The latest robotics and AI news, aggregated from top sources every 6 hours.
UCLA researchers built an AI system that uses light to analyze more than a dozen videos simultaneously, detecting deepfakes with nearly 98% accuracy. Its speed, low energy demands, and resistance to attacks could make it a powerful tool for screening the growing flood of AI-generated video.
By Emmet Cole “Robotics and automation” is a pairing heard often around these parts. It puts the “RA” in IEEE RAS, after all. The familiar combination shows up in conference titles, funding calls, and program descriptions. But what is actually meant by the two words? Is robotics a subdomain of automation? Does the distinction matter? […]
Building useful robots starts with understanding the people who use them. For Charlie Kemp, cofounder and chief technology officer of Hello Robot, that means developing assistive robots that can help people with everyday tasks and support greater independence.In this Robots Guide profile, Kemp shares his path from studying artificial intelligence at MIT to building Stretch, explains how working with people with disabilities has shaped his approach, and offers advice for aspiring roboticists. Read the full profile on IEEE’s Robots Guide.
The scalable robot ScaFi. 2026 CREATE Lab EPFL. CC BY SA-4.0. Propeller-powered underwater vehicles have long helped scientists explore and monitor aquatic environments. But they’re limited by their own mechanics: spinning blades can snag on vegetation, stir up sediment, and startle the wildlife they’re often sent to study, making them poorly suited to shallow creeks, […]
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 2026: 27 September–1 October 2026, PITTSBURGHCoRL 2026: 9–12 November 2026, AUSTINHumanoids 2026: 6–9 December 2026, SANTA CLARA, CAEnjoy today’s videos! Life’s better with a little Goose.[ The Robot Works ]Thanks, Dave!Skydio has introduced the F10, a charmingly lopsided fixed-wing drone, that uses a robot arm for autonomous launch and capture.Unfortunately, based on the frequency of that flashing LED on the drone, this video appears to have sped up the capture (and likely the launch) by a substantial amount.[ Skydio ]I want a bunch of these little guys. I don’t know what I’d do with them. But I want them.[ Freeform Robotics ]Walking robots are everywhere now… But 30 years ago, they were brand new. The first ever robot that could walk by itself was the Honda P2. The P2 featured motors and hydraulics in the hips, knees, and ankles to walk around, and weighed over 300 pounds.[ IEEE Spectrum ]Precision biomimetic dexterous hand, priced from US $6,500.[ Unitree ]What if all it took to train a drone to do acrobatics was to tell it whether you like the way it flies?[ UZH Robotics and Perception Group ]Why build a humanoid hand when a robot hand can do stuff like this?[ General Robotics Lab ]Diane Heinle, a mechanical engineer at Boston Dynamics, answers questions about endurance testing for Stretch, how her team simulates years of wear on robot parts over a brief time in the lab, and why there are bird heads on them.[ Boston Dynamics ]ULOHA brings learning from demonstrations to two robot arms working underwater. We developed custom leader–follower hardware and software extending LeRobot to connect teleoperation, demonstration collection, and autonomous manipulation. The video shows the robots lifting objects together, passing objects between arms, opening a container, and catching a sponge as it rises through the water. We also explore how bubbles and action-execution timing affect learned behaviors.[ ULOHA ]Thanks, Masato!Usually, ballbots rely on an internal pendulum, but here’s a different approach.[ General Robotics Lab ]From long-horizon manipulation to tactile-guided actions, this video highlights selected collaborations that explore what Astribot robots can do.[ Astribot ]This is one of those tasks that looks a little boring but is actually both very tricky and very useful.[ HiPeR Lab ]That tiny little excavator playing in flour is adorbs.[ ETH Zurich Robotic Systems Lab ]How do you fit a humanoid robot into a box?[ LimX Dynamics ]And now, this.At the Opening Ceremony of WorldSkills Shanghai 2026 on 22 September, 19 Unitree humanoid robots performed alongside 120 dancers, presenting the world’s largest-scale performance featuring full-size general-purpose humanoid robots before an audience of more than 10,000 people, with a fully AI-driven autonomous robot cluster performance live-streamed worldwide in real time.[ Unitree ]A microwave box creates a surprisingly tricky vision system challenge: there’s a picture of a microwave on the side of the box, and that microwave has a window. From the camera’s perspective, it’s a box inside a box inside a box.[ Pickle Robot Company ]What exactly is Physical AI? Personally I think it’s just what robotics has always been, more or less, except that everything has to have “AI” in it now so here we are.[ MIT CSAIL ]As the evolution of the UR Series, the g‑Series is designed to accelerate how robots are integrated into complete automation systems. It connects more directly with cameras, higher power EOATs, and control systems, eliminating external cabling and hardware to streamline integration. This enables cleaner and faster deployment of advanced automation.[ Universal Robots ]
Claire chatted to Aaron Edsinger from Hello Robot about their Stretch robots that can help people with mobility issues live more independently. Aaron Edsinger is CEO and Co-Founder of Hello Robot, a robotics company dedicated to developing practical, safe, and accessible robots for people. With a passion for building robots and robot companies, Aaron has […]
In Guadalajara, Mexico, many high schools have motivated teachers and talented students with an interest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, but they lack access to advanced tools such as robotics laboratories. The resources shortfall limits the students’ opportunities for hands-on learning on cutting-edge applications.A team from ITESO, Universidad Jesuita de Guadalajara, is working to change that. Through the EPICS in IEEE initiative, a multidisciplinary group of 15 engineering students, faculty advisors, and IEEE Guadalajara Section volunteers developed RoboMeshA. The portable, self-contained educational platform brings robotics and AI experiences into classrooms.EPICS is administered by IEEE Educational Activities and funded by the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society.A mobile laboratoryRather than requiring a school to build a dedicated computer lab or install complex software, RoboMeshA operates as an all-in-one mobile learning network.“RoboMeshA brings robotics and AI to students who don’t have access to specialized facilities or preinstalled software,” says team member Fernando Vidal Luna, an IEEE student member and a mechatronics engineering major at ITESO.Students connect directly to the platform from a user-friendly web browser. They can interact with the robot manually or use its control modes to watch it move and detect and avoid obstacles.“The project combines mechanical design, embedded systems, control engineering, computer vision, and AI into a single robotic system that functions as a mobile learning laboratory,” says faculty advisor Jorge A. Lizarraga.The team says young students are interested in technology, programming, and robotics but don’t have an opportunity to work with systems that combine mechanics, electronics, software, and control.“RoboMeshA allows students to see how all these disciplines work together in a tangible and understandable way,” says team member José S. González, who also is studying mechatronics engineering.The team has built two units and is developing a modular coupling framework to expand the system’s capabilities for research and classroom demonstrations. The structured system design approach connects independent software components while minimizing internal dependencies, enabling four RobotMeshA robots to operate together.Overcoming design challengesThe team faced significant hurdles while designing the project.“One key challenge involved the robot’s structural design,” Luna says. “It wasn’t only about making a chassis where all the components fit and the design had sufficient stability, rigidity, and weight distribution. It was also about ensuring that the electronics were protected while still being accessible for maintenance, testing, and modifications.”“It was also challenging to design a platform that could be used by students with different levels of experience,” González adds.“When students realize the technology they develop can inspire others and improve lives, engineering becomes far more meaningful.” —Luis Fernando Luque-VegaThe team partnered with the CETI Colomos and Prepa ITESO high schools to validate the platform in classroom settings.“We wanted the first interactions with the robot to be simple and intuitive,” González says, “such that students could simply power the robot, connect to its network, and begin interacting with it, rather than having to deal with software installation, extensive configuration, or troubleshooting.”Engineering with social impactMany of the students who participated were from ITESO’s applied professional projects program. The experience offered them practical training in project management, system integration, and user-centered design.The team also presented a research paper and a project poster in May at the Engineering Congress of the Jesuit University System.“Seeing a design move from a digital model to a physical system was invaluable,” González says. “Working with students from different backgrounds taught us to listen to end users and design for their actual needs.”Project lead Luis Fernando Luque-Vega, an IEEE member, says he’d like the venture to serve as a blueprint for engineering education.“I hope RoboMeshA is adopted by schools, universities, and IEEE student branches across Mexico and internationally as a model for integrating technical innovation with community engagement,” Luque-Vega says.By pairing engineering talent with community service, initiatives such as EPICS in IEEE demonstrate how targeted support can turn academic concepts into real-world solutions.“When students realize the technology they develop can inspire others and improve lives, engineering becomes far more meaningful,” Luque-Vega says.For more information on service-learning opportunities, visit the EPICS website.
A new AI control system lets MIT’s tiny flying robot move with insect-like agility, boosting its speed by about 450 percent and allowing it to pull off 10 somersaults in 11 seconds. The technology could eventually enable miniature robots to search earthquake rubble and navigate dangerous spaces that conventional drones cannot reach.
A single-celled organism can shrink to one-quarter of its length in milliseconds using a remarkable calcium-powered protein “fishnet.” Scientists hope its unusual machinery could inspire artificial muscles capable of moving far faster than today’s designs.
We try to steer clear of politics and societal issues here at Hackaday, so a protest is not usually the sort of thing we’d cover. But we figure it’s safe …read more
AI analysis of 400,000 Reddit posts found that users of drugs such as Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro, and Zepbound reported unexpected symptoms including menstrual changes, chills, hot flashes, and fatigue. Researchers cannot say the medications caused these problems, but the patterns may reveal overlooked signals worth studying.
Researchers have found a way to perform certain quantum operations more than 1,000 times faster, cutting thousands of repeated control cycles down to just one. The advance could reduce errors and bring reliable, fault-tolerant quantum computers closer to reality.