IEEE Spectrum
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, VIENNARSS 2026: 13–17 July 2026, SYDNEYSummer School on Multi-Robot Systems: 29 July–4 August 2026, PRAGUEEnjoy today’s videos! “Roadrunner” is a new bipedal wheeled robot prototype designed for multi-modal locomotion. It weighs around 15 kg (33 lb) and can seamlessly switch between its side-by-side and in-line wheel modes and stepping configurations depending on what is required for navigating its environment. The robot’s legs are entirely symmetric, allowing it to point its knees forward or backward, which can be used to avoid obstacles or manage specific movements. A single control policy was trained to handle both side-by-side and in-line driving. Several behaviors, including standing up from various ground configurations and balancing on one wheel, were successfully deployed zero-shot on the hardware.[ Robotics and AI Institute ]Incredibly (INCREDIBLY!) NASA says that this is actually happening.NASA’s SkyFall mission will build on the success of the Ingenuity Mars helicopter, which achieved the first powered, controlled flight on another planet. Using a daring mid-air deployment, SkyFall will deliver a team of next-gen Mars helicopters to scout human landing sites and map subsurface water ice.[ NASA ]NASA’s MoonFall mission will blaze a path for future Artemis missions by sending four highly mobile drones to survey the lunar surface around the Moon’s South Pole ahead of astronauts’ arrival there. MoonFall is built on the legacy of NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter. The drones will be launched together and released during descent to the surface. They will land and operate independently over the course of a lunar day (14 Earth days) and will be able to explore hard-to-reach areas, including permanently shadowed regions (PSRs), surveying terrain with high-definition optical cameras and other potential instruments.For what it’s worth, Moon landings have a success rate well under 50%. So let’s send some robots there to land over and over![ NASA ]In Science Robotics, researchers from the Tangible Media group led by Professor Hiroshi Ishii, together with colleagues from Politecnico di Bari, present Electrofluidic Fiber Muscles: a new class of artificial muscle fibers for robots and wearables. Unlike the rigid servo motors used in most robots, these fiber-shaped muscles are soft and flexible. They combine electrohydrodynamic (EHD) fiber pumps — slender tubes that move liquid using electric fields to generate pressure silently, with no moving parts — with fluid-filled fiber actuators. These artificial muscles could enable more agile untethered robots, as well as wearable assistive systems with compact actuation integrated directly into textiles.[ MIT Media Lab ]In this study, we developed MEVIUS2, an open-source quadruped robot. It is comparable in size to Boston Dynamics Spot, equipped with two LiDARs and a C1 camera, and can freely climb stairs and steep slopes! All hardware, software, and learning environments are released as open source.[ MEVIUS2 ]Thanks, Kento!What goes into preparing for a live performance? Arun highlights the reliability testing that goes into trying a new behavior for Spot.[ Boston Dynamics ]In this work, a multi-robot planning and control framework is presented and demonstrated with a team of 40 indoor robots, including both ground and aerial robots.That soundtrack though.[ GitHub ]Thanks, Keisuke!Quadrupedal robots can navigate cluttered environments like their animal counterparts, but their floating-base configuration makes them vulnerable to real-world uncertainties. Controllers that rely only on proprioception (body sensing) must physically collide with obstacles to detect them. Those that add exteroception (vision) need precisely modeled terrain maps that are hard to maintain in the wild. DreamWaQ++ bridges this gap by fusing both modalities through a resilient multi-modal reinforcement learning framework. The result: a single controller that handles rough terrains, steep slopes, and high-rise stairs—while gracefully recovering from sensor failures and situations it has never seen before.That cliff behavior is slightly uncanny.[ DreamWaQ++ ]I take issue with this from iRobot:While the pyramid exploration that iRobot did was very cool, they did it with a custom made robot designed for a very specific environment. Cleaning your floors is way, way harder. Here’s a bit more detail on the pyramids thing:[ iRobot ]More robots in circus please![ Daniel Simu ]MIT engineers have designed a wristband that lets wearers control a robotic hand with their own movements. By moving their hands and fingers, users can direct a robot to perform specific tasks, or they can manipulate objects in a virtual environment with high-dexterity control.[ MIT ]At NVIDIA GTC 2026, we showcased how AI is moving into the physical world. Visitors interacted with robots using voice commands, watching them interpret intent and act in real time — powered by our KinetIQ AI brain.[ Humanoid ]Props to Sony for their continued support and updates for Aibo![ Aibo ]This robot looks like it could be a little curvier than normal?[ LimX Dynamics ]Developed by Zhejiang Humanoid Robot Innovation Center Co., Ltd., the Naviai Robot is an intelligent cooking device. It can autonomously process ingredients, perform cooking tasks with high accuracy, adjust smart kitchen equipment in real time, and complete post-cooking cleaning. Equipped with multi-modal perception technology, it adapts to daily kitchen environments and ensures safe and stable operation.That 7x is doing some heavy lifting.[ Zhejiang Lab ]This CMU RI Seminar is by Hadas Kress-Gazit from Cornell, on “Formal Methods for Robotics in the Age of Big Data.”Formal methods – mathematical techniques for describing systems, capturing requirements, and providing guarantees – have been used to synthesize robot control from high-level specification, and to verify robot behavior. Given the recent advances in robot learning and data-driven models, what role can, and should, formal methods play in advancing robotics? In this talk I will give a few examples for what we can do with formal methods, discuss their promise and challenges, and describe the synergies I see with data-driven approaches.[ Carnegie Mellon University Robotics Institute ]
IEEE Spectrum
When you hear the term humanoid robot, you may think of C-3PO, the human-cyborg-relations android from Star Wars. C-3PO was designed to assist humans in communicating with robots and alien species. The droid, which first appeared on screen in 1977, joined the characters on their adventures, walking, talking, and interacting with the environment like a human. It was ahead of its time.Before the release of Star Wars, a few androids did exist and could move and interact with their environment, but none could do so without losing its balance.It wasn’t until 1996 that the first autonomous robot capable of walking without falling was developed in Japan. Honda’s Prototype 2 (P2) was nearly 183 centimeters tall and weighed 210 kilograms. It could control its posture to maintain balance, and it could move multiple joints simultaneously.In recognition of that decades-old feat, P2 has been honored as an IEEE Milestone. The dedication ceremony is scheduled for 28 April at the Honda Collection Hall, located on the grounds of the Mobility Resort Motegi, in Japan. The machine is on display in the hall’s robotics exhibit, which showcases the evolution of Honda’s humanoid technology.In support of the Milestone nomination, members of the IEEE Nagoya (Japan) Section wrote: “This milestone demonstrated the feasibility of humanlike locomotion in machines, setting a new standard in robotics.” The Milestone proposal is available on the Engineering Technology and History Wiki.Developing a domestic androidIn 1986 Honda researchers Kazuo Hirai, Masato Hirose, Yuji Haikawa, and Toru Takenaka set out to develop what they called a “domestic robot” to collaborate with humans. It would be able to climb stairs, remove impediments in its path, and tighten a nut with a wrench, according to their research paper on the project.“We believe that a robot working within a household is the type of robot that consumers may find useful,” the authors wrote.But to create a machine that would do household chores, it had to be able to move around obstacles such as furniture, stairs, and doorways. It needed to autonomously walk and read its environment like a human, according to the researchers.But no robot could do that at the time. The closest technologists got was the WABOT-1. Built in 1973 at Waseda University, in Tokyo, the WABOT had eyes and ears, could speak Japanese, and used tactile sensors embedded on its hands as it gripped and moved objects. Although the WABOT could walk, albeit unsteadily, it couldn’t maneuver around obstacles or maintain its balance. It was powered by an external battery and computer.To build an android, the Honda team began by analyzing how people move, using themselves as models.That led to specifications for the robot that gave it humanlike dimensions, including the location of the leg joints and how far the legs could rotate.Once they began building the machine, though, the engineers found it difficult to satisfy every specification. Adjustments were made to the number of joints in the robot’s hips, knees, and ankles, according to the research paper. Humans have four hip, two knee, and three ankle joints; P2’s predecessor had three hip, one knee, and two ankle joints. The arms were treated similarly. A human’s four shoulder and three elbow joints became three shoulder joints and one elbow joint in the robot.The researchers installed existing Honda motors and hydraulics in the hips, knees, and ankles to enable the robot to walk. Each joint was operated by a DC motor with a harmonic-drive reduction gear system, which is compact and offered high torque capacity.To test their ideas, the engineers built what they called E0. The robot, which was just a pair of connected legs, successfully walked. It took about 15 seconds to take each step, however, and it moved using static walking in a straight line, according to a post about the project on Honda’s website. (Static walking is when the body’s center of mass is always within the foot’s sole. Humans walk with their center of mass below their navel.)The researchers created several algorithms to enable the robot to walk like a human, according to the Honda website. The codes allowed the robot to use a locomotion mechanism, dynamic walking, whereby the robot stays upright by constantly moving and adjusting its balance, rather than keeping its center of mass over its feet, according to a video on the YouTube channel Everything About Robotics Explained.“P2 was not just a technical achievement; it was a catalyst that propelled the field of humanoid robotics forward, demonstrating the potential for robots to interact with and assist humans in meaningful ways.” —IEEE Nagoya SectionThe Honda team installed rubber brushes on the bottom of the machine’s feet to reduce vibrations from the landing impacts (the force experienced when its feet touch the ground)—which had made the robot lose its balance.Between 1987 and 1991, three more prototypes (E1, E2, and E3) were built, each testing a new algorithm. E3 was a success.With the dynamic walking mechanism complete, the researchers continued their quest to make the robot stable. The team added 6-axis sensors to detect the force at which the ground pushed back against the robot’s feet and the movements of each foot and ankle, allowing the robot to adjust its gait in real time for stability.The team also developed a posture-stabilizing control system to help the robot stay upright. A local controller directed how the electric motor actuators needed to move so the robot could follow the leg joint angles when walking, according to the research paper.During the next three years, the team tested the systems and built three more prototypes (E4, E5, and E6), which had boxlike torsos atop the legs.In 1993 the team was finally ready to build an android with arms and a head that looked more like C-3PO, dubbed Prototype 1 (P1). Because the machine was meant to help people at home, the researchers determined its height and limb proportions based on the typical measurements of doorways and stairs. The arm length was based on the ability of the robot to pick up an object when squatting.When they finished building P1, it was 191.5 cm tall, weighed 175 kg, and used an external power source and computer. It could turn a switch on and off, grab a doorknob, and carry a 70 kg object.P1 was not launched publicly but instead used to conduct research on how to further improve the design. The engineers looked at how to install an internal power source and computer, for example, as well as how to coordinate the movement of the arms and legs, according to Honda.For P2, four video cameras were installed in its head—two for vision processing and the other two for remote operation. The head was 60 cm wide and connected to the torso, which was 75.6 cm deep.A computer with four microSparc II processors running a real-time operating system was added into the robot’s torso. The processors were used to control the arms, legs, joints, and vision-processing cameras.Also within the body were DC servo amplifiers, a 20-kg nickel-zinc battery, and a wireless Ethernet modem, according to the research paper. The battery lasted for about 15 minutes; the machine also could be charged by an external power supply.The hardware was enclosed in white-and-gray casing.P2, which was launched publicly in 1996, could walk freely, climb up and down stairs, push carts, and perform some actions wirelessly. P2, which was launched publicly in 1996, could walk freely, climb up and down stairs, push carts, and perform some actions wirelessly.King Rose ArchivesThe following year, Honda’s engineers released the smaller and lighter P3. It was 160 cm tall and weighed 130 kg.In 2000 the popular ASIMO robot was introduced. Although shorter than its predecessors at 130 cm, it could walk, run, climb stairs, and recognize voices and faces. The most recent version was released in 2011. Honda has retired the robot.Honda P2’s influenceThanks to P2, today’s androids are not just ideas in a laboratory. Robots have been deployed to work in factories and, increasingly, at home.The machines are even being used for entertainment. During this year’s Spring Festival gala in Beijing, machines developed by Chinese startups Unitree Robotics, Galbot, Noetix, and MagicLab performed synchronized dances, martial arts, and backflips alongside human performers.“P2’s development shifted the focus of robotics from industrial applications to human-centric designs,” the Milestone sponsors explained in the wiki entry. “It inspired subsequent advancements in humanoid robots and influenced research in fields like biomechanics and artificial intelligence.“It was not just a technical achievement; it was a catalyst that propelled the field of humanoid robotics forward, demonstrating the potential for robots to interact with and assist humans in meaningful ways.”To learn more about robots, check out IEEE Spectrum’s guide.Recognition as an IEEE MilestoneA plaque recognizing Honda’s P2 robot as an IEEE Milestone is to be installed at the Honda Collection Hall. The plaque is to read:In 1996 Prototype 2 (P2), a self-contained autonomous bipedal humanoid robot capable of stable dynamic walking and stair-climbing, was introduced by Honda. Its legged robotics incorporated real-time posture control, dynamic balance, gait generation, and multijoint coordination. Honda’s mechatronics and control algorithms set technical benchmarks in mobility, autonomy, and human-robot interaction. P2 inspired new research in humanoid robot development, leading to increasingly sophisticated successors.Administered by the IEEE History Center and supported by donors, the Milestone program recognizes outstanding technical developments around the world.