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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.

ICUAS 2025: 14–17 May 2025, CHARLOTTE, NCICRA 2025: 19–23 May 2025, ATLANTALondon Humanoids Summit: 29–30 May 2025, LONDONIEEE RCAR 2025: 1–6 June 2025, TOYAMA, JAPAN2025 Energy Drone & Robotics Summit: 16–18 June 2025, HOUSTONRSS 2025: 21–25 June 2025, LOS ANGELESETH Robotics Summer School: 21–27 June 2025, GENEVAIAS 2025: 30 June–4 July 2025, GENOA, ITALYICRES 2025: 3–4 July 2025, PORTO, PORTUGALIEEE World Haptics: 8–11 July 2025, SUWON, KOREAIFAC Symposium on Robotics: 15–18 July 2025, PARISRoboCup 2025: 15–21 July 2025, BAHIA, BRAZILRO-MAN 2025: 25–29 August 2025, EINDHOVEN, THE NETHERLANDSCLAWAR 2025: 5–7 September 2025, SHENZHENCoRL 2025: 27–30 September 2025, SEOULIEEE Humanoids: 30 September–2 October 2025, SEOULWorld Robot Summit: 10–12 October 2025, OSAKA, JAPANIROS 2025: 19–25 October 2025, HANGZHOU, CHINA

Enjoy today’s videos!

Throughout the course of the past year, LEVA has been designed from the ground up as a novel robot to transport payloads. Although the use of robotics is widespread in logistics, few solutions offer the capability to efficiently transport payloads both in controlled and unstructured environments. Four-legged robots are ideal for navigating any environment a human can, yet few have the features to autonomously move payloads. This is where LEVA shines. By combining both wheels (a means of locomotion ideally suited for fast and precise motion on flat surfaces) and legs (which are perfect for traversing any terrain that humans can), LEVA strikes a balance that makes it highly versatile.

[ LEVA ]

You’ve probably heard about this humanoid robot half-marathon in China, because it got a lot of media attention, which I presume was the goal. And for those of us who remember when Asimo running was a big deal, marathon running is still impressive in some sense. It’s just hard to connect that to these robots doing anything practical, you know?

[ NBC ]

A robot navigating an outdoor environment with no prior knowledge of the space must rely on its local sensing to perceive its surroundings and plan. This can come in the form of a local metric map or local policy with some fixed horizon. Beyond that, there is a fog of unknown space marked with some fixed cost. In this work, we make a key observation that long-range navigation only necessitates identifying good frontier directions for planning instead of full-map knowledge. To this end, we propose the Long Range Navigator (LRN), which learns an intermediate affordance representation mapping high-dimensional camera images to affordable frontiers for planning, and then optimizing for maximum alignment with the desired goal. Through extensive off-road experiments on Spot and a Big Vehicle, we find that augmenting existing navigation stacks with LRN reduces human interventions at test time and leads to faster decision making indicating the relevance of LRN.

[ LRN ]

Goby is a compact, capable, programmable, and low-cost robot that lets you uncover miniature worlds from its tiny perspective.

On Kickstarter now, for an absurdly cheap US $80.

[ Kickstarter ]

Thanks, Rich!

HEBI robots demonstrated inchworm mobility during the Innovation Faire of the FIRST Robotics World Championships in Houston.

[ HEBI ]

Thanks, Andrew!

Happy Easter from Flexiv!

[ Flexiv ]

We are excited to present our proprietary reinforcement learning algorithm, refined through extensive simulations and vast training data, enabling our full-scale humanoid robot, Adam, to master humanlike locomotion. Unlike model-based gait control, our RL-driven approach grants Adam exceptional adaptability. On challenging terrains like uneven surfaces, Adam seamlessly adjusts stride, pace, and balance in real time, ensuring stable, natural movement while boosting efficiency and safety. The algorithm also delivers fluid, graceful motion with smooth joint coordination, minimizing mechanical wear, extending operational life, and significantly reducing energy use for enhanced endurance.

[ PNDbotics ]

Inside the GRASP Lab—Dr. Michael Posa and DAIR Lab. Our research centers on control, learning, planning, and analysis of robots as they interact with the world. Whether a robot is assisting within the home or operating in a manufacturing plant, the fundamental promise of robotics requires touching and affecting a complex environment in a safe and controlled fashion. We are focused on developing computationally tractable and data efficient algorithms that enable robots to operate both dynamically and safely as they quickly maneuver through and interact with their environments.

[ DAIR Lab ]

I will never understand why robotics companies feel the need to add the sounds of sick actuators when their robots move.

[ Kepler ]

Join Matt Trossen, founder of Trossen Robotics, on a time-traveling teardown through the evolution of our robotic arms! In this deep dive, Matt unboxes the ghosts of robots past—sharing behind-the-scenes stories, bold design decisions, lessons learned, and how the industry itself has shifted gears.

[ Trossen ]

This week’s Carnegie Mellon University Robotics Institute (CMU RI) seminar is a retro edition (2008!) from Charlie Kemp, previously of the Healthcare Robotics Lab at Georgia Tech and now at Hello Robot.

[ CMU RI ]

This week’s actual CMU RI seminar is from a much more modern version of Charlie Kemp.

When I started in robotics, my goal was to help robots emulate humans. Yet as my lab worked with people with mobility impairments, my notions of success changed. For assistive applications, emulation of humans is less important than ease of use and usefulness. Helping with seemingly simple tasks, such as scratching an itch or picking up a dropped object, can make a meaningful difference in a person’s life. Even full autonomy can be undesirable, since actively directing a robot can provide a sense of independence and agency. Overall, many benefits of robotic assistance derive from nonhuman aspects of robots, such as being tireless, directly controllable, and free of social characteristics that can inhibit use.

While technical challenges abound for home robots that attempt to emulate humans, I will provide evidence that human-scale mobile manipulators could benefit people with mobility impairments at home in the near future. I will describe work from my lab and Hello Robot that illustrates opportunities for valued assistance at home, including supporting activities of daily living, leading exercise games, and strengthening social connections. I will also present recent progress by Hello Robot toward unsupervised, daily in-home use by a person with severe mobility impairments.

[ 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.

ICUAS 2025: 14–17 May 2025, CHARLOTTE, NCICRA 2025: 19–23 May 2025, ATLANTALondon Humanoids Summit: 29–30 May 2025, LONDONIEEE RCAR 2025: 1–6 June 2025, TOYAMA, JAPAN2025 Energy Drone & Robotics Summit: 16–18 June 2025, HOUSTONRSS 2025: 21–25 June 2025, LOS ANGELESETH Robotics Summer School: 21–27 June 2025, GENEVAIAS 2025: 30 June–4 July 2025, GENOA, ITALYICRES 2025: 3–4 July 2025, PORTO, PORTUGALIEEE World Haptics: 8–11 July 2025, SUWON, KOREAIFAC Symposium on Robotics: 15–18 July 2025, PARISRoboCup 2025: 15–21 July 2025, BAHIA, BRAZILRO-MAN 2025: 25–29 August 2025, EINDHOVEN, THE NETHERLANDSCLAWAR 2025: 5–7 September 2025, SHENZHENCoRL 2025: 27–30 September 2025, SEOULIEEE Humanoids: 30 September–2 October 2025, SEOULWorld Robot Summit: 10–12 October 2025, OSAKA, JAPANIROS 2025: 19–25 October 2025, HANGZHOU, CHINA

Enjoy today’s videos!

Throughout the course of the past year, LEVA has been designed from the ground up as a novel robot to transport payloads. Although the use of robotics is widespread in logistics, few solutions offer the capability to efficiently transport payloads both in controlled and unstructured environments. Four-legged robots are ideal for navigating any environment a human can, yet few have the features to autonomously move payloads. This is where LEVA shines. By combining both wheels (a means of locomotion ideally suited for fast and precise motion on flat surfaces) and legs (which are perfect for traversing any terrain that humans can), LEVA strikes a balance that makes it highly versatile.

[ LEVA ]

You’ve probably heard about this humanoid robot half-marathon in China, because it got a lot of media attention, which I presume was the goal. And for those of us who remember when Asimo running was a big deal, marathon running is still impressive in some sense. It’s just hard to connect that to these robots doing anything practical, you know?

[ NBC ]

A robot navigating an outdoor environment with no prior knowledge of the space must rely on its local sensing to perceive its surroundings and plan. This can come in the form of a local metric map or local policy with some fixed horizon. Beyond that, there is a fog of unknown space marked with some fixed cost. In this work, we make a key observation that long-range navigation only necessitates identifying good frontier directions for planning instead of full-map knowledge. To this end, we propose the Long Range Navigator (LRN), which learns an intermediate affordance representation mapping high-dimensional camera images to affordable frontiers for planning, and then optimizing for maximum alignment with the desired goal. Through extensive off-road experiments on Spot and a Big Vehicle, we find that augmenting existing navigation stacks with LRN reduces human interventions at test time and leads to faster decision making indicating the relevance of LRN.

[ LRN ]

Goby is a compact, capable, programmable, and low-cost robot that lets you uncover miniature worlds from its tiny perspective.

On Kickstarter now, for an absurdly cheap US $80.

[ Kickstarter ]

Thanks, Rich!

HEBI robots demonstrated inchworm mobility during the Innovation Faire of the FIRST Robotics World Championships in Houston.

[ HEBI ]

Thanks, Andrew!

Happy Easter from Flexiv!

[ Flexiv ]

We are excited to present our proprietary reinforcement learning algorithm, refined through extensive simulations and vast training data, enabling our full-scale humanoid robot, Adam, to master humanlike locomotion. Unlike model-based gait control, our RL-driven approach grants Adam exceptional adaptability. On challenging terrains like uneven surfaces, Adam seamlessly adjusts stride, pace, and balance in real time, ensuring stable, natural movement while boosting efficiency and safety. The algorithm also delivers fluid, graceful motion with smooth joint coordination, minimizing mechanical wear, extending operational life, and significantly reducing energy use for enhanced endurance.

[ PNDbotics ]

Inside the GRASP Lab—Dr. Michael Posa and DAIR Lab. Our research centers on control, learning, planning, and analysis of robots as they interact with the world. Whether a robot is assisting within the home or operating in a manufacturing plant, the fundamental promise of robotics requires touching and affecting a complex environment in a safe and controlled fashion. We are focused on developing computationally tractable and data efficient algorithms that enable robots to operate both dynamically and safely as they quickly maneuver through and interact with their environments.

[ DAIR Lab ]

I will never understand why robotics companies feel the need to add the sounds of sick actuators when their robots move.

[ Kepler ]

Join Matt Trossen, founder of Trossen Robotics, on a time-traveling teardown through the evolution of our robotic arms! In this deep dive, Matt unboxes the ghosts of robots past—sharing behind-the-scenes stories, bold design decisions, lessons learned, and how the industry itself has shifted gears.

[ Trossen ]

This week’s Carnegie Mellon University Robotics Institute (CMU RI) seminar is a retro edition (2008!) from Charlie Kemp, previously of the Healthcare Robotics Lab at Georgia Tech and now at Hello Robot.

[ CMU RI ]

This week’s actual CMU RI seminar is from a much more modern version of Charlie Kemp.

When I started in robotics, my goal was to help robots emulate humans. Yet as my lab worked with people with mobility impairments, my notions of success changed. For assistive applications, emulation of humans is less important than ease of use and usefulness. Helping with seemingly simple tasks, such as scratching an itch or picking up a dropped object, can make a meaningful difference in a person’s life. Even full autonomy can be undesirable, since actively directing a robot can provide a sense of independence and agency. Overall, many benefits of robotic assistance derive from nonhuman aspects of robots, such as being tireless, directly controllable, and free of social characteristics that can inhibit use.

While technical challenges abound for home robots that attempt to emulate humans, I will provide evidence that human-scale mobile manipulators could benefit people with mobility impairments at home in the near future. I will describe work from my lab and Hello Robot that illustrates opportunities for valued assistance at home, including supporting activities of daily living, leading exercise games, and strengthening social connections. I will also present recent progress by Hello Robot toward unsupervised, daily in-home use by a person with severe mobility impairments.

[ 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.

RoboSoft 2025: 23–26 April 2025, LAUSANNE, SWITZERLANDICUAS 2025: 14–17 May 2025, CHARLOTTE, NCICRA 2025: 19–23 May 2025, ATLANTA, GALondon Humanoids Summit: 29–30 May 2025, LONDONIEEE RCAR 2025: 1–6 June 2025, TOYAMA, JAPAN2025 Energy Drone & Robotics Summit: 16–18 June 2025, HOUSTON, TXRSS 2025: 21–25 June 2025, LOS ANGELESETH Robotics Summer School: 21–27 June 2025, GENEVAIAS 2025: 30 June–4 July 2025, GENOA, ITALYICRES 2025: 3–4 July 2025, PORTO, PORTUGALIEEE World Haptics: 8–11 July 2025, SUWON, KOREAIFAC Symposium on Robotics: 15–18 July 2025, PARISRoboCup 2025: 15–21 July 2025, BAHIA, BRAZILRO-MAN 2025: 25–29 August 2025, EINDHOVEN, THE NETHERLANDSCLAWAR 2025: 5–7 September 2025, SHENZHENCoRL 2025: 27–30 September 2025, SEOULIEEE Humanoids: 30 September–2 October 2025, SEOULWorld Robot Summit: 10–12 October 2025, OSAKA, JAPANIROS 2025: 19–25 October 2025, HANGZHOU, CHINA

Enjoy today’s videos!

Let’s step into a new era of Sci-Fi, join the fun together! Unitree will be livestreaming robot combat in about a month, stay tuned!

[ Unitree ]

A team of scientists and students from Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands (TU Delft) has taken first place at the A2RL Drone Championship in Abu Dhabi - an international race that pushes the limits of physical artificial intelligence, challenging teams to fly fully autonomous drones using only a single camera. The TU Delft drone competed against 13 autonomous drones and even human drone racing champions, using innovative methods to train deep neural networks for high-performance control.

[ TU Delft ]

RAI’s Ultra Mobile Vehicle (UMV) is learning some new tricks!

[ RAI Institute ]

With 28 moving joints (20 QDD actuators + 8 servo motors), Cosmo can walk with its two feet with a speed of up to 1 m/s (0.5 m/s nominal) and balance itself even when pushed. Coordinated with the motion of its head, fingers, arms and legs, Cosmo has a loud and expressive voice for effective interaction with humans. Cosmo speaks in canned phrases from the 90’s cartoon he originates from and his speech can be fully localized in any language.

[ RoMeLa ]

We wrote about Parallel Systems back in January of 2022, and it’s good to see that their creative take on autonomous rail is still moving along.

[ Parallel Systems ]

RoboCake is ready. This edible robotic cake is the result of a collaboration between researchers from EPFL (the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne), the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT-Italian Institute of Technology) and pastry chefs and food scientists from EHL in Lausanne. It takes the form of a robotic wedding cake, decorated with two gummy robotic bears and edible dark chocolate batteries that power the candles.

[ EPFL ]

ROBOTERA’s fully self-developed five-finger dexterous hand has upgraded its skills, transforming into an esports hand in the blink of an eye! The XHAND1 features 12 active degrees of freedom, pioneering an industry-first fully direct-drive joint design. It offers exceptional flexibility and sensitivity, effortlessly handling precision tasks like finger opposition, picking up soft objects, and grabbing cards. Additionally, it delivers powerful grip strength with a maximum payload of nearly 25 kilograms, making it adaptable to a wide range of complex application scenarios.

[ ROBOTERA ]

Witness the future of industrial automation as Extend Robotics trials their cutting-edge humanoid robot in Leyland factories. In this groundbreaking video, see how the robot skillfully connects a master service disconnect unit—a critical task in factory operations. Watch onsite workers seamlessly collaborate with the robot using an intuitive XR (extended reality) interface, blending human expertise with robotic precision.

[ Extend Robotics ]

I kind of like the idea of having a mobile robot that lives in my garage and manages the charging and cleaning of my car.

[ Flexiv ]

How can we ensure robots using foundation models, such as large language models (LLMs), won’t “hallucinate” when executing tasks in complex, previously unseen environments? Our Safe and Assured Foundation Robots for Open Environments (SAFRON) Advanced Research Concept (ARC) seeks ideas to make sure robots behave only as directed & intended.

[ DARPA ]

What if doing your chores were as easy as flipping a switch? In this talk and live demo, roboticist and founder of 1X Bernt Børnich introduces NEO, a humanoid robot designed to help you out around the house. Watch as NEO shows off its ability to vacuum, water plants and keep you company, while Børnich tells the story of its development — and shares a vision for robot helpers that could free up your time to focus on what truly matters.

[ 1X ] via [ TED ]

Rodney Brooks gave a keynote at the Stanford HAI spring conference on Robotics in a Human-Centered World.

There are a bunch of excellent talks from this conference on YouTube at the link below, but I think this panel is especially good, as a discussion of going from from research to real-world impact.

[ YouTube ] via [ Stanford HAI ]

Wing CEO Adam Woodworth discusses consumer drone delivery with Peter Diamandis at Abundance 360.

[ Wing ]

This CMU RI Seminar is from Sangbae Kim, who was until very recently at MIT but is now the Robotics Architect at Meta’s Robotics Studio.

[ 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.

RoboSoft 2025: 23–26 April 2025, LAUSANNE, SWITZERLANDICUAS 2025: 14–17 May 2025, CHARLOTTE, NCICRA 2025: 19–23 May 2025, ATLANTA, GALondon Humanoids Summit: 29–30 May 2025, LONDONIEEE RCAR 2025: 1–6 June 2025, TOYAMA, JAPAN2025 Energy Drone & Robotics Summit: 16–18 June 2025, HOUSTON, TXRSS 2025: 21–25 June 2025, LOS ANGELESETH Robotics Summer School: 21–27 June 2025, GENEVAIAS 2025: 30 June–4 July 2025, GENOA, ITALYICRES 2025: 3–4 July 2025, PORTO, PORTUGALIEEE World Haptics: 8–11 July 2025, SUWON, KOREAIFAC Symposium on Robotics: 15–18 July 2025, PARISRoboCup 2025: 15–21 July 2025, BAHIA, BRAZILRO-MAN 2025: 25–29 August 2025, EINDHOVEN, THE NETHERLANDSCLAWAR 2025: 5–7 September 2025, SHENZHENCoRL 2025: 27–30 September 2025, SEOULIEEE Humanoids: 30 September–2 October 2025, SEOULWorld Robot Summit: 10–12 October 2025, OSAKA, JAPANIROS 2025: 19–25 October 2025, HANGZHOU, CHINA

Enjoy today’s videos!

Let’s step into a new era of Sci-Fi, join the fun together! Unitree will be livestreaming robot combat in about a month, stay tuned!

[ Unitree ]

A team of scientists and students from Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands (TU Delft) has taken first place at the A2RL Drone Championship in Abu Dhabi - an international race that pushes the limits of physical artificial intelligence, challenging teams to fly fully autonomous drones using only a single camera. The TU Delft drone competed against 13 autonomous drones and even human drone racing champions, using innovative methods to train deep neural networks for high-performance control.

[ TU Delft ]

RAI’s Ultra Mobile Vehicle (UMV) is learning some new tricks!

[ RAI Institute ]

With 28 moving joints (20 QDD actuators + 8 servo motors), Cosmo can walk with its two feet with a speed of up to 1 m/s (0.5 m/s nominal) and balance itself even when pushed. Coordinated with the motion of its head, fingers, arms and legs, Cosmo has a loud and expressive voice for effective interaction with humans. Cosmo speaks in canned phrases from the 90’s cartoon he originates from and his speech can be fully localized in any language.

[ RoMeLa ]

We wrote about Parallel Systems back in January of 2022, and it’s good to see that their creative take on autonomous rail is still moving along.

[ Parallel Systems ]

RoboCake is ready. This edible robotic cake is the result of a collaboration between researchers from EPFL (the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne), the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT-Italian Institute of Technology) and pastry chefs and food scientists from EHL in Lausanne. It takes the form of a robotic wedding cake, decorated with two gummy robotic bears and edible dark chocolate batteries that power the candles.

[ EPFL ]

ROBOTERA’s fully self-developed five-finger dexterous hand has upgraded its skills, transforming into an esports hand in the blink of an eye! The XHAND1 features 12 active degrees of freedom, pioneering an industry-first fully direct-drive joint design. It offers exceptional flexibility and sensitivity, effortlessly handling precision tasks like finger opposition, picking up soft objects, and grabbing cards. Additionally, it delivers powerful grip strength with a maximum payload of nearly 25 kilograms, making it adaptable to a wide range of complex application scenarios.

[ ROBOTERA ]

Witness the future of industrial automation as Extend Robotics trials their cutting-edge humanoid robot in Leyland factories. In this groundbreaking video, see how the robot skillfully connects a master service disconnect unit—a critical task in factory operations. Watch onsite workers seamlessly collaborate with the robot using an intuitive XR (extended reality) interface, blending human expertise with robotic precision.

[ Extend Robotics ]

I kind of like the idea of having a mobile robot that lives in my garage and manages the charging and cleaning of my car.

[ Flexiv ]

How can we ensure robots using foundation models, such as large language models (LLMs), won’t “hallucinate” when executing tasks in complex, previously unseen environments? Our Safe and Assured Foundation Robots for Open Environments (SAFRON) Advanced Research Concept (ARC) seeks ideas to make sure robots behave only as directed & intended.

[ DARPA ]

What if doing your chores were as easy as flipping a switch? In this talk and live demo, roboticist and founder of 1X Bernt Børnich introduces NEO, a humanoid robot designed to help you out around the house. Watch as NEO shows off its ability to vacuum, water plants and keep you company, while Børnich tells the story of its development — and shares a vision for robot helpers that could free up your time to focus on what truly matters.

[ 1X ] via [ TED ]

Rodney Brooks gave a keynote at the Stanford HAI spring conference on Robotics in a Human-Centered World.

There are a bunch of excellent talks from this conference on YouTube at the link below, but I think this panel is especially good, as a discussion of going from from research to real-world impact.

[ YouTube ] via [ Stanford HAI ]

Wing CEO Adam Woodworth discusses consumer drone delivery with Peter Diamandis at Abundance 360.

[ Wing ]

This CMU RI Seminar is from Sangbae Kim, who was until very recently at MIT but is now the Robotics Architect at Meta’s Robotics Studio.

[ CMU RI ]



This is a sponsored article brought to you by Amazon.

The cutting edge of robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) doesn’t occur just at NASA, or one of the top university labs, but instead is increasingly being developed in the warehouses of the e-commerce company Amazon. As online shopping continues to grow, companies like Amazon are pushing the boundaries of these technologies to meet consumer expectations.

Warehouses, the backbone of the global supply chain, are undergoing a transformation driven by technological innovation. Amazon, at the forefront of this revolution, is leveraging robotics and AI to shape the warehouses of the future. Far from being just a logistics organization, Amazon is positioning itself as a leader in technological innovation, making it a prime destination for engineers and scientists seeking to shape the future of automation.

Amazon: A Leader in Technological Innovation

Amazon’s success in e-commerce is built on a foundation of continuous technological innovation. Its fulfillment centers are increasingly becoming hubs of cutting-edge technology where robotics and AI play a pivotal role. Heath Ruder, Director of Product Management at Amazon, explains how Amazon’s approach to integrating robotics with advanced material handling equipment is shaping the future of its warehouses.

“We’re integrating several large-scale products into our next-generation fulfillment center in Shreveport, Louisiana,” says Ruder. “It’s our first opportunity to get our robotics systems combined under one roof and understand the end-to-end mechanics of how a building can run with incorporated autonomation.” Ruder is referring to the facility’s deployment of its Automated Storage and Retrieval Systems (ASRS), called Sequoia, as well as robotic arms like “Robin” and “Cardinal” and Amazon’s proprietary autonomous mobile robot, “Proteus”.

Amazon has already deployed “Robin”, a robotic arm that sorts packages for outbound shipping by transferring packages from conveyors to mobile robots. This system is already in use across various Amazon fulfillment centers and has completed over three billion successful package moves. “Cardinal” is another robotic arm system that efficiently packs packages into carts before the carts are loaded onto delivery trucks.

Proteus” is Amazon’s autonomous mobile robot designed to work around people. Unlike traditional robots confined to a restricted area, Proteus is fully autonomous and navigates through fulfillment centers using sensors and a mix of AI-based and ML systems. It works with human workers and other robots to transport carts full of packages more efficiently.

The integration of these technologies is estimated to increase operational efficiency by 25 percent. “Our goal is to improve speed, quality, and cost. The efficiency gains we’re seeing from these systems are substantial,” says Ruder. However, the real challenge is scaling this technology across Amazon’s global network of fulfillment centers. “Shreveport was our testing ground and we are excited about what we have learned and will apply at our next building launching in 2025.”

Amazon’s investment in cutting-edge robotics and AI systems is not just about operational efficiency. It underscores the company’s commitment to being a leader in technological innovation and workplace safety, making it a top destination for engineers and scientists looking to solve complex, real-world problems.

How AI Models Are Trained: Learning from the Real World

One of the most complex challenges Amazon’s robotics team faces is how to make robots capable of handling a wide variety of tasks that require discernment. Mike Wolf, a principal scientist at Amazon Robotics, plays a key role in developing AI models that enable robots to better manipulate objects, across a nearly infinite variety of scenarios.

“The complexity of Amazon’s product catalog—hundreds of millions of unique items—demands advanced AI systems that can make real-time decisions about object handling,” explains Wolf. But how do these AI systems learn to handle such an immense variety of objects? Wolf’s team is developing machine learning algorithms that enable robots to learn from experience.

“We’re developing the next generation of AI and robotics. For anyone interested in this field, Amazon is the place where you can make a difference on a global scale.” —Mike Wolf, Amazon Robotics

In fact, robots at Amazon continuously gather data from their interactions with objects, refining their ability to predict how items will be affected when manipulated. Every interaction a robot has—whether it’s picking up a package or placing it into a container—feeds back into the system, refining the AI model and helping the robot to improve. “AI is continually learning from failure cases,” says Wolf. “Every time a robot fails to complete a task successfully, that’s actually an opportunity for the system to learn and improve.” This data-centric approach supports the development of state-of-the-art AI systems that can perform increasingly complex tasks, such as predicting how objects are affected when manipulated. This predictive ability will help robots determine the best way to pack irregularly shaped objects into containers or handle fragile items without damaging them.

“We want AI that understands the physics of the environment, not just basic object recognition. The goal is to predict how objects will move and interact with one another in real time,” Wolf says.

What’s Next in Warehouse Automation

Valerie Samzun, Senior Technical Product Manager at Amazon, leads a cutting-edge robotics program that aims to enhance workplace safety and make jobs more rewarding, fulfilling, and intellectually stimulating by allowing robots to handle repetitive tasks.

“The goal is to reduce certain repetitive and physically demanding tasks from associates,” explains Samzun. “This allows them to focus on higher-value tasks in skilled roles.” This shift not only makes warehouse operations more efficient but also opens up new opportunities for workers to advance their careers by developing new technical skills.

“Our research combines several cutting-edge technologies,” Samzun shared. “The project uses robotic arms equipped with compliant manipulation tools to detect the amount of force needed to move items without damaging them or other items.” This is an advancement that incorporates learnings from previous Amazon robotics projects. “This approach allows our robots to understand how to interact with different objects in a way that’s safe and efficient,” says Samzun. In addition to robotic manipulation, the project relies heavily on AI-driven algorithms that determine the best way to handle items and utilize space.

Samzun believes the technology will eventually expand to other parts of Amazon’s operations, finding multiple applications across its vast network. “The potential applications for compliant manipulation are huge,” she says.

Attracting Engineers and Scientists: Why Amazon is the Place to Be

As Amazon continues to push the boundaries of what’s possible with robotics and AI, it’s also becoming a highly attractive destination for engineers, scientists, and technical professionals. Both Wolf and Samzun emphasize the unique opportunities Amazon offers to those interested in solving real-world problems at scale.

For Wolf, who transitioned to Amazon from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the appeal lies in the sheer impact of the work. “The draw of Amazon is the ability to see your work deployed at scale. There’s no other place in the world where you can see your robotics work making a direct impact on millions of people’s lives every day,” he says. Wolf also highlights the collaborative nature of Amazon’s technical teams. Whether working on AI algorithms or robotic hardware, scientists and engineers at Amazon are constantly collaborating to solve new challenges.

Amazon’s culture of innovation extends beyond just technology. It’s also about empowering people. Samzun, who comes from a non-engineering background, points out that Amazon is a place where anyone with the right mindset can thrive, regardless of their academic background. “I came from a business management background and found myself leading a robotics project,” she says. “Amazon provides the platform for you to grow, learn new skills, and work on some of the most exciting projects in the world.”

For young engineers and scientists, Amazon offers a unique opportunity to work on state-of-the-art technology that has real-world impact. “We’re developing the next generation of AI and robotics,” says Wolf. “For anyone interested in this field, Amazon is the place where you can make a difference on a global scale.”

The Future of Warehousing: A Fusion of Technology and Talent

From Amazon’s leadership, it’s clear that the future of warehousing is about more than just automation. It’s about harnessing the power of robotics and AI to create smarter, more efficient, and safer working environments. But at its core it remains centered on people in its operations and those who make this technology possible—engineers, scientists, and technical professionals who are driven to solve some of the world’s most complex problems.

Amazon’s commitment to innovation, combined with its vast operational scale, makes it a leader in warehouse automation. The company’s focus on integrating robotics, AI, and human collaboration is transforming how goods are processed, stored, and delivered. And with so many innovative projects underway, the future of Amazon’s warehouses is one where technology and human ingenuity work hand in hand.

“We’re building systems that push the limits of robotics and AI,” says Wolf. “If you want to work on the cutting edge, this is the place to be.”



This is a sponsored article brought to you by Amazon.

The cutting edge of robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) doesn’t occur just at NASA, or one of the top university labs, but instead is increasingly being developed in the warehouses of the e-commerce company Amazon. As online shopping continues to grow, companies like Amazon are pushing the boundaries of these technologies to meet consumer expectations.

Warehouses, the backbone of the global supply chain, are undergoing a transformation driven by technological innovation. Amazon, at the forefront of this revolution, is leveraging robotics and AI to shape the warehouses of the future. Far from being just a logistics organization, Amazon is positioning itself as a leader in technological innovation, making it a prime destination for engineers and scientists seeking to shape the future of automation.

Amazon: A Leader in Technological Innovation

Amazon’s success in e-commerce is built on a foundation of continuous technological innovation. Its fulfillment centers are increasingly becoming hubs of cutting-edge technology where robotics and AI play a pivotal role. Heath Ruder, Director of Product Management at Amazon, explains how Amazon’s approach to integrating robotics with advanced material handling equipment is shaping the future of its warehouses.

“We’re integrating several large-scale products into our next-generation fulfillment center in Shreveport, Louisiana,” says Ruder. “It’s our first opportunity to get our robotics systems combined under one roof and understand the end-to-end mechanics of how a building can run with incorporated autonomation.” Ruder is referring to the facility’s deployment of its Automated Storage and Retrieval Systems (ASRS), called Sequoia, as well as robotic arms like “Robin” and “Cardinal” and Amazon’s proprietary autonomous mobile robot, “Proteus”.

Amazon has already deployed “Robin”, a robotic arm that sorts packages for outbound shipping by transferring packages from conveyors to mobile robots. This system is already in use across various Amazon fulfillment centers and has completed over three billion successful package moves. “Cardinal” is another robotic arm system that efficiently packs packages into carts before the carts are loaded onto delivery trucks.

Proteus” is Amazon’s autonomous mobile robot designed to work around people. Unlike traditional robots confined to a restricted area, Proteus is fully autonomous and navigates through fulfillment centers using sensors and a mix of AI-based and ML systems. It works with human workers and other robots to transport carts full of packages more efficiently.

The integration of these technologies is estimated to increase operational efficiency by 25 percent. “Our goal is to improve speed, quality, and cost. The efficiency gains we’re seeing from these systems are substantial,” says Ruder. However, the real challenge is scaling this technology across Amazon’s global network of fulfillment centers. “Shreveport was our testing ground and we are excited about what we have learned and will apply at our next building launching in 2025.”

Amazon’s investment in cutting-edge robotics and AI systems is not just about operational efficiency. It underscores the company’s commitment to being a leader in technological innovation and workplace safety, making it a top destination for engineers and scientists looking to solve complex, real-world problems.

How AI Models Are Trained: Learning from the Real World

One of the most complex challenges Amazon’s robotics team faces is how to make robots capable of handling a wide variety of tasks that require discernment. Mike Wolf, a principal scientist at Amazon Robotics, plays a key role in developing AI models that enable robots to better manipulate objects, across a nearly infinite variety of scenarios.

“The complexity of Amazon’s product catalog—hundreds of millions of unique items—demands advanced AI systems that can make real-time decisions about object handling,” explains Wolf. But how do these AI systems learn to handle such an immense variety of objects? Wolf’s team is developing machine learning algorithms that enable robots to learn from experience.

“We’re developing the next generation of AI and robotics. For anyone interested in this field, Amazon is the place where you can make a difference on a global scale.” —Mike Wolf, Amazon Robotics

In fact, robots at Amazon continuously gather data from their interactions with objects, refining their ability to predict how items will be affected when manipulated. Every interaction a robot has—whether it’s picking up a package or placing it into a container—feeds back into the system, refining the AI model and helping the robot to improve. “AI is continually learning from failure cases,” says Wolf. “Every time a robot fails to complete a task successfully, that’s actually an opportunity for the system to learn and improve.” This data-centric approach supports the development of state-of-the-art AI systems that can perform increasingly complex tasks, such as predicting how objects are affected when manipulated. This predictive ability will help robots determine the best way to pack irregularly shaped objects into containers or handle fragile items without damaging them.

“We want AI that understands the physics of the environment, not just basic object recognition. The goal is to predict how objects will move and interact with one another in real time,” Wolf says.

What’s Next in Warehouse Automation

Valerie Samzun, Senior Technical Product Manager at Amazon, leads a cutting-edge robotics program that aims to enhance workplace safety and make jobs more rewarding, fulfilling, and intellectually stimulating by allowing robots to handle repetitive tasks.

“The goal is to reduce certain repetitive and physically demanding tasks from associates,” explains Samzun. “This allows them to focus on higher-value tasks in skilled roles.” This shift not only makes warehouse operations more efficient but also opens up new opportunities for workers to advance their careers by developing new technical skills.

“Our research combines several cutting-edge technologies,” Samzun shared. “The project uses robotic arms equipped with compliant manipulation tools to detect the amount of force needed to move items without damaging them or other items.” This is an advancement that incorporates learnings from previous Amazon robotics projects. “This approach allows our robots to understand how to interact with different objects in a way that’s safe and efficient,” says Samzun. In addition to robotic manipulation, the project relies heavily on AI-driven algorithms that determine the best way to handle items and utilize space.

Samzun believes the technology will eventually expand to other parts of Amazon’s operations, finding multiple applications across its vast network. “The potential applications for compliant manipulation are huge,” she says.

Attracting Engineers and Scientists: Why Amazon is the Place to Be

As Amazon continues to push the boundaries of what’s possible with robotics and AI, it’s also becoming a highly attractive destination for engineers, scientists, and technical professionals. Both Wolf and Samzun emphasize the unique opportunities Amazon offers to those interested in solving real-world problems at scale.

For Wolf, who transitioned to Amazon from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the appeal lies in the sheer impact of the work. “The draw of Amazon is the ability to see your work deployed at scale. There’s no other place in the world where you can see your robotics work making a direct impact on millions of people’s lives every day,” he says. Wolf also highlights the collaborative nature of Amazon’s technical teams. Whether working on AI algorithms or robotic hardware, scientists and engineers at Amazon are constantly collaborating to solve new challenges.

Amazon’s culture of innovation extends beyond just technology. It’s also about empowering people. Samzun, who comes from a non-engineering background, points out that Amazon is a place where anyone with the right mindset can thrive, regardless of their academic background. “I came from a business management background and found myself leading a robotics project,” she says. “Amazon provides the platform for you to grow, learn new skills, and work on some of the most exciting projects in the world.”

For young engineers and scientists, Amazon offers a unique opportunity to work on state-of-the-art technology that has real-world impact. “We’re developing the next generation of AI and robotics,” says Wolf. “For anyone interested in this field, Amazon is the place where you can make a difference on a global scale.”

The Future of Warehousing: A Fusion of Technology and Talent

From Amazon’s leadership, it’s clear that the future of warehousing is about more than just automation. It’s about harnessing the power of robotics and AI to create smarter, more efficient, and safer working environments. But at its core it remains centered on people in its operations and those who make this technology possible—engineers, scientists, and technical professionals who are driven to solve some of the world’s most complex problems.

Amazon’s commitment to innovation, combined with its vast operational scale, makes it a leader in warehouse automation. The company’s focus on integrating robotics, AI, and human collaboration is transforming how goods are processed, stored, and delivered. And with so many innovative projects underway, the future of Amazon’s warehouses is one where technology and human ingenuity work hand in hand.

“We’re building systems that push the limits of robotics and AI,” says Wolf. “If you want to work on the cutting edge, this is the place to be.”



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.

RoboSoft 2025: 23–26 April 2025, LAUSANNE, SWITZERLANDICUAS 2025: 14–17 May 2025, CHARLOTTE, NCICRA 2025: 19–23 May 2025, ATLANTA, GALondon Humanoids Summit: 29–30 May 2025, LONDONIEEE RCAR 2025: 1–6 June 2025, TOYAMA, JAPAN2025 Energy Drone & Robotics Summit: 16–18 June 2025, HOUSTON, TXRSS 2025: 21–25 June 2025, LOS ANGELESETH Robotics Summer School: 21–27 June 2025, GENEVAIAS 2025: 30 June–4 July 2025, GENOA, ITALYICRES 2025: 3–4 July 2025, PORTO, PORTUGALIEEE World Haptics: 8–11 July 2025, SUWON, KOREAIFAC Symposium on Robotics: 15–18 July 2025, PARISRoboCup 2025: 15–21 July 2025, BAHIA, BRAZILRO-MAN 2025: 25–29 August 2025, EINDHOVEN, THE NETHERLANDSCLAWAR 2025: 5–7 September 2025, SHENZHENWorld Robot Summit: 10–12 October 2025, OSAKA, JAPANIROS 2025: 19–25 October 2025, HANGZHOU, CHINAIEEE Humanoids: 30 September–2 October 2025, SEOULCoRL 2025: 27–30 September 2025, SEOUL

Enjoy today’s videos!

MIT engineers developed an insect-sized jumping robot that can traverse challenging terrains while using far less energy than an aerial robot of comparable size. This tiny, hopping robot can leap over tall obstacles and jump across slanted or uneven surfaces carrying about 10 times more payload than a similar-sized aerial robot, opening the door to many new applications.

[ MIT ]

CubiX is a wire-driven robot that connects to the environment through wires, with drones used to establish these connections. By integrating with various tools and a robot, it performs tasks beyond the limitations of its physical structure.

[ JSK Lab ]

Thanks, Shintaro!

It’s a game a lot of us played as children—and maybe even later in life: unspooling measuring tape to see how far it would extend before bending. But to engineers at the University of California San Diego, this game was an inspiration, suggesting that measuring tape could become a great material for a robotic gripper.

[ University of California San Diego ]

I enjoyed the Murderbot books, and the trailer for the TV show actually looks not terrible.

[ Murderbot ]

For service robots, being able to operate an unmodified elevator is much more difficult (and much more important) than you might think.

[ Pudu Robotics ]

There’s a lot of buzz around impressive robotics demos — but taking Physical AI from demo to real-world deployment is a journey that demands serious engineering muscle. Hammering out the edge cases and getting to scale is 500x the effort of getting to the first demo. See our process for building this out for the singulation and induction Physical AI solution trusted by some of the world’s leading parcel carriers. Here’s to the teams likewise committed to the grind toward reliability and scale.

[ Dexterity Robotics ]

I am utterly charmed by the design of this little robot.

[ RoMeLa ]

This video shows a shortened version of Issey Miyake’s Fly With Me runway show from 2025 Paris Men’s Fashion Week. My collaborators and I brought two industrial robots to life to be the central feature of the minimalist scenography for the Japanese brand.

Each ABB IRB 6640 robot held a two meter square piece of fabric, and moved synchronously in flowing motions to match the emotional timing of the runway show. With only three-weeks development time and three days on-site, I built custom live coding tools that opened up the industrial robots to more improvisational workflows. This level of reliable, real-time control unlocked the flexibility needed by the Issey Miyake team to make the necessary last-minute creative decisions for the show.

[ Atonaton ]

Meet Clone’s first musculoskeletal android: Protoclone, the most anatomically accurate robot in the world. Based on a natural human skeleton, Protoclone is actuated with over 1,000 Myofibers, Clone’s proprietary artificial muscle technology.

[ Clone Robotics ]

There are a lot of heavily produced humanoid robot videos from the companies selling them, but now that these platforms are entering the research space, we should start getting a more realistic sense of their capabilities.

[ University College London ]

Here’s a bit more footage from RIVR on their home delivery robot.

[ RIVR ]

And now, this.

[ EngineAI ]

Robots are at the heart of sci-fi, visions of the future, but what if that future is now? And what if those robots, helping us at work and at home, are simply an extension of the tools we’ve used for millions of years? That’s what artist and engineer Catie Cuan thinks, and it’s part of the reason she teaches robots to dance. In this episode we meet the people at the frontiers of the future of robotics and Astro Teller introduces two groundbreaking projects, Everyday Robots and Intrinsic, that have advanced how robots could work not just for us but with us.

[ Moonshot Podcast ]



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.

RoboSoft 2025: 23–26 April 2025, LAUSANNE, SWITZERLANDICUAS 2025: 14–17 May 2025, CHARLOTTE, NCICRA 2025: 19–23 May 2025, ATLANTA, GALondon Humanoids Summit: 29–30 May 2025, LONDONIEEE RCAR 2025: 1–6 June 2025, TOYAMA, JAPAN2025 Energy Drone & Robotics Summit: 16–18 June 2025, HOUSTON, TXRSS 2025: 21–25 June 2025, LOS ANGELESETH Robotics Summer School: 21–27 June 2025, GENEVAIAS 2025: 30 June–4 July 2025, GENOA, ITALYICRES 2025: 3–4 July 2025, PORTO, PORTUGALIEEE World Haptics: 8–11 July 2025, SUWON, KOREAIFAC Symposium on Robotics: 15–18 July 2025, PARISRoboCup 2025: 15–21 July 2025, BAHIA, BRAZILRO-MAN 2025: 25–29 August 2025, EINDHOVEN, THE NETHERLANDSCLAWAR 2025: 5–7 September 2025, SHENZHENWorld Robot Summit: 10–12 October 2025, OSAKA, JAPANIROS 2025: 19–25 October 2025, HANGZHOU, CHINAIEEE Humanoids: 30 September–2 October 2025, SEOULCoRL 2025: 27–30 September 2025, SEOUL

Enjoy today’s videos!

MIT engineers developed an insect-sized jumping robot that can traverse challenging terrains while using far less energy than an aerial robot of comparable size. This tiny, hopping robot can leap over tall obstacles and jump across slanted or uneven surfaces carrying about 10 times more payload than a similar-sized aerial robot, opening the door to many new applications.

[ MIT ]

CubiX is a wire-driven robot that connects to the environment through wires, with drones used to establish these connections. By integrating with various tools and a robot, it performs tasks beyond the limitations of its physical structure.

[ JSK Lab ]

Thanks, Shintaro!

It’s a game a lot of us played as children—and maybe even later in life: unspooling measuring tape to see how far it would extend before bending. But to engineers at the University of California San Diego, this game was an inspiration, suggesting that measuring tape could become a great material for a robotic gripper.

[ University of California San Diego ]

I enjoyed the Murderbot books, and the trailer for the TV show actually looks not terrible.

[ Murderbot ]

For service robots, being able to operate an unmodified elevator is much more difficult (and much more important) than you might think.

[ Pudu Robotics ]

There’s a lot of buzz around impressive robotics demos — but taking Physical AI from demo to real-world deployment is a journey that demands serious engineering muscle. Hammering out the edge cases and getting to scale is 500x the effort of getting to the first demo. See our process for building this out for the singulation and induction Physical AI solution trusted by some of the world’s leading parcel carriers. Here’s to the teams likewise committed to the grind toward reliability and scale.

[ Dexterity Robotics ]

I am utterly charmed by the design of this little robot.

[ RoMeLa ]

This video shows a shortened version of Issey Miyake’s Fly With Me runway show from 2025 Paris Men’s Fashion Week. My collaborators and I brought two industrial robots to life to be the central feature of the minimalist scenography for the Japanese brand.

Each ABB IRB 6640 robot held a two meter square piece of fabric, and moved synchronously in flowing motions to match the emotional timing of the runway show. With only three-weeks development time and three days on-site, I built custom live coding tools that opened up the industrial robots to more improvisational workflows. This level of reliable, real-time control unlocked the flexibility needed by the Issey Miyake team to make the necessary last-minute creative decisions for the show.

[ Atonaton ]

Meet Clone’s first musculoskeletal android: Protoclone, the most anatomically accurate robot in the world. Based on a natural human skeleton, Protoclone is actuated with over 1,000 Myofibers, Clone’s proprietary artificial muscle technology.

[ Clone Robotics ]

There are a lot of heavily produced humanoid robot videos from the companies selling them, but now that these platforms are entering the research space, we should start getting a more realistic sense of their capabilities.

[ University College London ]

Here’s a bit more footage from RIVR on their home delivery robot.

[ RIVR ]

And now, this.

[ EngineAI ]

Robots are at the heart of sci-fi, visions of the future, but what if that future is now? And what if those robots, helping us at work and at home, are simply an extension of the tools we’ve used for millions of years? That’s what artist and engineer Catie Cuan thinks, and it’s part of the reason she teaches robots to dance. In this episode we meet the people at the frontiers of the future of robotics and Astro Teller introduces two groundbreaking projects, Everyday Robots and Intrinsic, that have advanced how robots could work not just for us but with us.

[ Moonshot Podcast ]



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.

RoboSoft 2025: 23–26 April 2025, LAUSANNE, SWITZERLANDICUAS 2025: 14–17 May 2025, CHARLOTTE, NCICRA 2025: 19–23 May 2025, ATLANTA, GALondon Humanoids Summit: 29–30 May 2025, LONDONIEEE RCAR 2025: 1–6 June 2025, TOYAMA, JAPAN2025 Energy Drone & Robotics Summit: 16–18 June 2025, HOUSTON, TXRSS 2025: 21–25 June 2025, LOS ANGELESETH Robotics Summer School: 21–27 June 2025, GENEVAIAS 2025: 30 June–4 July 2025, GENOA, ITALYICRES 2025: 3–4 July 2025, PORTO, PORTUGALIEEE World Haptics: 8–11 July 2025, SUWON, KOREAIFAC Symposium on Robotics: 15–18 July 2025, PARISRoboCup 2025: 15–21 July 2025, BAHIA, BRAZILRO-MAN 2025: 25–29 August 2025, EINDHOVEN, THE NETHERLANDSCLAWAR 2025: 5–7 September 2025, SHENZHENWorld Robot Summit: 10–12 October 2025, OSAKA, JAPANIROS 2025: 19–25 October 2025, HANGZHOU, CHINAIEEE Humanoids: 30 September–2 October 2025, SEOULCoRL 2025: 27–30 September 2025, SEOUL

Enjoy today’s videos!

I love the platform and I love the use case, but this particular delivery method is... Odd?

[ RIVR ]

This is just the beginning of what people and physical AI can accomplish together. To recognize business value from collaborative robotics, you have to understand what people do well, what robots do well—and how they best come together to create productivity. DHL and Robust.AI are partnering to define the future of human-robot collaboration.

[ Robust AI ]

Teleoperated robotic characters can perform expressive interactions with humans, relying on the operators’ experience and social intuition. In this work, we propose to create autonomous interactive robots, by training a model to imitate operator data. Our model is trained on a dataset of human-robot interactions, where an expert operator is asked to vary the interactions and mood of the robot, while the operator commands as well as the pose of the human and robot are recorded.

[ Disney Research Studios ]

Introducing THEMIS V2, our all-new full-size humanoid robot. Standing at 1.6m with 40 DoF, THEMIS V2 now features enhanced 6 DoF arms and advanced 7 DoF end-effectors, along with an additional body-mounted stereo camera and up to 200 TOPS of onboard AI computing power. These upgrades deliver exceptional capabilities in manipulation, perception, and navigation, pushing humanoid robotics to new heights.

[ Westwood ]

BMW x Figure Update: This isn’t a test environment—it’s real production operations. Real-world robots are advancing our Helix AI and strengthening our end-to-end autonomy to deploy millions of robots.

[ Figure ]

On March 13, at WorldMinds 2025, in the Kaufleuten Theater of Zurich, our team demonstrated for the first time two autonomous vision-based racing drones. It was an epic journey to prepare for this event, given the poor lighting conditions and the safety constraints of a theater filled with more than 500 people! The background screen visualizes in real-time the observations of the AI algorithm of each drone. No map, no IMU, no SLAM!

[ University of Zurich (UZH) ]

Unitree releases Dex5 dexterous hand. Single hand with 20 degrees of freedom (16 active+4 passive). Enable smooth backdrivability (direct force control). Equipped with 94 highly sensitive touch points (optional).

[ Unitree ]

You can say “real world manipulation” all you want, but until it’s actually in the real world, I’m not buying it.

[ 1X ]

Developed by Pudu X-Lab, FlashBot Arm elevates the capabilities of our flagship FlashBot by blending advanced humanoid manipulation and intelligent delivery capabilities, powered by cutting-edge embodied AI. This powerful combination allows the robot to autonomously perform a wide range of tasks across diverse settings, including hotels, office buildings, restaurants, retail spaces, and healthcare facilities.

[ Pudu Robotics ]

If you ever wanted to manipulate a trilby with 25 robots, a solution now exists.

[ Paper ] via [ EPFL Reconfigurable Robotics Lab ] published by [ IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters ]

We’ve been sharing videos from the Suzumori Endo Robotics Lab at the Institute of Science Tokyo for many years, and Professor Suzumori is now retiring.

Best wishes to Professor Suzumori!

[ Suzumori Endo Lab ]

No matter the vehicle, traditional control systems struggle when unexpected challenges—like damage, unforeseen environments, or new missions—push them beyond their design limits. Our Learning Introspective Control (LINC) program aims to fundamentally improve the safety of mechanical systems, such as ground vehicles, ships, and robotics, using various machine learning methods that require minimal computing power.

[ DARPA ]

NASA’s Perseverance rover captured new images of multiple dust devils while exploring the rim of Jezero Crater on Mars. The largest dust devil was approximately 210 feet wide (65 meters). In this Mars Report, atmospheric scientist Priya Patel explains what dust devils can teach us about weather conditions on the Red Planet.

[ NASA ]



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.

RoboSoft 2025: 23–26 April 2025, LAUSANNE, SWITZERLANDICUAS 2025: 14–17 May 2025, CHARLOTTE, NCICRA 2025: 19–23 May 2025, ATLANTA, GALondon Humanoids Summit: 29–30 May 2025, LONDONIEEE RCAR 2025: 1–6 June 2025, TOYAMA, JAPAN2025 Energy Drone & Robotics Summit: 16–18 June 2025, HOUSTON, TXRSS 2025: 21–25 June 2025, LOS ANGELESETH Robotics Summer School: 21–27 June 2025, GENEVAIAS 2025: 30 June–4 July 2025, GENOA, ITALYICRES 2025: 3–4 July 2025, PORTO, PORTUGALIEEE World Haptics: 8–11 July 2025, SUWON, KOREAIFAC Symposium on Robotics: 15–18 July 2025, PARISRoboCup 2025: 15–21 July 2025, BAHIA, BRAZILRO-MAN 2025: 25–29 August 2025, EINDHOVEN, THE NETHERLANDSCLAWAR 2025: 5–7 September 2025, SHENZHENWorld Robot Summit: 10–12 October 2025, OSAKA, JAPANIROS 2025: 19–25 October 2025, HANGZHOU, CHINAIEEE Humanoids: 30 September–2 October 2025, SEOULCoRL 2025: 27–30 September 2025, SEOUL

Enjoy today’s videos!

I love the platform and I love the use case, but this particular delivery method is... Odd?

[ RIVR ]

This is just the beginning of what people and physical AI can accomplish together. To recognize business value from collaborative robotics, you have to understand what people do well, what robots do well—and how they best come together to create productivity. DHL and Robust.AI are partnering to define the future of human-robot collaboration.

[ Robust AI ]

Teleoperated robotic characters can perform expressive interactions with humans, relying on the operators’ experience and social intuition. In this work, we propose to create autonomous interactive robots, by training a model to imitate operator data. Our model is trained on a dataset of human-robot interactions, where an expert operator is asked to vary the interactions and mood of the robot, while the operator commands as well as the pose of the human and robot are recorded.

[ Disney Research Studios ]

Introducing THEMIS V2, our all-new full-size humanoid robot. Standing at 1.6m with 40 DoF, THEMIS V2 now features enhanced 6 DoF arms and advanced 7 DoF end-effectors, along with an additional body-mounted stereo camera and up to 200 TOPS of onboard AI computing power. These upgrades deliver exceptional capabilities in manipulation, perception, and navigation, pushing humanoid robotics to new heights.

[ Westwood ]

BMW x Figure Update: This isn’t a test environment—it’s real production operations. Real-world robots are advancing our Helix AI and strengthening our end-to-end autonomy to deploy millions of robots.

[ Figure ]

On March 13, at WorldMinds 2025, in the Kaufleuten Theater of Zurich, our team demonstrated for the first time two autonomous vision-based racing drones. It was an epic journey to prepare for this event, given the poor lighting conditions and the safety constraints of a theater filled with more than 500 people! The background screen visualizes in real-time the observations of the AI algorithm of each drone. No map, no IMU, no SLAM!

[ University of Zurich (UZH) ]

Unitree releases Dex5 dexterous hand. Single hand with 20 degrees of freedom (16 active+4 passive). Enable smooth backdrivability (direct force control). Equipped with 94 highly sensitive touch points (optional).

[ Unitree ]

You can say “real world manipulation” all you want, but until it’s actually in the real world, I’m not buying it.

[ 1X ]

Developed by Pudu X-Lab, FlashBot Arm elevates the capabilities of our flagship FlashBot by blending advanced humanoid manipulation and intelligent delivery capabilities, powered by cutting-edge embodied AI. This powerful combination allows the robot to autonomously perform a wide range of tasks across diverse settings, including hotels, office buildings, restaurants, retail spaces, and healthcare facilities.

[ Pudu Robotics ]

If you ever wanted to manipulate a trilby with 25 robots, a solution now exists.

[ Paper ] via [ EPFL Reconfigurable Robotics Lab ] published by [ IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters ]

We’ve been sharing videos from the Suzumori Endo Robotics Lab at the Institute of Science Tokyo for many years, and Professor Suzumori is now retiring.

Best wishes to Professor Suzumori!

[ Suzumori Endo Lab ]

No matter the vehicle, traditional control systems struggle when unexpected challenges—like damage, unforeseen environments, or new missions—push them beyond their design limits. Our Learning Introspective Control (LINC) program aims to fundamentally improve the safety of mechanical systems, such as ground vehicles, ships, and robotics, using various machine learning methods that require minimal computing power.

[ DARPA ]

NASA’s Perseverance rover captured new images of multiple dust devils while exploring the rim of Jezero Crater on Mars. The largest dust devil was approximately 210 feet wide (65 meters). In this Mars Report, atmospheric scientist Priya Patel explains what dust devils can teach us about weather conditions on the Red Planet.

[ NASA ]



“Mooooo.”

This dairy barn is full of cows, as you might expect. Cows are being milked, cows are being fed, cows are being cleaned up after, and a few very happy cows are even getting vigorously scratched behind the ears. “I wonder where the farmer is,” remarks my guide, Jan Jacobs. Jacobs doesn’t seem especially worried, though—the several hundred cows in this barn are being well cared for by a small fleet of fully autonomous robots, and the farmer might not be back for hours. The robots will let him know if anything goes wrong.

At one of the milking robots, several cows are lined up, nose to tail, politely waiting their turn. The cows can get milked by robot whenever they like, which typically means more frequently than the twice a day at a traditional dairy farm. Not only is getting milked more often more comfortable for the cows, cows also produce about 10 percent more milk when the milking schedule is completely up to them.

“There’s a direct correlation between stress and milk production,” Jacobs says. “Which is nice, because robots make cows happier and therefore, they give more milk, which helps us sell more robots.”

Jan Jacobs is the human-robot interaction design lead for Lely, a maker of agricultural machinery. Founded in 1948 in Maassluis, Netherlands, Lely deployed its first Astronaut milking robot in the early 1990s. The company has since developed other robotic systems that assist with cleaning, feeding, and cow comfort, and the Astronaut milking robot is on its fifth generation. Lely is now focused entirely on robots for dairy farms, with around 135,000 of them deployed around the world.

Essential Jobs on Dairy Farms

The weather outside the barn is miserable. It’s late fall in the Netherlands, and a cold rain is gusting in from the sea, which is probably why the cows have quite sensibly decided to stay indoors and why the farmer is still nowhere to be found. Lely requires that dairy farmers who adopt its robots commit to letting their cows move freely between milking, feeding, and resting, as well as inside and outside the barn, at their own pace. “We believe that free cow traffic is a core part of the future of farming,” Jacobs says as we watch one cow stroll away from the milking robot while another takes its place. This is possible only when the farm operates on the cows’ schedule rather than a human’s.

A conventional dairy farm relies heavily on human labor. Lely estimates that repetitive daily tasks represent about a third of the average workday of a dairy farmer. In the morning, the cows are milked for the first time. Most dairy cows must be milked at least twice a day or they’ll become uncomfortable, and so the herd will line up on their own. Traditional milking parlors are designed to maximize human milking efficiency. A milking carousel, for instance, slowly rotates cows as they’re milked so that the dairy worker doesn’t have to move between stalls.

“We were spending 6 hours a day milking,” explains dairy farmer Josie Rozum, whose 120-cow herd at Takes Dairy Farm uses a pair of Astronaut A5 milking robots. “Now that the robots are handling all of that, we can focus more on animal care and comfort.”Lely

An experienced human using well-optimized equipment can attach a milking machine to a cow in just 20 to 30 seconds. The actual milking takes only a few minutes, but with the average small dairy farm in North America providing a home for several hundred cows, milking typically represents a time commitment of 4 to 6 hours per day.

There are other jobs that must be done every day at a dairy. Cows are happier with continuous access to food, which means feeding them several times a day. The feed is a mix of roughage (hay), silage (grass), and grain. The cows will eat all of this, but they prefer the grain, and so it’s common to see cows sorting their food by grabbing a mouthful and throwing it up into the air. The lighter roughage and silage flies farther than the grain does, leaving the cow with a pile of the tastier stuff as the rest gets tossed out of reach. This makes “feed pushing” necessary to shove the rest of the feed back within reach of the cow.

And of course there’s manure. A dairy cow produces an average of 68 kilograms of manure a day. All that manure has to be collected and the barn floors regularly cleaned.

Dairy Industry 4.0

The amount of labor needed to operate a dairy meant that until the early 1900s, most family farms could support only about eight cows. The introduction of the first milking machines, called bucket milkers, helped farmers milk 10 cows per hour instead of 4 by the mid-1920s. Rural electrification furthered dairy automation starting in the 1950s, and since then, both farm size and milk production have increased steadily. In the 1930s, a good dairy cow produced 3,600 kilograms of milk per year. Today, it’s almost 11,000 kilograms, and Lely believes that robots are what will enable small dairy farms to continue to scale sustainably.

Lely

But dairy robots are expensive. A milking robot can cost several hundred thousand dollars, plus an additional US $5,000 to $10,000 per year in operating costs. The Astronaut A5, Lely’s latest milking robot, uses a laser-guided robot arm to clean the cow’s udder before attaching teat cups one at a time. While the cow munches on treats, the Astronaut monitors her milk output, collecting data on 32 parameters, including indicators of the quality of the milk and the health of the cow. When milking is complete, the robot cleans the udder again, and the cow is free to leave as the robot steam cleans itself in preparation for the next cow.

Lely argues that although the initial cost is higher than that of a traditional milking parlor, the robots pay for themselves over time through higher milk production (due primarily to increased milking frequency) and lower labor costs. Lely’s other robots can also save on labor. The Vector mobile robot handles continuous feeding and feed pushing, and the Discovery Collector is a robotic manure vacuum that keeps the floors clean.

At Takes Dairy Farm, Rozum and her family used to spend several hours per day managing food for the cows. “The feeding robot is another amazing piece of the puzzle for our farm that allows us to focus on other things.”Takes Family Farm

For most dairy farmers, though, making more money is not the main reason to get a robot, explains Marcia Endres, a professor in the department of animal science at the University of Minnesota. Endres specializes in dairy-cattle management, behavior, and welfare, and studies dairy robot adoption. “When we first started doing research on this about 12 years ago, most of the farms that were installing robots were smaller farms that did not want to hire employees,” Endres says. “They wanted to do the work just with family labor, but they also wanted to have more flexibility with their time. They wanted a better lifestyle.”

Flexibility was key for the Takes family, who added Lely robots to their dairy farm in Ely, Iowa, four years ago. “When we had our old milking parlor, everything that we did as a family was always scheduled around milking,” says Josie Rozum, who manages the farm and a creamery along with her parents—Dan and Debbie Takes—and three brothers. “With the robots, we can prioritize our personal life a little bit more—we can spend time together on Christmas morning and know that the cows are still getting milked.”

Takes Family Dairy Farm’s 120-cow herd is milked by a pair of Astronaut A5 robots, with a Vector and three Discovery Collectors for feeding and cleaning. “They’ve become a crucial part of the team,” explains Rozum. “It would be challenging for us to find outside help, and the robots keep things running smoothly.” The robots also add sustainability to small dairy farms, and not just in the short term. “Growing up on the farm, we experienced the hard work, and we saw what that commitment did to our parents,” Rozum explains. “It’s a very tough lifestyle. Having the robots take over a little bit of that has made dairy farming more appealing to our generation.”

Takes Dairy Farm

Of the 25,000 dairy farms in the United States, Endres estimates about 10 percent have robots. This is about a third of the adoption rate in Europe, where farms tend to be smaller, so the cost of implementing the robots is lower. Endres says that over the last five years, she’s seen a shift toward robot adoption at larger farms with over 500 cows, due primarily to labor shortages. “These larger dairies are having difficulty finding employees who want to milk cows—it’s a very tedious job. And the robot is always consistent. The farmers tell me, ‘My robot never calls in sick, and never shows up drunk.’ ”

Endres is skeptical of Lely’s claim that its robots are responsible for increased milk production. “There is no research that proves that cows will be more productive just because of robots,” she says. It may be true that farms that add robots do see increased milk production, she adds, but it’s difficult to measure the direct effect that the robots have. “I have many dairies that I work with where they have both a robotic milking system and a conventional milking system, and if they are managing their cows well, there isn’t a lot of difference in milk production.”

The Lely Luna cow brush helps to keep cows’ skin healthy. It’s also relaxing and enjoyable, so cows will brush themselves several times a day.Lely

The robots do seem to improve the cows’ lives, however. “Welfare is not just productivity and health—it’s also the affective state, the ability to have a more natural life,” Endres says. “Again, it’s hard to measure, but I think that on most of these robot farms, their affective state is improved.” The cows’ relationship with humans changes too, comments Endres. When the cows no longer associate humans with being told where to go and what to do all the time, they’re much more relaxed and friendly toward people they meet. Rozum agrees. “We’ve noticed a tremendous change in our cows’ demeanor. They’re more calm and relaxed, just doing their thing in the barn. They’re much more comfortable when they can choose what to do.”

Cows Versus Robots

Cows are curious and clever animals, and have the same instinct that humans have when confronted with a new robot: They want to play with it. Because of this, Lely has had to cow-proof its robots, modifying their design and programming so that the machines can function autonomously around cows. Like many mobile robots, Lely’s dairy robots include contact-sensing bumpers that will pause the robot’s motion if it runs into something. On the Vector feeding robot, Lely product engineer René Beltman tells me, they had to add a software option to disable the bumper. “The cows learned that, ‘oh, if I just push the bumper, then the robot will stop and put down more feed in my area for me to eat.’ It was a free buffet. So you don’t want the cows to end up controlling the robot.” Emergency stop buttons had to be relocated so that they couldn’t be pressed by questing cow tongues.

There’s also a social component to cow-robot interaction. Within their herd, cows have a well-established hierarchy, and the robots need to work within this hierarchy to do their jobs. For example, a cow won’t move out of the way if it thinks that another cow is lower in the hierarchy than it is, and it will treat a robot the same way. The engineers had to figure out how the Discovery Collector could drive back and forth to vacuum up manure without getting blocked by cows. “In our early tests, we’d use sensors to have the robot stop to avoid running into any of the cows,” explains Jacobs. “But that meant that the robot became the weakest one in the hierarchy, and it would just end up crying in the corner because the cows wouldn’t move for it. So now, it doesn’t stop.”

One of the dirtiest jobs on a dairy farm is handled by the Discovery Collector, an autonomous manure vacuum. The robot relies on wheel odometry and ultrasonic sensors for navigation because it’s usually covered in manure.Evan Ackerman

“We make the robot drive slower for the first week, when it’s being introduced to a new herd,” adds Beltman. “That gives the cows time to figure out that the robot is at the top of the hierarchy.”

Besides maintaining their dominance at the top of the herd, the current generation of Lely robots doesn’t interact much with the cows, but that’s changing, Jacobs tells me. Right now, when a robot is driving through the barn, it makes a beeping sound to let the cows know it’s coming. Lely is looking into how to make these sounds more enjoyable for the cows. “This was a recent revelation for me,” Jacobs says. ”We’re not just designing interactions for humans. The cows are our users, too.”

Human-Robot Interaction

Last year, Jacobs and researchers from Delft University of Technology, in the Netherlands, presented a paper at the IEEE Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) Conference exploring this concept of robot behavior development on working dairy farms. The researchers visited robotic dairies, interviewed dairy farmers, and held workshops within Lely to establish a robot code of conduct—a guide that Lely’s designers and engineers use when considering how their robots should look, sound, and act, for the benefit of both humans and cows. On the engineering side, this includes practical things like colors and patterns for lights and different types of sounds so that information is communicated consistently across platforms.

But there’s much more nuance to making a robot seem “reliable” or “friendly” to the end user, since such things are not only difficult to define but also difficult to implement in a way that’s appropriate for dairy farmers, who prioritize functionality.

Jacobs doesn’t want his robots to try to be anyone’s friend—not the cow’s, and not the farmer’s. “The robot is an employee, and it should have a professional relationship,” he says. “So the robot might say ‘Hi,’ but it wouldn’t say, ‘How are you feeling today?’ ” What’s more important is that the robots are trustworthy. For Jacobs, instilling trust is simple: “You cannot gain trust by doing tricks. If your robot is reliable and predictable, people will trust it.”

The electrically driven, pneumatically balanced robotic arm that the Lely Astronaut uses to milk cows is designed to withstand accidental (or intentional) kicks.Lely

The real challenge, Jacobs explains, is that Lely is largely on its own when it comes to finding the best way of integrating its robots into the daily lives of people who may have never thought they’d have robot employees. “There’s not that much knowledge in the robot world about how to approach these problems,” Jacobs says. “We’re working with almost 20,000 farmers who have a bigger robot workforce than a human workforce. They’re robot managers. And I don’t know that there necessarily are other companies that have a customer base of normal people who have strategic dependence on robots for their livelihood. That is where we are now.”

From Dairy Farmers to Robot Managers

With the additional time and flexibility that the robots enable, some dairy farmers have been able to diversify. On our way back to Lely’s headquarters, we stop at Farm Het Lansingerland, owned by a Lely customer who has added a small restaurant and farm shop to his dairy. Large windows look into the barn so that restaurant patrons can watch the robots at work, caring for the cows that produce the cheese that’s on the menu. A self-guided tour takes you right up next to an Astronaut A5 milking robot, while signs on the floor warn of Vector feeding robots on the move. “This farmer couldn’t expand—this was as many cows as he’s allowed to have here,” Jacobs explains to me over cheese sandwiches. “So, he needs to have additional income streams. That’s why he started these other things. And the robots were essential for that.”

The farmer is an early adopter—someone who’s excited about the technology and actively interested in the robots themselves. But most of Lely’s tens of thousands of customers just want a reliable robotic employee, not a science project. “We help the farmer to prepare not just the environment for the robots, but also the mind,” explains Jacobs. “It’s a complete shift in their way of working.”

Besides managing the robots, the farmer must also learn to manage the massive amount of data that the robots generate about the cows. “The amount of data we get from the robots is a game changer,” says Rozum. “We can track milk production, health, and cow habits in real time. But it’s overwhelming. You could spend all day just sitting at the computer, looking at data and not get anything else done. It took us probably a year to really learn how to use it.”

The most significant advantages to farmers come from using the data for long-term optimization, says the University of Minnesota’s Endres. “In a conventional barn, the cows are treated as a group,” she says. “But the robots are collecting data about individual animals, which lets us manage them as individuals.” By combining data from a milking robot and a feeding robot, for example, farmers can close the loop, correlating when and how the cows are fed with their milk production. Lely is doing its best to simplify this type of decision making, says Jacobs. “You need to understand what the data means, and then you need to present it to the farmer in an actionable way.”

A Robotic Dairy
All dairy farms are different, and farms that decide to give robots a try will often start with just one or two. A highly roboticized dairy barn might look something like this illustration, with a team of many different robots working together to keep the cows comfortable and happy.

A: One Astronaut A5 robot can milk up to 60 cows. After the Astronaut cleans the teats, a laser sensor guides a robotic arm to attach the teat cups. Milking takes just a few minutes.

B: In the feed kitchen, the Vector robot recharges itself while different ingredients are loaded into its hopper and mixed together. Mixtures can be customized for different groups of cows.

C: The Vector robot dispenses freshly mixed food in small batches throughout the day. A laser measures the height of leftover food to make sure that the cows are getting the right amounts.

D: The Discovery Collector is a mop and vacuum for cow manure. It navigates the barn autonomously and returns to its docking station to remove waste, refill water, and wirelessly recharge.

E: As it milks, the Astronaut is collecting a huge amount of data—32 different parameters per teat. If it detects an issue, the farmer is notified, helping to catch health problems early.

F: Automated gates control meadow access and will keep a cow inside if she’s due to be milked soon. Cows are identified using RFID collars, which also track their behavior and health.

A Sensible Future for Dairy Robots

After lunch, we stop by Lely headquarters, where bright red life-size cow statues guard the entrance and all of the conference rooms are dairy themed. We get comfortable in Butter, and I ask Jacobs and Beltman what the future holds for their dairy robots.

In the near term, Lely is focused on making its existing robots more capable. Its latest feed-pushing robot is equipped with lidar and stereo cameras, which allow it to autonomously navigate around large farms without needing to follow a metal strip bolted to the ground. A new overhead camera system will leverage AI to recognize individual cows and track their behavior, while also providing farmers with an enormous new dataset that could allow Lely’s systems to help farmers make more nuanced decisions about cow welfare. The potential of AI is what Jacobs seems most excited about, although he’s cautious as well. “With AI, we’re suddenly going to take away an entirely different level of work. So, we’re thinking about doing research into the meaningfulness of work, to make sure that the things that we do with AI are the things that farmers want us to do with AI.”

“The idea of AI is very intriguing,” comments Rozum. “I think AI could help to simplify things for farmers. It would be a tool, a resource. But we know our cows best, and a farmer’s judgment has to be there too. There’s just some component of dairy farming that you cannot take the human out of. Robots are not going to be successful on a farm unless you have good farmers.”

Lely is aware of this and knows that its robots have to find the right balance between being helpful, and taking over. “We want to make sure not to take away the kinds of interactions that give dairy farmers joy in their work,” says Beltman. “Like feeding calves—every farmer likes to feed the calves.” Lely does sell an automated calf feeder that many dairy farmers buy, which illustrates the point: What’s the best way of designing robots to give humans the flexibility to do the work that they enjoy?

“This is where robotics is going,” Jacobs tells me as he gives me a lift to the train station. “As a human, you could have two other humans and six robots, and that’s your company.” Many industries, he says, look to robots with the objective of minimizing human involvement as much as possible so that the robots can generate the maximum amount of value for whoever happens to be in charge.

Dairy farms are different. Perhaps that’s because the person buying the robot is the person who most directly benefits from it. But I wonder if the concern over automation of jobs would be mitigated if more companies chose to emphasize the sustainability and joy of work equally with profit. Automation doesn’t have to be zero-sum—if implemented thoughtfully, perhaps robots can make work easier, more efficient, and more fun, too.

Jacobs certainly thinks so. “That’s my utopia,” he says. “And we’re working in the right direction.”



“Mooooo.”

This dairy barn is full of cows, as you might expect. Cows are being milked, cows are being fed, cows are being cleaned up after, and a few very happy cows are even getting vigorously scratched behind the ears. “I wonder where the farmer is,” remarks my guide, Jan Jacobs. Jacobs doesn’t seem especially worried, though—the several hundred cows in this barn are being well cared for by a small fleet of fully autonomous robots, and the farmer might not be back for hours. The robots will let him know if anything goes wrong.

At one of the milking robots, several cows are lined up, nose to tail, politely waiting their turn. The cows can get milked by robot whenever they like, which typically means more frequently than the twice a day at a traditional dairy farm. Not only is getting milked more often more comfortable for the cows, cows also produce about 10 percent more milk when the milking schedule is completely up to them.

“There’s a direct correlation between stress and milk production,” Jacobs says. “Which is nice, because robots make cows happier and therefore, they give more milk, which helps us sell more robots.”

Jan Jacobs is the human-robot interaction design lead for Lely, a maker of agricultural machinery. Founded in 1948 in Maassluis, Netherlands, Lely deployed its first Astronaut milking robot in the early 1990s. The company has since developed other robotic systems that assist with cleaning, feeding, and cow comfort, and the Astronaut milking robot is on its fifth generation. Lely is now focused entirely on robots for dairy farms, with around 135,000 of them deployed around the world.

Essential Jobs on Dairy Farms

The weather outside the barn is miserable. It’s late fall in the Netherlands, and a cold rain is gusting in from the sea, which is probably why the cows have quite sensibly decided to stay indoors and why the farmer is still nowhere to be found. Lely requires that dairy farmers who adopt its robots commit to letting their cows move freely between milking, feeding, and resting, as well as inside and outside the barn, at their own pace. “We believe that free cow traffic is a core part of the future of farming,” Jacobs says as we watch one cow stroll away from the milking robot while another takes its place. This is possible only when the farm operates on the cows’ schedule rather than a human’s.

A conventional dairy farm relies heavily on human labor. Lely estimates that repetitive daily tasks represent about a third of the average workday of a dairy farmer. In the morning, the cows are milked for the first time. Most dairy cows must be milked at least twice a day or they’ll become uncomfortable, and so the herd will line up on their own. Traditional milking parlors are designed to maximize human milking efficiency. A milking carousel, for instance, slowly rotates cows as they’re milked so that the dairy worker doesn’t have to move between stalls.

“We were spending 6 hours a day milking,” explains dairy farmer Josie Rozum, whose 120-cow herd at Takes Dairy Farm uses a pair of Astronaut A5 milking robots. “Now that the robots are handling all of that, we can focus more on animal care and comfort.”Lely

An experienced human using well-optimized equipment can attach a milking machine to a cow in just 20 to 30 seconds. The actual milking takes only a few minutes, but with the average small dairy farm in North America providing a home for several hundred cows, milking typically represents a time commitment of 4 to 6 hours per day.

There are other jobs that must be done every day at a dairy. Cows are happier with continuous access to food, which means feeding them several times a day. The feed is a mix of roughage (hay), silage (grass), and grain. The cows will eat all of this, but they prefer the grain, and so it’s common to see cows sorting their food by grabbing a mouthful and throwing it up into the air. The lighter roughage and silage flies farther than the grain does, leaving the cow with a pile of the tastier stuff as the rest gets tossed out of reach. This makes “feed pushing” necessary to shove the rest of the feed back within reach of the cow.

And of course there’s manure. A dairy cow produces an average of 68 kilograms of manure a day. All that manure has to be collected and the barn floors regularly cleaned.

Dairy Industry 4.0

The amount of labor needed to operate a dairy meant that until the early 1900s, most family farms could support only about eight cows. The introduction of the first milking machines, called bucket milkers, helped farmers milk 10 cows per hour instead of 4 by the mid-1920s. Rural electrification furthered dairy automation starting in the 1950s, and since then, both farm size and milk production have increased steadily. In the 1930s, a good dairy cow produced 3,600 kilograms of milk per year. Today, it’s almost 11,000 kilograms, and Lely believes that robots are what will enable small dairy farms to continue to scale sustainably.

Lely

But dairy robots are expensive. A milking robot can cost several hundred thousand dollars, plus an additional US $5,000 to $10,000 per year in operating costs. The Astronaut A5, Lely’s latest milking robot, uses a laser-guided robot arm to clean the cow’s udder before attaching teat cups one at a time. While the cow munches on treats, the Astronaut monitors her milk output, collecting data on 32 parameters, including indicators of the quality of the milk and the health of the cow. When milking is complete, the robot cleans the udder again, and the cow is free to leave as the robot steam cleans itself in preparation for the next cow.

Lely argues that although the initial cost is higher than that of a traditional milking parlor, the robots pay for themselves over time through higher milk production (due primarily to increased milking frequency) and lower labor costs. Lely’s other robots can also save on labor. The Vector mobile robot handles continuous feeding and feed pushing, and the Discovery Collector is a robotic manure vacuum that keeps the floors clean.

At Takes Dairy Farm, Rozum and her family used to spend several hours per day managing food for the cows. “The feeding robot is another amazing piece of the puzzle for our farm that allows us to focus on other things.”Takes Family Farm

For most dairy farmers, though, making more money is not the main reason to get a robot, explains Marcia Endres, a professor in the department of animal science at the University of Minnesota. Endres specializes in dairy-cattle management, behavior, and welfare, and studies dairy robot adoption. “When we first started doing research on this about 12 years ago, most of the farms that were installing robots were smaller farms that did not want to hire employees,” Endres says. “They wanted to do the work just with family labor, but they also wanted to have more flexibility with their time. They wanted a better lifestyle.”

Flexibility was key for the Takes family, who added Lely robots to their dairy farm in Ely, Iowa, four years ago. “When we had our old milking parlor, everything that we did as a family was always scheduled around milking,” says Josie Rozum, who manages the farm and a creamery along with her parents—Dan and Debbie Takes—and three brothers. “With the robots, we can prioritize our personal life a little bit more—we can spend time together on Christmas morning and know that the cows are still getting milked.”

Takes Family Dairy Farm’s 120-cow herd is milked by a pair of Astronaut A5 robots, with a Vector and three Discovery Collectors for feeding and cleaning. “They’ve become a crucial part of the team,” explains Rozum. “It would be challenging for us to find outside help, and the robots keep things running smoothly.” The robots also add sustainability to small dairy farms, and not just in the short term. “Growing up on the farm, we experienced the hard work, and we saw what that commitment did to our parents,” Rozum explains. “It’s a very tough lifestyle. Having the robots take over a little bit of that has made dairy farming more appealing to our generation.”

Takes Dairy Farm

Of the 25,000 dairy farms in the United States, Endres estimates about 10 percent have robots. This is about a third of the adoption rate in Europe, where farms tend to be smaller, so the cost of implementing the robots is lower. Endres says that over the last five years, she’s seen a shift toward robot adoption at larger farms with over 500 cows, due primarily to labor shortages. “These larger dairies are having difficulty finding employees who want to milk cows—it’s a very tedious job. And the robot is always consistent. The farmers tell me, ‘My robot never calls in sick, and never shows up drunk.’ ”

Endres is skeptical of Lely’s claim that its robots are responsible for increased milk production. “There is no research that proves that cows will be more productive just because of robots,” she says. It may be true that farms that add robots do see increased milk production, she adds, but it’s difficult to measure the direct effect that the robots have. “I have many dairies that I work with where they have both a robotic milking system and a conventional milking system, and if they are managing their cows well, there isn’t a lot of difference in milk production.”

The Lely Luna cow brush helps to keep cows’ skin healthy. It’s also relaxing and enjoyable, so cows will brush themselves several times a day.Lely

The robots do seem to improve the cows’ lives, however. “Welfare is not just productivity and health—it’s also the affective state, the ability to have a more natural life,” Endres says. “Again, it’s hard to measure, but I think that on most of these robot farms, their affective state is improved.” The cows’ relationship with humans changes too, comments Endres. When the cows no longer associate humans with being told where to go and what to do all the time, they’re much more relaxed and friendly toward people they meet. Rozum agrees. “We’ve noticed a tremendous change in our cows’ demeanor. They’re more calm and relaxed, just doing their thing in the barn. They’re much more comfortable when they can choose what to do.”

Cows Versus Robots

Cows are curious and clever animals, and have the same instinct that humans have when confronted with a new robot: They want to play with it. Because of this, Lely has had to cow-proof its robots, modifying their design and programming so that the machines can function autonomously around cows. Like many mobile robots, Lely’s dairy robots include contact-sensing bumpers that will pause the robot’s motion if it runs into something. On the Vector feeding robot, Lely product engineer René Beltman tells me, they had to add a software option to disable the bumper. “The cows learned that, ‘oh, if I just push the bumper, then the robot will stop and put down more feed in my area for me to eat.’ It was a free buffet. So you don’t want the cows to end up controlling the robot.” Emergency stop buttons had to be relocated so that they couldn’t be pressed by questing cow tongues.

There’s also a social component to cow-robot interaction. Within their herd, cows have a well-established hierarchy, and the robots need to work within this hierarchy to do their jobs. For example, a cow won’t move out of the way if it thinks that another cow is lower in the hierarchy than it is, and it will treat a robot the same way. The engineers had to figure out how the Discovery Collector could drive back and forth to vacuum up manure without getting blocked by cows. “In our early tests, we’d use sensors to have the robot stop to avoid running into any of the cows,” explains Jacobs. “But that meant that the robot became the weakest one in the hierarchy, and it would just end up crying in the corner because the cows wouldn’t move for it. So now, it doesn’t stop.”

One of the dirtiest jobs on a dairy farm is handled by the Discovery Collector, an autonomous manure vacuum. The robot relies on wheel odometry and ultrasonic sensors for navigation because it’s usually covered in manure.Evan Ackerman

“We make the robot drive slower for the first week, when it’s being introduced to a new herd,” adds Beltman. “That gives the cows time to figure out that the robot is at the top of the hierarchy.”

Besides maintaining their dominance at the top of the herd, the current generation of Lely robots doesn’t interact much with the cows, but that’s changing, Jacobs tells me. Right now, when a robot is driving through the barn, it makes a beeping sound to let the cows know it’s coming. Lely is looking into how to make these sounds more enjoyable for the cows. “This was a recent revelation for me,” Jacobs says. ”We’re not just designing interactions for humans. The cows are our users, too.”

Human-Robot Interaction

Last year, Jacobs and researchers from Delft University of Technology, in the Netherlands, presented a paper at the IEEE Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) Conference exploring this concept of robot behavior development on working dairy farms. The researchers visited robotic dairies, interviewed dairy farmers, and held workshops within Lely to establish a robot code of conduct—a guide that Lely’s designers and engineers use when considering how their robots should look, sound, and act, for the benefit of both humans and cows. On the engineering side, this includes practical things like colors and patterns for lights and different types of sounds so that information is communicated consistently across platforms.

But there’s much more nuance to making a robot seem “reliable” or “friendly” to the end user, since such things are not only difficult to define but also difficult to implement in a way that’s appropriate for dairy farmers, who prioritize functionality.

Jacobs doesn’t want his robots to try to be anyone’s friend—not the cow’s, and not the farmer’s. “The robot is an employee, and it should have a professional relationship,” he says. “So the robot might say ‘Hi,’ but it wouldn’t say, ‘How are you feeling today?’ ” What’s more important is that the robots are trustworthy. For Jacobs, instilling trust is simple: “You cannot gain trust by doing tricks. If your robot is reliable and predictable, people will trust it.”

The electrically driven, pneumatically balanced robotic arm that the Lely Astronaut uses to milk cows is designed to withstand accidental (or intentional) kicks.Lely

The real challenge, Jacobs explains, is that Lely is largely on its own when it comes to finding the best way of integrating its robots into the daily lives of people who may have never thought they’d have robot employees. “There’s not that much knowledge in the robot world about how to approach these problems,” Jacobs says. “We’re working with almost 20,000 farmers who have a bigger robot workforce than a human workforce. They’re robot managers. And I don’t know that there necessarily are other companies that have a customer base of normal people who have strategic dependence on robots for their livelihood. That is where we are now.”

From Dairy Farmers to Robot Managers

With the additional time and flexibility that the robots enable, some dairy farmers have been able to diversify. On our way back to Lely’s headquarters, we stop at Farm Het Lansingerland, owned by a Lely customer who has added a small restaurant and farm shop to his dairy. Large windows look into the barn so that restaurant patrons can watch the robots at work, caring for the cows that produce the cheese that’s on the menu. A self-guided tour takes you right up next to an Astronaut A5 milking robot, while signs on the floor warn of Vector feeding robots on the move. “This farmer couldn’t expand—this was as many cows as he’s allowed to have here,” Jacobs explains to me over cheese sandwiches. “So, he needs to have additional income streams. That’s why he started these other things. And the robots were essential for that.”

The farmer is an early adopter—someone who’s excited about the technology and actively interested in the robots themselves. But most of Lely’s tens of thousands of customers just want a reliable robotic employee, not a science project. “We help the farmer to prepare not just the environment for the robots, but also the mind,” explains Jacobs. “It’s a complete shift in their way of working.”

Besides managing the robots, the farmer must also learn to manage the massive amount of data that the robots generate about the cows. “The amount of data we get from the robots is a game changer,” says Rozum. “We can track milk production, health, and cow habits in real time. But it’s overwhelming. You could spend all day just sitting at the computer, looking at data and not get anything else done. It took us probably a year to really learn how to use it.”

The most significant advantages to farmers come from using the data for long-term optimization, says the University of Minnesota’s Endres. “In a conventional barn, the cows are treated as a group,” she says. “But the robots are collecting data about individual animals, which lets us manage them as individuals.” By combining data from a milking robot and a feeding robot, for example, farmers can close the loop, correlating when and how the cows are fed with their milk production. Lely is doing its best to simplify this type of decision making, says Jacobs. “You need to understand what the data means, and then you need to present it to the farmer in an actionable way.”

A Robotic Dairy
All dairy farms are different, and farms that decide to give robots a try will often start with just one or two. A highly roboticized dairy barn might look something like this illustration, with a team of many different robots working together to keep the cows comfortable and happy.

A: One Astronaut A5 robot can milk up to 60 cows. After the Astronaut cleans the teats, a laser sensor guides a robotic arm to attach the teat cups. Milking takes just a few minutes.

B: In the feed kitchen, the Vector robot recharges itself while different ingredients are loaded into its hopper and mixed together. Mixtures can be customized for different groups of cows.

C: The Vector robot dispenses freshly mixed food in small batches throughout the day. A laser measures the height of leftover food to make sure that the cows are getting the right amounts.

D: The Discovery Collector is a mop and vacuum for cow manure. It navigates the barn autonomously and returns to its docking station to remove waste, refill water, and wirelessly recharge.

E: As it milks, the Astronaut is collecting a huge amount of data—32 different parameters per teat. If it detects an issue, the farmer is notified, helping to catch health problems early.

F: Automated gates control meadow access and will keep a cow inside if she’s due to be milked soon. Cows are identified using RFID collars, which also track their behavior and health.

A Sensible Future for Dairy Robots

After lunch, we stop by Lely headquarters, where bright red life-size cow statues guard the entrance and all of the conference rooms are dairy themed. We get comfortable in Butter, and I ask Jacobs and Beltman what the future holds for their dairy robots.

In the near term, Lely is focused on making its existing robots more capable. Its latest feed-pushing robot is equipped with lidar and stereo cameras, which allow it to autonomously navigate around large farms without needing to follow a metal strip bolted to the ground. A new overhead camera system will leverage AI to recognize individual cows and track their behavior, while also providing farmers with an enormous new dataset that could allow Lely’s systems to help farmers make more nuanced decisions about cow welfare. The potential of AI is what Jacobs seems most excited about, although he’s cautious as well. “With AI, we’re suddenly going to take away an entirely different level of work. So, we’re thinking about doing research into the meaningfulness of work, to make sure that the things that we do with AI are the things that farmers want us to do with AI.”

“The idea of AI is very intriguing,” comments Rozum. “I think AI could help to simplify things for farmers. It would be a tool, a resource. But we know our cows best, and a farmer’s judgment has to be there too. There’s just some component of dairy farming that you cannot take the human out of. Robots are not going to be successful on a farm unless you have good farmers.”

Lely is aware of this and knows that its robots have to find the right balance between being helpful, and taking over. “We want to make sure not to take away the kinds of interactions that give dairy farmers joy in their work,” says Beltman. “Like feeding calves—every farmer likes to feed the calves.” Lely does sell an automated calf feeder that many dairy farmers buy, which illustrates the point: What’s the best way of designing robots to give humans the flexibility to do the work that they enjoy?

“This is where robotics is going,” Jacobs tells me as he gives me a lift to the train station. “As a human, you could have two other humans and six robots, and that’s your company.” Many industries, he says, look to robots with the objective of minimizing human involvement as much as possible so that the robots can generate the maximum amount of value for whoever happens to be in charge.

Dairy farms are different. Perhaps that’s because the person buying the robot is the person who most directly benefits from it. But I wonder if the concern over automation of jobs would be mitigated if more companies chose to emphasize the sustainability and joy of work equally with profit. Automation doesn’t have to be zero-sum—if implemented thoughtfully, perhaps robots can make work easier, more efficient, and more fun, too.

Jacobs certainly thinks so. “That’s my utopia,” he says. “And we’re working in the right direction.”



This is a sponsored article brought to you by Freudenberg Sealing Technologies.

The increasing deployment of collaborative robots (cobots) in outdoor environments presents significant engineering challenges, requiring highly advanced sealing solutions to ensure reliability and durability. Unlike industrial robots that operate in controlled indoor environments, outdoor cobots are exposed to extreme weather conditions that can compromise their mechanical integrity. Maintenance robots used in servicing wind turbines, for example, must endure intense temperature fluctuations, high humidity, prolonged UV radiation exposure, and powerful wind loads. Similarly, agricultural robots operate in harsh conditions where they are continuously exposed to abrasive dust, chemically aggressive fertilizers and pesticides, and mechanical stresses from rough terrains.

To ensure these robotic systems maintain long-term functionality, sealing solutions must offer effective protection against environmental ingress, mechanical wear, corrosion, and chemical degradation. Outdoor robots must perform flawlessly in temperature ranges spanning from scorching heat to freezing cold while withstanding constant exposure to moisture, lubricants, solvents, and other contaminants. In addition, sealing systems must be resilient to continuous vibrations and mechanical shocks, which are inherent to robotic motion and can accelerate material fatigue over time.

Comprehensive Technical Requirements for Robotic Sealing Solutions

The development of sealing solutions for outdoor robotics demands an intricate balance of durability, flexibility, and resistance to wear. Robotic joints, particularly those in high-mobility systems, experience multidirectional movements within confined installation spaces, making the selection of appropriate sealing materials and geometries crucial. Traditional elastomeric O-rings, widely used in industrial applications, often fail under such extreme conditions. Exposure to high temperatures can cause thermal degradation, while continuous mechanical stress accelerates fatigue, leading to early seal failure. Chemical incompatibility with lubricants, fuels, and cleaning agents further contributes to material degradation, shortening operational lifespans.

Friction-related wear is another critical concern, especially in robotic joints that operate at high speeds. Excessive friction not only generates heat but can also affect movement precision. In collaborative robotics, where robots work alongside humans, such inefficiencies pose safety risks by delaying response times and reducing motion accuracy. Additionally, prolonged exposure to UV radiation can cause conventional sealing materials to become brittle and crack, further compromising their performance.

Advanced IPSR Technology: Tailored for Cobots

To address these demanding conditions, Freudenberg Sealing Technologies has developed a specialized sealing solution: Ingress Protection Seals for Robots (IPSR). Unlike conventional seals that rely on metallic springs for mechanical support, the IPSR design features an innovative Z-shaped geometry that dynamically adapts to the axial and radial movements typical in robotic joints.

Numerous seals are required in cobots and these are exposed to high speeds and forces.Freudenberg Sealing Technologies

This unique structural design distributes mechanical loads more efficiently, significantly reducing friction and wear over time. While traditional spring-supported seals tend to degrade due to mechanical fatigue, the IPSR configuration eliminates this limitation, ensuring long-lasting performance. Additionally, the optimized contact pressure reduces frictional forces in robotic joints, thereby minimizing heat generation and extending component lifespans. This results in lower maintenance requirements, a crucial factor in applications where downtime can lead to significant operational disruptions.

Optimized Through Advanced Simulation Techniques

The development of IPSR technology relied extensively on Finite Element Analysis (FEA) simulations to optimize seal geometries, material selection, and surface textures before physical prototyping. These advanced computational techniques allowed engineers to predict and enhance seal behavior under real-world operational conditions.

FEA simulations focused on key performance factors such as frictional forces, contact pressure distribution, deformation under load, and long-term fatigue resistance. By iteratively refining the design based on simulation data, Freudenberg engineers were able to develop a sealing solution that balances minimal friction with maximum durability.

Furthermore, these simulations provided insights into how IPSR seals would perform under extreme conditions, including exposure to humidity, rapid temperature changes, and prolonged mechanical stress. This predictive approach enabled early detection of potential failure points, allowing for targeted improvements before mass production. By reducing the need for extensive physical testing, Freudenberg was able to accelerate the development cycle while ensuring high-performance reliability.

Material Innovations: Superior Resistance and Longevity

The effectiveness of a sealing solution is largely determined by its material composition. Freudenberg utilizes advanced elastomeric compounds, including Fluoroprene XP and EPDM, both selected for their exceptional chemical resistance, mechanical strength, and thermal stability.

Fluoroprene XP, in particular, offers superior resistance to aggressive chemicals, including solvents, lubricants, fuels, and industrial cleaning agents. Additionally, its resilience against ozone and UV radiation makes it an ideal choice for outdoor applications where continuous exposure to sunlight could otherwise lead to material degradation. EPDM, on the other hand, provides outstanding flexibility at low temperatures and excellent aging resistance, making it suitable for applications that require long-term durability under fluctuating environmental conditions.

To further enhance performance, Freudenberg applies specialized solid-film lubricant coatings to IPSR seals. These coatings significantly reduce friction and eliminate stick-slip effects, ensuring smooth robotic motion and precise movement control. This friction management not only improves energy efficiency but also enhances the overall responsiveness of robotic systems, an essential factor in high-precision automation.

Extensive Validation Through Real-World Testing

While advanced simulations provide critical insights into seal behavior, empirical testing remains essential for validating real-world performance. Freudenberg subjected IPSR seals to rigorous durability tests, including prolonged exposure to moisture, dust, temperature cycling, chemical immersion, and mechanical vibration.

Throughout these tests, IPSR seals consistently achieved IP65 certification, demonstrating their ability to effectively prevent environmental contaminants from compromising robotic components. Real-world deployment in maintenance robotics for wind turbines and agricultural automation further confirmed their reliability, with extensive wear analysis showing significantly extended operational lifetimes compared to traditional sealing technologies.

Safety Through Advanced Friction Management

In collaborative robotics, sealing performance plays a direct role in operational safety. Excessive friction in robotic joints can delay emergency-stop responses and reduce motion precision, posing potential hazards in human-robot interaction. By incorporating low-friction coatings and optimized sealing geometries, Freudenberg ensures that robotic systems respond rapidly and accurately, enhancing workplace safety and efficiency.

Tailored Sealing Solutions for Various Robotic Systems

Freudenberg Sealing Technologies provides customized sealing solutions across a wide range of robotic applications, ensuring optimal performance in diverse environments.

Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs) operate in industrial settings where they are exposed to abrasive contaminants, mechanical vibrations, and chemical exposure. Freudenberg employs reinforced PTFE composites to enhance durability and protect internal components.

Delta robots can perform complex movements at high speed. This requires seals that meet the high dynamic and acceleration requirements.Freudenberg Sealing Technologies

Delta robots, commonly used in food processing, pharmaceuticals, and precision electronics, require FDA-compliant materials that withstand rigorous cleaning procedures such as Cleaning-In-Place (CIP) and Sterilization-In-Place (SIP). Freudenberg utilizes advanced fluoropolymers that maintain structural integrity under aggressive sanitation processes.

Seals for Scara robots must have high chemical resistance, compressive strength and thermal resistance to function reliably in a variety of industrial environments.Freudenberg Sealing Technologies

SCARA robots benefit from Freudenberg’s Modular Plastic Sealing Concept (MPSC), which integrates sealing, bearing support, and vibration damping within a compact, lightweight design. This innovation optimizes robot weight distribution and extends component service life.

Six-axis robots used in automotive, aerospace, and electronics manufacturing require sealing solutions capable of withstanding high-speed operations, mechanical stress, and chemical exposure. Freudenberg’s Premium Sine Seal (PSS), featuring reinforced PTFE liners and specialized elastomer compounds, ensures maximum durability and minimal friction losses.

Continuous Innovation for Future Robotic Applications

Freudenberg Sealing Technologies remains at the forefront of innovation, continuously developing new materials, sealing designs, and validation methods to address evolving challenges in robotics. Through strategic customer collaborations, cutting-edge material science, and state-of-the-art simulation technologies, Freudenberg ensures that its sealing solutions provide unparalleled reliability, efficiency, and safety across all robotic platforms.



This is a sponsored article brought to you by Freudenberg Sealing Technologies.

The increasing deployment of collaborative robots (cobots) in outdoor environments presents significant engineering challenges, requiring highly advanced sealing solutions to ensure reliability and durability. Unlike industrial robots that operate in controlled indoor environments, outdoor cobots are exposed to extreme weather conditions that can compromise their mechanical integrity. Maintenance robots used in servicing wind turbines, for example, must endure intense temperature fluctuations, high humidity, prolonged UV radiation exposure, and powerful wind loads. Similarly, agricultural robots operate in harsh conditions where they are continuously exposed to abrasive dust, chemically aggressive fertilizers and pesticides, and mechanical stresses from rough terrains.

To ensure these robotic systems maintain long-term functionality, sealing solutions must offer effective protection against environmental ingress, mechanical wear, corrosion, and chemical degradation. Outdoor robots must perform flawlessly in temperature ranges spanning from scorching heat to freezing cold while withstanding constant exposure to moisture, lubricants, solvents, and other contaminants. In addition, sealing systems must be resilient to continuous vibrations and mechanical shocks, which are inherent to robotic motion and can accelerate material fatigue over time.

Comprehensive Technical Requirements for Robotic Sealing Solutions

The development of sealing solutions for outdoor robotics demands an intricate balance of durability, flexibility, and resistance to wear. Robotic joints, particularly those in high-mobility systems, experience multidirectional movements within confined installation spaces, making the selection of appropriate sealing materials and geometries crucial. Traditional elastomeric O-rings, widely used in industrial applications, often fail under such extreme conditions. Exposure to high temperatures can cause thermal degradation, while continuous mechanical stress accelerates fatigue, leading to early seal failure. Chemical incompatibility with lubricants, fuels, and cleaning agents further contributes to material degradation, shortening operational lifespans.

Friction-related wear is another critical concern, especially in robotic joints that operate at high speeds. Excessive friction not only generates heat but can also affect movement precision. In collaborative robotics, where robots work alongside humans, such inefficiencies pose safety risks by delaying response times and reducing motion accuracy. Additionally, prolonged exposure to UV radiation can cause conventional sealing materials to become brittle and crack, further compromising their performance.

Advanced IPSR Technology: Tailored for Cobots

To address these demanding conditions, Freudenberg Sealing Technologies has developed a specialized sealing solution: Ingress Protection Seals for Robots (IPSR). Unlike conventional seals that rely on metallic springs for mechanical support, the IPSR design features an innovative Z-shaped geometry that dynamically adapts to the axial and radial movements typical in robotic joints.

Numerous seals are required in cobots and these are exposed to high speeds and forces.Freudenberg Sealing Technologies

This unique structural design distributes mechanical loads more efficiently, significantly reducing friction and wear over time. While traditional spring-supported seals tend to degrade due to mechanical fatigue, the IPSR configuration eliminates this limitation, ensuring long-lasting performance. Additionally, the optimized contact pressure reduces frictional forces in robotic joints, thereby minimizing heat generation and extending component lifespans. This results in lower maintenance requirements, a crucial factor in applications where downtime can lead to significant operational disruptions.

Optimized Through Advanced Simulation Techniques

The development of IPSR technology relied extensively on Finite Element Analysis (FEA) simulations to optimize seal geometries, material selection, and surface textures before physical prototyping. These advanced computational techniques allowed engineers to predict and enhance seal behavior under real-world operational conditions.

FEA simulations focused on key performance factors such as frictional forces, contact pressure distribution, deformation under load, and long-term fatigue resistance. By iteratively refining the design based on simulation data, Freudenberg engineers were able to develop a sealing solution that balances minimal friction with maximum durability.

Furthermore, these simulations provided insights into how IPSR seals would perform under extreme conditions, including exposure to humidity, rapid temperature changes, and prolonged mechanical stress. This predictive approach enabled early detection of potential failure points, allowing for targeted improvements before mass production. By reducing the need for extensive physical testing, Freudenberg was able to accelerate the development cycle while ensuring high-performance reliability.

Material Innovations: Superior Resistance and Longevity

The effectiveness of a sealing solution is largely determined by its material composition. Freudenberg utilizes advanced elastomeric compounds, including Fluoroprene XP and EPDM, both selected for their exceptional chemical resistance, mechanical strength, and thermal stability.

Fluoroprene XP, in particular, offers superior resistance to aggressive chemicals, including solvents, lubricants, fuels, and industrial cleaning agents. Additionally, its resilience against ozone and UV radiation makes it an ideal choice for outdoor applications where continuous exposure to sunlight could otherwise lead to material degradation. EPDM, on the other hand, provides outstanding flexibility at low temperatures and excellent aging resistance, making it suitable for applications that require long-term durability under fluctuating environmental conditions.

To further enhance performance, Freudenberg applies specialized solid-film lubricant coatings to IPSR seals. These coatings significantly reduce friction and eliminate stick-slip effects, ensuring smooth robotic motion and precise movement control. This friction management not only improves energy efficiency but also enhances the overall responsiveness of robotic systems, an essential factor in high-precision automation.

Extensive Validation Through Real-World Testing

While advanced simulations provide critical insights into seal behavior, empirical testing remains essential for validating real-world performance. Freudenberg subjected IPSR seals to rigorous durability tests, including prolonged exposure to moisture, dust, temperature cycling, chemical immersion, and mechanical vibration.

Throughout these tests, IPSR seals consistently achieved IP65 certification, demonstrating their ability to effectively prevent environmental contaminants from compromising robotic components. Real-world deployment in maintenance robotics for wind turbines and agricultural automation further confirmed their reliability, with extensive wear analysis showing significantly extended operational lifetimes compared to traditional sealing technologies.

Safety Through Advanced Friction Management

In collaborative robotics, sealing performance plays a direct role in operational safety. Excessive friction in robotic joints can delay emergency-stop responses and reduce motion precision, posing potential hazards in human-robot interaction. By incorporating low-friction coatings and optimized sealing geometries, Freudenberg ensures that robotic systems respond rapidly and accurately, enhancing workplace safety and efficiency.

Tailored Sealing Solutions for Various Robotic Systems

Freudenberg Sealing Technologies provides customized sealing solutions across a wide range of robotic applications, ensuring optimal performance in diverse environments.

Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs) operate in industrial settings where they are exposed to abrasive contaminants, mechanical vibrations, and chemical exposure. Freudenberg employs reinforced PTFE composites to enhance durability and protect internal components.

Delta robots can perform complex movements at high speed. This requires seals that meet the high dynamic and acceleration requirements.Freudenberg Sealing Technologies

Delta robots, commonly used in food processing, pharmaceuticals, and precision electronics, require FDA-compliant materials that withstand rigorous cleaning procedures such as Cleaning-In-Place (CIP) and Sterilization-In-Place (SIP). Freudenberg utilizes advanced fluoropolymers that maintain structural integrity under aggressive sanitation processes.

Seals for Scara robots must have high chemical resistance, compressive strength and thermal resistance to function reliably in a variety of industrial environments.Freudenberg Sealing Technologies

SCARA robots benefit from Freudenberg’s Modular Plastic Sealing Concept (MPSC), which integrates sealing, bearing support, and vibration damping within a compact, lightweight design. This innovation optimizes robot weight distribution and extends component service life.

Six-axis robots used in automotive, aerospace, and electronics manufacturing require sealing solutions capable of withstanding high-speed operations, mechanical stress, and chemical exposure. Freudenberg’s Premium Sine Seal (PSS), featuring reinforced PTFE liners and specialized elastomer compounds, ensures maximum durability and minimal friction losses.

Continuous Innovation for Future Robotic Applications

Freudenberg Sealing Technologies remains at the forefront of innovation, continuously developing new materials, sealing designs, and validation methods to address evolving challenges in robotics. Through strategic customer collaborations, cutting-edge material science, and state-of-the-art simulation technologies, Freudenberg ensures that its sealing solutions provide unparalleled reliability, efficiency, and safety across all robotic platforms.



A new prototype is laying claim to the title of smallest, lightest untethered flying robot.

At less than a centimeter in wingspan, the wirelessly powered robot is currently very limited in how far it can travel away from the magnetic fields that drive its flight. However, the scientists who developed it suggest there are ways to boost its range, which could lead to potential applications such as search and rescue operations, inspecting damaged machinery in industrial settings, and even plant pollination.

One strategy to shrink flying robots involves removing their batteries and supplying them electricity using tethers. However, tethered flying robots face problems operating freely in complex environments. This has led some researchers to explore wireless methods of powering robot flight.

“The dream was to make flying robots to fly anywhere and anytime without using an electrical wire for the power source,” says Liwei Lin, a professor of mechanical engineering at University of California at Berkeley. Lin and his fellow researchers detailed their findings in Science Advances.

3D-Printed Flying Robot Design

Each flying robot has a 3D-printed body that consists of a propeller with four blades. This rotor is encircled by a ring that helps the robot stay balanced during flight. On top of each body are two tiny permanent magnets.

All in all, the insect-scale prototypes have wingspans as small as 9.4 millimeters and weigh as little as 21 milligrams. Previously, the smallest reported flying robot, either tethered or untethered, was 28 millimeters wide.

When exposed to an external alternating magnetic field, the robots spin and fly without tethers. The lowest magnetic field strength needed to maintain flight is 3.1 millitesla. (In comparison, a refrigerator magnet has a strength of about 10 mT.)

When the applied magnetic field alternates with a frequency of 310 hertz, the robots can hover. At 340 Hz, they accelerate upward. The researchers could steer the robots laterally by adjusting the applied magnetic fields. The robots could also right themselves after collisions to stay airborne without complex sensing or controlling electronics, as long as the impacts were not too large.

Experiments show the lift force the robots generate can exceed their weight by 14 percent, to help them carry payloads. For instance, a prototype that’s 20.5 millimeters wide and weighing 162.4 milligrams could carry an infrared sensor weighing 110 mg to scan its environment. The robots proved efficient at converting the energy given them into lift force—better than nearly all other reported flying robots, tethered or untethered, and also better than fruit flies and hummingbirds.

Currently the maximum operating range of these prototypes is about 10 centimeters away from the magnetic coils. One way to extend the operating range of these robots is to increase the magnetic field strength they experience tenfold by adding more coils, optimizing the configuration of these coils, and using beamforming coils, Lin notes. Such developments could allow the robots to fly up to a meter away from the magnetic coils.

The scientists could also miniaturize the robots even further. This would make them lighter, and so reduce the magnetic field strength they need for propulsion. “It could be possible to drive micro flying robots using electromagnetic waves such as those in radio or cell phone transmission signals,” Lin says. Future research could also place devices that can convert magnetic energy to electricity onboard the robots to power electronic components, the researchers add.



A new prototype is laying claim to the title of smallest, lightest untethered flying robot.

At less than a centimeter in wingspan, the wirelessly powered robot is currently very limited in how far it can travel away from the magnetic fields that drive its flight. However, the scientists who developed it suggest there are ways to boost its range, which could lead to potential applications such as search and rescue operations, inspecting damaged machinery in industrial settings, and even plant pollination.

One strategy to shrink flying robots involves removing their batteries and supplying them electricity using tethers. However, tethered flying robots face problems operating freely in complex environments. This has led some researchers to explore wireless methods of powering robot flight.

“The dream was to make flying robots to fly anywhere and anytime without using an electrical wire for the power source,” says Liwei Lin, a professor of mechanical engineering at University of California at Berkeley. Lin and his fellow researchers detailed their findings in Science Advances.

3D-Printed Flying Robot Design

Each flying robot has a 3D-printed body that consists of a propeller with four blades. This rotor is encircled by a ring that helps the robot stay balanced during flight. On top of each body are two tiny permanent magnets.

All in all, the insect-scale prototypes have wingspans as small as 9.4 millimeters and weigh as little as 21 milligrams. Previously, the smallest reported flying robot, either tethered or untethered, was 28 millimeters wide.

When exposed to an external alternating magnetic field, the robots spin and fly without tethers. The lowest magnetic field strength needed to maintain flight is 3.1 millitesla. (In comparison, a refrigerator magnet has a strength of about 10 mT.)

When the applied magnetic field alternates with a frequency of 310 hertz, the robots can hover. At 340 Hz, they accelerate upward. The researchers could steer the robots laterally by adjusting the applied magnetic fields. The robots could also right themselves after collisions to stay airborne without complex sensing or controlling electronics, as long as the impacts were not too large.

Experiments show the lift force the robots generate can exceed their weight by 14 percent, to help them carry payloads. For instance, a prototype that’s 20.5 millimeters wide and weighing 162.4 milligrams could carry an infrared sensor weighing 110 mg to scan its environment. The robots proved efficient at converting the energy given them into lift force—better than nearly all other reported flying robots, tethered or untethered, and also better than fruit flies and hummingbirds.

Currently the maximum operating range of these prototypes is about 10 centimeters away from the magnetic coils. One way to extend the operating range of these robots is to increase the magnetic field strength they experience tenfold by adding more coils, optimizing the configuration of these coils, and using beamforming coils, Lin notes. Such developments could allow the robots to fly up to a meter away from the magnetic coils.

The scientists could also miniaturize the robots even further. This would make them lighter, and so reduce the magnetic field strength they need for propulsion. “It could be possible to drive micro flying robots using electromagnetic waves such as those in radio or cell phone transmission signals,” Lin says. Future research could also place devices that can convert magnetic energy to electricity onboard the robots to power electronic components, the researchers add.



Your weekly selection of awesome robot videos

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.

RoboSoft 2025: 23–26 April 2025, LAUSANNE, SWITZERLANDICUAS 2025: 14–17 May 2025, CHARLOTTE, NCICRA 2025: 19–23 May 2025, ATLANTA, GALondon Humanoids Summit: 29–30 May 2025, LONDONIEEE RCAR 2025: 1–6 June 2025, TOYAMA, JAPAN2025 Energy Drone & Robotics Summit: 16–18 June 2025, HOUSTON, TXRSS 2025: 21–25 June 2025, LOS ANGELESETH Robotics Summer School: 21–27 June 2025, GENEVAIAS 2025: 30 June–4 July 2025, GENOA, ITALYICRES 2025: 3–4 July 2025, PORTO, PORTUGALIEEE World Haptics: 8–11 July 2025, SUWON, KOREAIFAC Symposium on Robotics: 15–18 July 2025, PARISRoboCup 2025: 15–21 July 2025, BAHIA, BRAZILRO-MAN 2025: 25–29 August 2025, EINDHOVEN, NETHERLANDS

Enjoy today’s videos!

This robot can walk, without electronics, and only with the addition of a cartridge of compressed gas, right off the 3D-printer. It can also be printed in one go, from one material. Researchers from the University of California San Diego and BASF, describe how they developed the robot in an advanced online publication in the journal Advanced Intelligent Systems. They used the simplest technology available: a desktop 3D-printer and an off-the-shelf printing material. This design approach is not only robust, it is also cheap—each robot costs about $20 to manufacture.

And details!

[ Paper ] via [ University of California San Diego ]

Why do you want a humanoid robot to walk like a human? So that it doesn’t look weird, I guess, but it’s hard to imagine that a system that doesn’t have the same arrangement of joints and muscles that we do will move optimally by just trying to mimic us.

[ Figure ]

I don’t know how it manages it, but this little soft robotic worm somehow moves with an incredible amount of personality.

Soft actuators are critical for enabling soft robots, medical devices, and haptic systems. Many soft actuators, however, require power to hold a configuration and rely on hard circuitry for control, limiting their potential applications. In this work, the first soft electromagnetic system is demonstrated for externally-controlled bistable actuation or self-regulated astable oscillation.

[ Paper ] via [ Georgia Tech ]

Thanks, Ellen!

A 180-degree pelvis rotation would put the “break” in “breakdancing” if this were a human doing it.

[ Boston Dynamics ]

My colleagues were impressed by this cooking robot, but that may be because journalists are always impressed by free food.

[ Posha ]

This is our latest work about a hybrid aerial-terrestrial quadruped robot called SPIDAR, which shows unique and complex locomotion styles in both aerial and terrestrial domains including thrust-assisted crawling motion. This work has been presented in the International Symposium of Robotics Research (ISRR) 2024.

[ Paper ] via [ Dragon Lab ]

Thanks, Moju!

This fresh, newly captured video from Unitree’s testing grounds showcases the breakneck speed of humanoid intelligence advancement. Every day brings something thrilling!

[ Unitree ]

There should be more robots that you can ride around on.

[ AgileX Robotics ]

There should be more robots that wear hats at work.

[ Ugo ]

iRobot, who pioneered giant docks for robot vacuums, is now moving away from giant docks for robot vacuums.

[ iRobot ]

There’s a famous experiment where if you put a dead fish in current, it starts swimming, just because of its biomechanical design. Somehow, you can do the same thing with an unactuated quadruped robot on a treadmill.

[ Delft University of Technology ]

Mush! Narrowly!

[ Hybrid Robotics ]

It’s freaking me out a little bit that this couple is apparently wandering around a huge mall that is populated only by robots and zero other humans.

[ MagicLab ]

I’m trying, I really am, but the yellow is just not working for me.

[ Kepler ]

By having Stretch take on the physically demanding task of unloading trailers stacked floor to ceiling with boxes, Gap Inc has reduced injuries, lowered turnover, and watched employees get excited about automation intended to keep them safe.

[ Boston Dynamics ]

Since arriving at Mars in 2012, NASA’s Curiosity rover has been ingesting samples of Martian rock, soil, and air to better understand the past and present habitability of the Red Planet. Of particular interest to its search are organic molecules: the building blocks of life. Now, Curiosity’s onboard chemistry lab has detected long-chain hydrocarbons in a mudstone called “Cumberland,” the largest organics yet discovered on Mars.

[ NASA ]

This University of Toronto Robotics Institute Seminar is from Sergey Levine at UC Berkeley, on Robotics Foundation Models.

General-purpose pretrained models have transformed natural language processing, computer vision, and other fields. In principle, such approaches should be ideal in robotics: since gathering large amounts of data for any given robotic platform and application is likely to be difficult, general pretrained models that provide broad capabilities present an ideal recipe to enable robotic learning at scale for real-world applications.
From the perspective of general AI research, such approaches also offer a promising and intriguing approach to some of the grandest AI challenges: if large-scale training on embodied experience can provide diverse physical capabilities, this would shed light not only on the practical questions around designing broadly capable robots, but the foundations of situated problem-solving, physical understanding, and decision making. However, realizing this potential requires handling a number of challenging obstacles. What data shall we use to train robotic foundation models? What will be the training objective? How should alignment or post-training be done? In this talk, I will discuss how we can approach some of these challenges.

[ University of Toronto ]



Your weekly selection of awesome robot videos

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.

RoboSoft 2025: 23–26 April 2025, LAUSANNE, SWITZERLANDICUAS 2025: 14–17 May 2025, CHARLOTTE, NCICRA 2025: 19–23 May 2025, ATLANTA, GALondon Humanoids Summit: 29–30 May 2025, LONDONIEEE RCAR 2025: 1–6 June 2025, TOYAMA, JAPAN2025 Energy Drone & Robotics Summit: 16–18 June 2025, HOUSTON, TXRSS 2025: 21–25 June 2025, LOS ANGELESETH Robotics Summer School: 21–27 June 2025, GENEVAIAS 2025: 30 June–4 July 2025, GENOA, ITALYICRES 2025: 3–4 July 2025, PORTO, PORTUGALIEEE World Haptics: 8–11 July 2025, SUWON, KOREAIFAC Symposium on Robotics: 15–18 July 2025, PARISRoboCup 2025: 15–21 July 2025, BAHIA, BRAZILRO-MAN 2025: 25–29 August 2025, EINDHOVEN, NETHERLANDS

Enjoy today’s videos!

This robot can walk, without electronics, and only with the addition of a cartridge of compressed gas, right off the 3D-printer. It can also be printed in one go, from one material. Researchers from the University of California San Diego and BASF, describe how they developed the robot in an advanced online publication in the journal Advanced Intelligent Systems. They used the simplest technology available: a desktop 3D-printer and an off-the-shelf printing material. This design approach is not only robust, it is also cheap—each robot costs about $20 to manufacture.

And details!

[ Paper ] via [ University of California San Diego ]

Why do you want a humanoid robot to walk like a human? So that it doesn’t look weird, I guess, but it’s hard to imagine that a system that doesn’t have the same arrangement of joints and muscles that we do will move optimally by just trying to mimic us.

[ Figure ]

I don’t know how it manages it, but this little soft robotic worm somehow moves with an incredible amount of personality.

Soft actuators are critical for enabling soft robots, medical devices, and haptic systems. Many soft actuators, however, require power to hold a configuration and rely on hard circuitry for control, limiting their potential applications. In this work, the first soft electromagnetic system is demonstrated for externally-controlled bistable actuation or self-regulated astable oscillation.

[ Paper ] via [ Georgia Tech ]

Thanks, Ellen!

A 180-degree pelvis rotation would put the “break” in “breakdancing” if this were a human doing it.

[ Boston Dynamics ]

My colleagues were impressed by this cooking robot, but that may be because journalists are always impressed by free food.

[ Posha ]

This is our latest work about a hybrid aerial-terrestrial quadruped robot called SPIDAR, which shows unique and complex locomotion styles in both aerial and terrestrial domains including thrust-assisted crawling motion. This work has been presented in the International Symposium of Robotics Research (ISRR) 2024.

[ Paper ] via [ Dragon Lab ]

Thanks, Moju!

This fresh, newly captured video from Unitree’s testing grounds showcases the breakneck speed of humanoid intelligence advancement. Every day brings something thrilling!

[ Unitree ]

There should be more robots that you can ride around on.

[ AgileX Robotics ]

There should be more robots that wear hats at work.

[ Ugo ]

iRobot, who pioneered giant docks for robot vacuums, is now moving away from giant docks for robot vacuums.

[ iRobot ]

There’s a famous experiment where if you put a dead fish in current, it starts swimming, just because of its biomechanical design. Somehow, you can do the same thing with an unactuated quadruped robot on a treadmill.

[ Delft University of Technology ]

Mush! Narrowly!

[ Hybrid Robotics ]

It’s freaking me out a little bit that this couple is apparently wandering around a huge mall that is populated only by robots and zero other humans.

[ MagicLab ]

I’m trying, I really am, but the yellow is just not working for me.

[ Kepler ]

By having Stretch take on the physically demanding task of unloading trailers stacked floor to ceiling with boxes, Gap Inc has reduced injuries, lowered turnover, and watched employees get excited about automation intended to keep them safe.

[ Boston Dynamics ]

Since arriving at Mars in 2012, NASA’s Curiosity rover has been ingesting samples of Martian rock, soil, and air to better understand the past and present habitability of the Red Planet. Of particular interest to its search are organic molecules: the building blocks of life. Now, Curiosity’s onboard chemistry lab has detected long-chain hydrocarbons in a mudstone called “Cumberland,” the largest organics yet discovered on Mars.

[ NASA ]

This University of Toronto Robotics Institute Seminar is from Sergey Levine at UC Berkeley, on Robotics Foundation Models.

General-purpose pretrained models have transformed natural language processing, computer vision, and other fields. In principle, such approaches should be ideal in robotics: since gathering large amounts of data for any given robotic platform and application is likely to be difficult, general pretrained models that provide broad capabilities present an ideal recipe to enable robotic learning at scale for real-world applications.
From the perspective of general AI research, such approaches also offer a promising and intriguing approach to some of the grandest AI challenges: if large-scale training on embodied experience can provide diverse physical capabilities, this would shed light not only on the practical questions around designing broadly capable robots, but the foundations of situated problem-solving, physical understanding, and decision making. However, realizing this potential requires handling a number of challenging obstacles. What data shall we use to train robotic foundation models? What will be the training objective? How should alignment or post-training be done? In this talk, I will discuss how we can approach some of these challenges.

[ University of Toronto ]



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.

European Robotics Forum: 25–27 March 2025, STUTTGART, GERMANYRoboSoft 2025: 23–26 April 2025, LAUSANNE, SWITZERLANDICUAS 2025: 14–17 May 2025, CHARLOTTE, NCICRA 2025: 19–23 May 2025, ATLANTA, GALondon Humanoids Summit: 29–30 May 2025, LONDONIEEE RCAR 2025: 1–6 June 2025, TOYAMA, JAPAN2025 Energy Drone & Robotics Summit: 16–18 June 2025, HOUSTON, TXRSS 2025: 21–25 June 2025, LOS ANGELESETH Robotics Summer School: 21–27 June 2025, GENEVAIAS 2025: 30 June–4 July 2025, GENOA, ITALYICRES 2025: 3–4 July 2025, PORTO, PORTUGALIEEE World Haptics: 8–11 July 2025, SUWON, KOREAIFAC Symposium on Robotics: 15–18 July 2025, PARISRoboCup 2025: 15–21 July 2025, BAHIA, BRAZIL

Enjoy today’s videos!

Every time you see a humanoid demo in a warehouse or factory, ask yourself: Would a “superhumanoid” like this actually be a better answer?

[ Dexterity ]

The only reason that this is the second video in Video Friday this week, and not the first, is because you’ve almost certainly already seen it.

This is a collaboration between the Robotics and AI Institute and Boston Dynamics, and RAI has its own video, which is slightly different:

- YouTube

[ Boston Dynamics ] via [ RAI ]

Well this just looks a little bit like magic.

[ University of Pennsylvania Sung Robotics Lab ]

After hours of dance battles with professional choreographers (yes, real human dancers!), PM01 now nails every iconic move from Kung Fu Hustle.

[ EngineAI ]

Sanctuary AI has demonstrated industry-leading sim-to-real transfer of learned dexterous manipulation policies for our unique, high degree-of-freedom, high strength, and high speed hydraulic hands.

[ Sanctuary AI ]

This video is “introducing BotQ, Figure’s new high-volume manufacturing facility for humanoid robots,” but I just see some injection molding and finishing of a few plastic parts.

[ Figure ]

DEEP Robotics recently showcased its “One-Touch Navigation” feature, enhancing the intelligent control experience of its robotic dog. This feature offers two modes: map-based point selection and navigation and video-based point navigation, designed for open terrains and confined spaces respectively. By simply typing on a tablet screen or selecting a point in the video feed, the robotic dog can autonomously navigate to the target point, automatically planning its path and intelligently avoiding obstacles, significantly improving traversal efficiency.

What’s in the bags, though?

[ Deep Robotics ]

This hurts my knees to watch, in a few different ways.

[ Unitree ]

Why the recent obsession with two legs when instead robots could have six? So much cuter!

[ Jizai ] via [ RobotStart ]

The world must know: who killed Mini-Duck?

[ Pollen ]

Seven hours of Digit robots at work at ProMat.

And there are two more days of these livestreams if you need more!

[ Agility ]



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.

European Robotics Forum: 25–27 March 2025, STUTTGART, GERMANYRoboSoft 2025: 23–26 April 2025, LAUSANNE, SWITZERLANDICUAS 2025: 14–17 May 2025, CHARLOTTE, NCICRA 2025: 19–23 May 2025, ATLANTA, GALondon Humanoids Summit: 29–30 May 2025, LONDONIEEE RCAR 2025: 1–6 June 2025, TOYAMA, JAPAN2025 Energy Drone & Robotics Summit: 16–18 June 2025, HOUSTON, TXRSS 2025: 21–25 June 2025, LOS ANGELESETH Robotics Summer School: 21–27 June 2025, GENEVAIAS 2025: 30 June–4 July 2025, GENOA, ITALYICRES 2025: 3–4 July 2025, PORTO, PORTUGALIEEE World Haptics: 8–11 July 2025, SUWON, KOREAIFAC Symposium on Robotics: 15–18 July 2025, PARISRoboCup 2025: 15–21 July 2025, BAHIA, BRAZIL

Enjoy today’s videos!

Every time you see a humanoid demo in a warehouse or factory, ask yourself: Would a “superhumanoid” like this actually be a better answer?

[ Dexterity ]

The only reason that this is the second video in Video Friday this week, and not the first, is because you’ve almost certainly already seen it.

This is a collaboration between the Robotics and AI Institute and Boston Dynamics, and RAI has its own video, which is slightly different:

- YouTube

[ Boston Dynamics ] via [ RAI ]

Well this just looks a little bit like magic.

[ University of Pennsylvania Sung Robotics Lab ]

After hours of dance battles with professional choreographers (yes, real human dancers!), PM01 now nails every iconic move from Kung Fu Hustle.

[ EngineAI ]

Sanctuary AI has demonstrated industry-leading sim-to-real transfer of learned dexterous manipulation policies for our unique, high degree-of-freedom, high strength, and high speed hydraulic hands.

[ Sanctuary AI ]

This video is “introducing BotQ, Figure’s new high-volume manufacturing facility for humanoid robots,” but I just see some injection molding and finishing of a few plastic parts.

[ Figure ]

DEEP Robotics recently showcased its “One-Touch Navigation” feature, enhancing the intelligent control experience of its robotic dog. This feature offers two modes: map-based point selection and navigation and video-based point navigation, designed for open terrains and confined spaces respectively. By simply typing on a tablet screen or selecting a point in the video feed, the robotic dog can autonomously navigate to the target point, automatically planning its path and intelligently avoiding obstacles, significantly improving traversal efficiency.

What’s in the bags, though?

[ Deep Robotics ]

This hurts my knees to watch, in a few different ways.

[ Unitree ]

Why the recent obsession with two legs when instead robots could have six? So much cuter!

[ Jizai ] via [ RobotStart ]

The world must know: who killed Mini-Duck?

[ Pollen ]

Seven hours of Digit robots at work at ProMat.

And there are two more days of these livestreams if you need more!

[ Agility ]

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