in publishing the UniPwn exploit, but he has found other security issues with Unitree robots, including undisclosed streaming of telemetry data to servers in China which could potentially include audio, visual, and spatial data. Mayoral-Vilches explains that security researchers are focusing on Unitree primarily because the robots are available and affordable. This makes them not just more accessible for the researchers, but also more relevant, since Unitree’s robots are already being deployed by users around the world who are likely not aware of the security risks. For example, Makris is concerned that the Nottinghamshire Police in the UK have begun testing a Unitree Go2 , which can be exploited by UniPwn. “We tried contacting them and would have disclosed the vulnerability upfront to them before going public, but they ignored us. What would happen if an attacker implanted themselves into one of these police dogs?” How to Secure Unitree Robots In the short term, Mayoral-Vilches suggests that people using Unitree robots can protect themselves by only connecting the robots to isolated Wi-Fi networks and disabling their Bluetooth connectivity. “You need to hack the robot to secure it for real,” he says. “This is not uncommon and why security research in robotics is so important.” Both Mayoral-Vilches and Makris believe that fundamentally it’s up to Unitree to make their robots secure in the long term, and that the company needs to be much more responsive to users and security researchers. But Makris says: “There will never be a 100 percent secure system.” Mayoral-Vilches agrees. “Robots are very complex systems, with wide attack surfaces to protect, and a state-of-the-art humanoid exemplifies that complexity.” Unitree, of course, is not the only company offering complex state-of-the-art quadrupeds and humanoids, and it seems likely (if not inevitable) that similar exploits will be discovered in other platforms. The potential consequences here can’t be overstated—the idea that robots can be taken over and used for nefarious purposes is already a science fiction trope, but the impact of a high-profile robot hack on the reputation of the commercial robotics industry is unclear. Robots companies are barely talking about security in public, despite how damaging even the perception of an unsecured robot might be. A robot that is not under control has the potential to be a real physical danger. At the IEEE Humanoids Conference in Seoul from 30 September to 2 October, Mayoral-Vilches has organized a workshop on Cybersecurity for Humanoids , where he will present a brief (co-authored with Makris and Finisterre) titled Humanoid Robots as Attack Vectors . Despite the title, their intent is not to overhype the problem but instead to encourage roboticists (and robotics companies) to take security seriously, and not treat it as an afterthought. As Mayoral-Vilches points out, “robots are only safe if secure.”

Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your friends at IEEE Spectrum robotics. We also post a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next few months. Please send us your events for inclusion. ACTUATE 2025 : 23–24 September 2025, SAN FRANCISCO CoRL 2025 : 27–30 September 2025, SEOUL IEEE Humanoids : 30 September–2 October 2025, SEOUL World Robot Summit : 10–12 October 2025, OSAKA, JAPAN IROS 2025 : 19–25 October 2025, HANGZHOU, CHINA Enjoy today’s videos! A billion dollars is a lot of money. And this is actual money, not just a valuation. but Figure already had a lot of money. So what are they going to be able to do now that they weren’t already doing, I wonder? [ Figure ] Robots often succeed in simulation but fail in reality. With PACE, we introduce a systematic approach to sim-to-real transfer. [ Paper ] Anthropomorphic robotic hands are essential for robots to learn from humans and operate in human environments. While most designs loosely mimic human hand kinematics and structure, achieving the dexterity and emergent behaviors present in human hands, anthropomorphic design must extend to also match passive compliant properties while simultaneously strictly having kinematic matching. We present ADAPT-Teleop, a system combining a robotic hand with human-matched kinematics, skin, and passive dynamics, along with a robotic arm for intuitive teleoperation. [ Paper ] This robot can walk without any electronic components in its body, because the power is transmitted through wires from motors concentrated outside of its body. Also, this robot’s front and rear legs are optimally coupled, and can walk with just 4 wires. [ JSK Lab ] Thanks, Takahiro! Five teams of Los Alamos engineers competed to build the ultimate hole-digging robot dog in a recent engineering sprint. In just days, teams programmed their robot dogs to dig, designing custom “paws” from materials like sheet metal, foam and 3D-printed polymers. The paws mimicked animal digging behaviors — from paddles and snowshoes to dew claws — and helped the robots avoid sinking into a 30-gallon soil bucket. Teams raced to see whose dog could dig the biggest hole and dig under a fence the fastest. [ Los Alamos ] This work presents UniPilot, a compact hardware-software autonomy payload that can be integrated across diverse robot embodiments to enable resilient autonomous operation in GPS-denied environments. The system integrates a multi-modal sensing suite including LiDAR, radar, vision, and inertial sensing for robust operation in conditions where uni-modal approaches may fail. A large number of experiments are conducted across diverse environments and on a variety of robot platforms to validate the mapping, planning, and safe navigation capabilities enabled by the payload. [ NTNU ] Thanks, Kostas! KAIST Humanoid v0.5. Developed at the DRCD Lab, KAIST, with a control policy trained via reinforcement learning. [ KAIST ] I just like the determined little hops. [ AgileX ] I’m always a little bit suspicious of robotics labs that are exceptionally clean and organized. [ PNDbotics ] Er, has PAL Robotics ever actually seen a kangaroo...? [ PAL ] See Spots push. Push, Spots, push. [ Tufts ] Training humanoid robots to hike could accelerate development of embodied AI for tasks like autonomous search and rescue, ecological monitoring in unexplored places and more, say University of Michigan researchers who developed an AI model that equips humanoids to hit the trails. [ Michigan ] I am dangerously close to no longer being impressed by breakdancing humanoid robots. [ Fourier ] This, though, would impress me. [ Inria ] In this interview, Clone’s co-founder and CEO Dhanush Radhakrishnan discusses the company’s path to creating the synthetic humans straight out of science fiction. (If YouTube brilliantly attempts to auto-dub this for you, switch the audio track to original (which YouTube thinks is Polish) and the video will still be in English.) [ Clone ] This documentary takes you behind the scenes of HMND 01 Alpha release: the breakthroughs, the failures, and the late nights of building the UK’s first industrial humanoid robot. [ Humanoid ] What is the role of ethical considerations in the development and deployment of robotic and automation technologies and what are the responsibilities of researchers to ensure that these technologies advance in ways that are transparent, fair, and aligned with the broader well-being of society? [ ICRA@40 ] This UPenn GRASP SFI lecture is from Tairan He at NVIDIA, on “Scalable Sim-to-Real Learning for General-Purpose Humanoid Skills”. Humanoids represent the most versatile robotic platform, capable of walking, manipulating, and collaborating with people in human-centered environments. Yet, despite recent advances, building humanoids that can operate reliably in the real world remains a fundamental challenge. Progress has been hindered by difficulties in whole-body control, robust perceptive reasoning, and bridging the sim-to-real gap. In this talk, I will discuss how scalable simulation and learning can systematically overcome these barriers. [ UPenn ]

Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your friends at IEEE Spectrum robotics. We also post a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next few months. Please send us your events for inclusion. ACTUATE 2025 : 23–24 September 2025, SAN FRANCISCO CoRL 2025 : 27–30 September 2025, SEOUL IEEE Humanoids : 30 September–2 October 2025, SEOUL World Robot Summit : 10–12 October 2025, OSAKA, JAPAN IROS 2025 : 19–25 October 2025, HANGZHOU, CHINA Enjoy today’s videos! Fourier’s First Care-bot GR-3. This full-size “Care-bot” is designed for interactive companion. Its soft-touch outer shell and multimodal emotional interaction system bring the concept of “warm tech companionship” to life. I like that it’s soft to the touch , although I’m not sure that encouraging touch is safe. Reminds me a little bit of Valkyrie , where NASA put a lot of thought into the soft aspects of the robot. [ Fourier ] TAKE MY MONEY This 112 gram micro air vehicle (MAV) features foldable propeller arms that can lock into a compact rectangular profile comparable to the size of a smartphone. The vehicle can be launched by simply throwing it in the air, at which point the arms would unfold and autonomously stabilize to a hovering state. Multiple flight tests demonstrated the capability of the feedback controller to stabilize the MAV from different initial conditions including tumbling rates of up to 2500 deg/s. [ AVFL ] The U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), in collaboration with NASA, is advancing space robotics by deploying reinforcement learning algorithms onto Astrobee , a free-flying robotic assistant on board the International space station. This video highlights how NRL researchers are leveraging artificial intelligence to enable robots to learn, adapt, and perform tasks autonomously. By integrating reinforcement learning, Astrobee can improve maneuverability and optimize energy use. [ NRL ] Every day I’m scuttlin’ [ Ground Control Robotics ] Trust is built. Every part of our robot Proxie—from wheels to eyes—is designed with trust in mind. Cobot CEO Brad Porter explains the intent behind its design. [ Cobot ] Phase 1: Build lots of small quadruped robots. Phase 2: ? Phase 3: Profit! [ DEEP Robotics ] LAPP USA partnered with Corvus Robotics to solve a long-standing supply chain challenge: labor-intensive, error-prone inventory counting. [ Corvus ] I’m pretty sure that 95 percent of all science consists of moving small amounts of liquid from one container to another. [ Flexiv ] Raffaello D’Andrea , interviewed at ICRA 2025. [ Verity ] Tessa Lau, interviewed at ICRA 2025. [ Dusty Robotics ] Ever wanted to look inside the mind behind a cutting-edge humanoid robot? In this special episode, we have Dr.Aaron, our Product Manager at LimX Dynamics, for an exclusive deep dive into the LimX Oli. [ LimX Dynamics ]