Robotics - General News

Soft gripper
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-04-soft-robot-gripper-ripe-fruit.html
Training
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-06-mit-channel-ai-gestures-robot.html

Gee...thanks...
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-04-ai-powered-robots-german-factories.html

Robots all over
https://phys.org/news/2026-04-robot-explores-mystery-france-deepest.html
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-04-robots-marathon-play-ping-pong.html
https://hackaday.com/2026/05/08/an-improved-robot-dog-for-senior-design/
https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/06/...-humanoid-robots-going-viral-on-the-internet/
https://hackaday.com/2026/06/01/classically-named-argus-robot-is-terminator-meets-tumbleweed/
https://phys.org/news/2026-06-hair-size-microrobots-combine-cancer.html
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-06-china-humanoids-scale-hard-buyers.html
https://hackaday.com/2026/06/08/goddard-the-robot-dog-brought-to-life/
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-06-pepper-robot-good-playmate.html
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-06-aging-south-korea-ai-dolls.html
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-06-mit-channel-ai-gestures-robot.html

Road work and more
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-05-automated-camera-solution-excavator-tracking.html
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-05-pothole-ai-team-company-city.html
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com...ts-with-96-accuracy/articleshow/131118012.cms
 
Last edited:
 
Last edited:
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cpwp87j1llvo
Japan Airlines (JAL) will start using humanoid robots in ground handling tasks at Tokyo's Haneda airport from May, in a two-year trial it said is aimed at easing employees' workload.

For a start, the Chinese-made robots will be deployed to load and unload cargo containers, JAL and GMO AI & Robotics, its partner in the project, said in a demonstration to the media on Monday.

Japan's aviation industry is wrestling with a labour crunch brought on by an increase in inbound tourism and a declining working-age population, said JAL, which employs some 4,000 ground handling staff.

The carrier hopes that these robots can also be used to clean cabins and operate ground support equipment in future.

Robots are already being used in some airports across Japan, including for security patrol and retail.

Japan welcomed more than seven million foreign visitors in the first two months of this year, according to statistics from JTB Group, which runs Japan's largest travel agency.

"While airports appear highly automated and standardised, their back-end operations still rely heavily on human labour and face serious labour shortages," GMO AI & Robotics' president Tomohiro Uchida told reporters.

Using robots for physically demanding tasks will "provide significant benefits to employees", Kyodo news agency quoted Yoshiteru Suzuk, the president of JAL's Ground Service, saying.

But he noted that some duties, including safety management, can only be handled by humans.
Click to expand...

I suspect that the Chinese origins of these robots may prove to be an issue.
 
I have seen some elaborate parachute displays. Maybe robotroopers could hit drones then parachute. Less canopy needed.

https://techxplore.com/news/2026-04-robotically-blocks-efficient-sustainable.html
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-04-programmable-3d-filaments-mimic-artificial.html
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-04-fingereye-bridges-vision-robot-contact.html

Rules
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-05-autonomous-robots-equal.html

Risks
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-04-ai-enabled-robots-safer.html
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-04-evolving-ai-agi-hard.html
https://futurism.com/robots-and-machines/hacker-robot-lawnmower-runs-over-man

Flight
https://www.foxnews.com/travel/airl...ason-humanoid-robot-triggers-safety-query.amp
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-05-insect-flight-stable-wing-robots.html

Titan
View: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SBM8GzjuUIM
 
Last edited:
The soft ones
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-05-motion-memory-soft-machines-amplify.html

A joint research team led by Prof. Jeong-Yun Sun from Seoul National University's Department of Materials Science and Engineering and Prof. Ho-Young Kim from the Department of Mechanical Engineering has developed a new class of soft actuator based on elasto-magnetic instability, a mechanism that couples magnetic attraction with elastic restoring force.

The study was published in Nature Communications on January 10, 2026, under the title "Elasto-magnetic instabilities for amplified actuation and mechanical memory," with Seong-Yu Choi and Ji-Sung Park contributing equally as co-first authors.

Robo-training
https://phys.org/news/2026-05-tiny-grain-rice-sensor-robots.html
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-05-ai-method-robots-lab-skills.html

Gee, thanks.
 
Last edited:
This is fine
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-05-south-korean-startup-captures-workers.html
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-05-gap-animal-movement-robotic.html
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-05-robotic-penguin-endoscopy-optional.html
https://www.eweek.com/news/china-military-robotics-ai-warfare-apac/
https://www.coasttocoastam.com/arti...s-weirdly-wander-around-atlanta-neighborhood/
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/japan-robot-wolves-high-demand-075406239.html
https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/05/...figure-ais-humanoid-robots-handling-packages/
https://hackaday.com/2026/06/17/building-and-testing-a-diy-robot-actuator/
https://hackaday.com/2026/06/15/building-a-ceiling-based-crane-robot-to-keep-a-room-clean/

I hurt myself today...to see if I could-
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-05-machines-ability-frontier-ai.html
 
Last edited:
Useless in a riot.

Just give me a Trabant, a Smart-4-2 car, and I will stove in a leg.

The mob would tear the driver out of that thing quicker than they had done-for that guy atop a camel in the pro-Mubarak/anti-Mubarak two-step that Anderson Cooper called like a tennis match.

I might want a smaller version of those walking behemoths in mines...asterisk of tank treads pulled up and down. In lieu of a turret, a huge water tank, surrounded by armed robotic torsos behind the treads...all on a ring. It could get fluids from hydrants... telescope up to draw power like trams, and electrify the stream from water cannons. Long dual-arms have a clip of handcuffs that go up and over...then around, human wrists.

At the far end of streets, scaled up versions of these things with shields would shove runners back into play:
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/201...t-is-a-mechanical-ostrich-that-loads-pallets/

It works very well here in Latveria.
 
Last edited:
The latest advancement
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-05-framework-robots-complex-language-precise.html
Researchers at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, the Zhejiang Humanoid Robot Innovation Center Co. Ltd and other institutes recently introduced Retrieval-Augmented Manipulation (RAM), a framework that could improve the ability of robots to connect abstract instructions with three-dimensional (3D) representations of the space around them. The new framework, presented in a Science Robotics paper, was found to improve the spatial reasoning capabilities of robots, allowing them to reliably follow more elaborate instructions, without requiring task-specific training.

Soft robotics control
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-05-soft-robotics-ai-cousin-reservoir.html
Not only did reservoir computing blow past the limits of conventional artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning methods, when the team implemented the reservoir on a neuromorphic computer chip that spikes like the brain, it reduced power use by up to 75 times. The research, which was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, could pave the way for the development of more small, untethered robots with applications in fields like medicine, agriculture, salvage, and infrastructure inspection.
"We don't know if our approach is the best, but it is the first to be able to control this type of very flexible, very quickly moving soft arm," said Noel Naughton, assistant professor of mechanical engineering, who led the research.

Pour
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-05-robotic-centralized.html
Cornell engineers have developed a robotic collective that behaves less like a machine and more like a material that flows, reshapes, and adapts to its environment without centralized control. The system, called the Cross-Link Collective, consists of dozens of small robots that have limited mobility individually, but together exhibit coordinated and sustained motion.

Tiny robots
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-05-seed-sized-surgical-robot-tools.html
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-05-pea-size-liquid-metal-robot.html
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-05-ai-insect-body-cyborg-cockroaches.html

Music bot
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-05-robot-play-music-ear-possibilities.html

Argus, the Urchin-bot
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-05-sea-urchin-strange-legged-machine.html

Robotic shell
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-05-armadillos-soft-robotic-shell-flips.html
 
Last edited:
publiusr said:
Argus, the Urchin-bot
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-05-sea-urchin-strange-legged-machine.html
Click to expand...

I was just about to post this link - video of Argus in motion.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nd-I4YNQEuY


https://generalroboticslab.com/Argus

Once doing a bit of spec evo musing, I thought of something like this; a kind of land-dwelling polyhedral (rather than polygonal) echinoderm that moved around by rolling. On a plain or a slope it could build up quite a lot of speed and big species would be scarier than charging rhinos. Since humans have a habit of devising insane sports, I imagined something like Minoan bull-leaping.

So now it can be done with robots!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bull-leaping

  • Type I: the acrobat approaches the bull from the front, grabs the horns, and somersaults backwards
  • Type II: the acrobat approaches the bull from the front, dives over the horns without touching them and pushes himself with his hands from the bull's back into a backward somersault
 
Last edited:
Figure AI appears to have been presenting teleoperated robots as autonomous for some time. BMW has declared that it is confident in humanoid robots as a part of car production. After a pilot operation with Figure, they've moved to Hexagon.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Juc-IyTdSho

On BMW's partnership with Hexagon:

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cgmpwzzvxr2o

"If you have a humanoid form, you can pretty much set it to any workplace where a human is working today because it has the same size and the same capabilities," says Nikolaides.

The cost of robots has fallen while it remains expensive to redesign the assembly line. As a result, it's more cost-effective to use robots that fit in with existing human processes.
Some other aspects:

"If it doesn't have a name, it's a machine," says Gartner's Ray. "If it gets it wrong, it's broken. If it has a name, then people expect it to make mistakes. People forgive it. One of the things we say to companies is to give your robots names."

"We're still working on that [visual language], but we feel very strongly that Aeon needs to be signalling in a way that's natural to humans,"

And:

"When you see a humanoid robot walking, you assume it can run, it can climb, it can jump. It can't do any of those things, but your brain fills in those gaps. We're having unrealistic expectations when people deploy these robots."

... which is an incentive to cheat,

Fortune's original article, mentioned in the video.

https://fortune.com/2025/04/06/figu...bot-partnership-details-reality-exaggeration/

Figure AI threatened a lawsuit but a year has passed without any known action.
 
New

https://hackaday.com/2026/06/13/robot-chess-but-each-piece-is-a-small-robot/
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-06-app-robot.html
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-06-llms-robots-vague-focus-key.html
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-06-ways-humans-robots-requires-swarm.html
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-06-complexity-key-robots-dexterity.html
https://phys.org/news/2026-06-biohybrid-microrobots-spinal-cord-combining.html
https://phys.org/news/2026-06-scientists-virtual-tomato-arena-agricultural.html
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-05-dual-mode-magnetic-elastomer-demand.html
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-05-stair-climbing-robot-falls.html
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-05-tiny-underwater-antenna-robots-dark.html
https://phys.org/news/2026-06-robot-fish-unravel-ancient-ancestors.html
 
Last edited:
Forest Green said:
https://twitter.com/x/status/2063882152710897866
View: https://x.com/DeepRobotics_CN/status/2063882152710897866?s=20
Click to expand...
I saw that

Bezos joins in
https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/06/heres-what-jeff-bezos-new-startup-prometheus-will-do/

This week
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-06-robots-cocktails-marathons-multitask.html
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-06-ai-robots-everyday.html
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-06-sovereignty-dog-ai-enthusiasm-france.html
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-06-robotic-rabbit-users-voices-enabling.html
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-06-humanizing-robots-factory-workers-productive.html
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-06-inclined-kirigami-path-soft-robots.html
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-06-robotic-arm-octopus-tactile-sensors.html
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-06-autonomous-drone-life-jackets-people.html
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-06-robot-eyes-augmented-reality-humans.html
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-06-ai-robot-cleaners-lab-china.html
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-06-indian-workers-ai-robots-jobs.html
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-06-drone-highlights-navy-autonomous.html
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-06-bike-robot-unassisted-front-flip.html
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-06-robots-human-judgments-key-physical.html
https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/06/ai-coding-agents-can-autonomously-direct-robot-training/
https://www.newscientist.com/articl...ertake-armed-soldiers-as-the-deciders-of-war/

Transform and roll out
https://www.space.com/astronomy/moo...ists-sent-a-real-life-transformer-to-the-moon
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-06-legged-robots-safe-firefighting.html

Exo-wear
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-06-kind-exoskeleton-therapy-redefine-survivors.html
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-06-ease-key-exoskeleton.html
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-06-simple-cue-people-master-prosthetic.html
 
Last edited:
Caption in the linked Daily Mail piece:
"A shoplifter pictured being retrained after attempting to steal from the fridges inside a Greggs"
By a security guard, no less.
"That's not the way to do it. Here, I will show you..."
 

Attachments

  • 1000021052.jpg
    1000021052.jpg
    128 KB · Views: 7
Last edited:

Similar threads

Back
Top Bottom