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.

Enjoy today’s videos!

The process of getting Spot to talk with a personality is very cool, but this is also something that should be done very carefully: Spot is a tool, and although it may sound like it thinks and feels, it absolutely doesn’t. Just something to keep in mind as more Spots (and other robots) make it out into the wild.

[ Boston Dynamics ]

Shhh. Be vewy, vewy quiet.

[ Paper ]

[ PAL Robotics ]

[ London CCI ]

[ Dino Robotics ]

[ Paper ]

This is what very high precision, very useful robotics looks like.

[ Dusty ]

I never thought I’d write this sentence, but here is some video of a failing robotic mudskipper sex doll.

[ Nature ]

Good aim on this drone considering that its landing pad is speeding along at 20 knots.

[ AeroVironment ]

From the people responsible for the giant gundam in Japan comes this very big and very slow rideable quadruped thing.

[ Robotstart ]

RoboCup 2024 will be in Eindhoven in July!

[ RoboCup ]

[ CTU ]

[ DFKI ]

[ UPenn ]

Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your friends at IEEE Spectrum robotics. We also post a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next few months. Please send us your events for inclusion.

Enjoy today’s videos!

The process of getting Spot to talk with a personality is very cool, but this is also something that should be done very carefully: Spot is a tool, and although it may sound like it thinks and feels, it absolutely doesn’t. Just something to keep in mind as more Spots (and other robots) make it out into the wild.

[ Boston Dynamics ]

Shhh. Be vewy, vewy quiet.

[ Paper ]

[ PAL Robotics ]

[ London CCI ]

[ Dino Robotics ]

[ Paper ]

This is what very high precision, very useful robotics looks like.

[ Dusty ]

I never thought I’d write this sentence, but here is some video of a failing robotic mudskipper sex doll.

[ Nature ]

Good aim on this drone considering that its landing pad is speeding along at 20 knots.

[ AeroVironment ]

From the people responsible for the giant gundam in Japan comes this very big and very slow rideable quadruped thing.

[ Robotstart ]

RoboCup 2024 will be in Eindhoven in July!

[ RoboCup ]

[ CTU ]

[ DFKI ]

[ UPenn ]

Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station is a permanent scientific research base located at what is arguably the most isolated place on Earth. During the austral summer, the station is home to about 150 scientists and support staff, but during the austral winter, that number shrinks to just 40 or so, and those people are completely isolated from the rest of the world from mid-February until late October. For eight months, the station has to survive on its own, without deliveries of food, fuel, spare parts, or anything else. Only in the most serious of medical emergencies will a plane attempt to reach the station in the winter.

While the station’s humans rotate seasonally, there are in fact four full-time residents: the South Pole Roombas. First, there was Bert, a Roomba 652, who arrived at the station in 2018 and was for a time the loneliest robot in the world. Since the station has two floors, Bert was joined by Ernie, a Roomba 690, in 2019. A second pair of Roombas, Sam and Frodo, followed soon after.

These Roombas are at the South Pole to do what Roombas do: help keep the floors clean. But for the people who call the South Pole home for months on end, it turns out that these little robots have been able provide some much-needed distraction in a place where things stay more or less the same all of the time, and where pets, plants, and even dirt is explicitly outlawed by the Antarctic Treaty in the name of ecological preservation.

For the last year, an anonymous IT engineer has been blogging about his experiences working first at McMurdo Station (on the Antarctic coast south of New Zealand), and later at Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station, where he’s currently spending the winter as part of the station’s support staff. His blog includes mundane yet fascinating accounts of what day-to-day life is like at the South Pole, including how showering works (four minutes per person per week), where the electricity comes from (a huge amount of aviation fuel hauled over land from the coast that will power generators), and the fate of the last egg for five months (over medium with salt and pepper).

The engineer also devoted an entire post to signage at the South Pole, at the very end of which was this picture, which raised some questions for me:

Ernie, a Roomba living at the south pole.brr.fyi

Ernie, it turns out, has had a dramatic and occasionally harrowing life at the South Pole station. After Ernie arrived in 2019 to clean one floor of the station, lore began to develop that Ernie and its partner Bert (tasked with cleaning the floor above) were “star-crossed lovers, forever separated by the impenetrable barrier of the staircase.” That quote comes from Amy Lowitz, a member of the South Pole Telescope team, who overwintered at the pole in 2016 and has spent many summers there. “I think I made that joke every year when a new group of people comes to the pole for the summer,” Lowitz tells IEEE Spectrum. “There’s only so many things to talk about, so eventually the Roombas come up in conversation.” Happily for Ernie, Lowitz says that it’s now on the same floor as Bert, with the new Roombas Sam and Frodo teaming up on the floor below.

But Ernie’s presumed joy at finally being united with Bert was not to last—in January of 2020, Ernie went missing. The Twitter account of the South Pole Telescope posted photos pleading for Ernie’s return, and a small memorial appeared at Ernie’s docking station.

SPT

Soon, things took a more sinister (amusingly sinister) turn. Kyle Ferguson is a South Pole Telescope team member who was at the station in the summer of 2020 when Ernie went missing, and has vivid memories of the drama that ensued:

SPT

SPT

Ferguson suspects that Ernie’s “IT WAS SO COLD” sticker was acquired after the robot’s brief trip outside with the kidnappers. Summer temperatures at the south pole average around -28°C, substantially below the operating temperature of a Roomba, although when we spoke to Ferguson for this article during the South Pole winter, it was closer to -80°C outside the station, including wind chill.

The harsh weather and isolation may help explain why Ernie and his Roomba brethren get so much attention from the station residents. “There’s more to do at the South Pole than people think,” Amy Lowitz tells us, “but you’re still pretty much within a half mile radius of the main station, all of the time. So people get a little bored and a little stir crazy, and we look for new and strange ways to entertain ourselves. The ransom notes were just some goofy hijinks from some bored people at the South Pole.”

Lowitz also remembers a party where either Bert or Ernie was drafted as a DJ, with a Bluetooth speaker and some fancy lighting. “We had it running around up on a table so that people wouldn’t trip over it,” she recalls. And as recently as this winter, says Kyle Ferguson, a befurred Roomba could be seen on station: “Someone put up a silly ‘lost cat’ poster earlier in the winter, with a picture not even of a cat but of like a raccoon or something. And then someone else took that and decided to run with it, so they had this fake raccoon fur that they put to the top of one of the Roombas and sent it out to wander the hallways.”

Sam, the “station cat.”Kyle Ferguson

Covering a Roomba with fur may be getting the robot a little closer to what people at the South Pole are actually missing, suggests Lowitz: “my guess is that at least some Polies [i.e. South Pole residents] are into the Roombas because we’re not allowed to have pets at the South Pole, and when there are these little Roombas running around, it’s sort of close. People do odd things at that altitude [the pressure altitude at the south pole is nearly 3500 meters], and when they miss home… a Roomba is just like a cute little thing to personify and pay attention to.”

Ferguson agrees. “We all miss our pets down here. Sometimes we joke about trying to smuggle down a puppy or a kitten even though it’s a huge violation of the Antarctic Treaty. One of the things that I think gives the Roombas some of their charm is how they keep running into walls. If I was to ascribe a personality to them, it would be kind of dumb and aloof, which evokes some of those pet memories—maybe like the time that your dog ate something it shouldn’t have.”

A recent picture of Ernie, who is currently living underneath a popcorn machine.Kyle Ferguson

Sadly, we’ve heard that the South Pole Roombas are not at their Roomb-iest right now. They’re not as young as they used to be, and getting spare parts (like new batteries) is only possible during the austral summer and requires a lead time of six months. We’ll be checking in on Bert, Ernie, Sam, and Frodo towards the end of the year once the Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station reopens for the austral summer. But for now, please enjoy the lyrics to Kyle Ferguson’s Ernie-themed “5000 Candles in the Wind” parody, adapted from ‘5,000 Candles in the Wind’ from Parks and Recreation.

Up in Roomba Heaven, here’s the thing;

You trade your wheels for angel’s wings,

And once we’ve all said goodbye,

You stop running into walls and you learn to fly.

Bye-bye, Roomba Ernie.

You were taken from us too early.

Bye-bye, Roomba Ernie.

You’re 5,000 candles in the wind.

Though we all miss you everyday,

We know you’re up there cleaning heaven’s waste.

Here’s the part that hurts the most:

Humans cannot recharge a ghost.

Bye-bye, Roomba Ernie.

You were taken from us too early.

Bye-bye, Roomba Ernie.

You’re 5,000 candles in the wind.

EVERYBODY NOW!

Bye-bye, Roomba Ernie.

You were taken from us too early.

Bye-bye, Roomba Ernie.

You’re 5,000 candles in the wind.

Maybe some day you’ll clean these halls again.

And I know I’ll always miss my Roomb-iest friend.

Spread your wings and fly.

Special thanks to the National Science Foundation, brr.fyi, and the Polies that we spoke to for this article. And if you’d like even more South Pole winter shenanigans, there’s an Antarctic Film Festival open to all of the research stations in Antarctica. Kyle Ferguson stars in John Wiff, an action movie that was written, filmed, and produced in just 48 hours, and you can watch it here (mildly NSFW for a truly astonishing amount of Nerf gun violence).

Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station is a permanent scientific research base located at what is arguably the most isolated place on Earth. During the austral summer, the station is home to about 150 scientists and support staff, but during the austral winter, that number shrinks to just 40 or so, and those people are completely isolated from the rest of the world from mid-February until late October. For eight months, the station has to survive on its own, without deliveries of food, fuel, spare parts, or anything else. Only in the most serious of medical emergencies will a plane attempt to reach the station in the winter.

While the station’s humans rotate seasonally, there are in fact four full-time residents: the South Pole Roombas. First, there was Bert, a Roomba 652, who arrived at the station in 2018 and was for a time the loneliest robot in the world. Since the station has two floors, Bert was joined by Ernie, a Roomba 690, in 2019. A second pair of Roombas, Sam and Frodo, followed soon after.

These Roombas are at the South Pole to do what Roombas do: help keep the floors clean. But for the people who call the South Pole home for months on end, it turns out that these little robots have been able provide some much-needed distraction in a place where things stay more or less the same all of the time, and where pets, plants, and even dirt is explicitly outlawed by the Antarctic Treaty in the name of ecological preservation.

For the last year, an anonymous IT engineer has been blogging about his experiences working first at McMurdo Station (on the Antarctic coast south of New Zealand), and later at Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station, where he’s currently spending the winter as part of the station’s support staff. His blog includes mundane yet fascinating accounts of what day-to-day life is like at the South Pole, including how showering works (four minutes per person per week), where the electricity comes from (a huge amount of aviation fuel hauled over land from the coast that will power generators), and the fate of the last egg for five months (over medium with salt and pepper).

The engineer also devoted an entire post to signage at the South Pole, at the very end of which was this picture, which raised some questions for me:

Ernie, a Roomba living at the south pole.brr.fyi

Ernie, it turns out, has had a dramatic and occasionally harrowing life at the South Pole station. After Ernie arrived in 2019 to clean one floor of the station, lore began to develop that Ernie and its partner Bert (tasked with cleaning the floor above) were “star-crossed lovers, forever separated by the impenetrable barrier of the staircase.” That quote comes from Amy Lowitz, a member of the South Pole Telescope team, who overwintered at the pole in 2016 and has spent many summers there. “I think I made that joke every year when a new group of people comes to the pole for the summer,” Lowitz tells IEEE Spectrum. “There’s only so many things to talk about, so eventually the Roombas come up in conversation.” Happily for Ernie, Lowitz says that it’s now on the same floor as Bert, with the new Roombas Sam and Frodo teaming up on the floor below.

But Ernie’s presumed joy at finally being united with Bert was not to last—in January of 2020, Ernie went missing. The Twitter account of the South Pole Telescope posted photos pleading for Ernie’s return, and a small memorial appeared at Ernie’s docking station.

SPT

Soon, things took a more sinister (amusingly sinister) turn. Kyle Ferguson is a South Pole Telescope team member who was at the station in the summer of 2020 when Ernie went missing, and has vivid memories of the drama that ensued:

SPT

SPT

Ferguson suspects that Ernie’s “IT WAS SO COLD” sticker was acquired after the robot’s brief trip outside with the kidnappers. Summer temperatures at the south pole average around -28°C, substantially below the operating temperature of a Roomba, although when we spoke to Ferguson for this article during the South Pole winter, it was closer to -80°C outside the station, including wind chill.

The harsh weather and isolation may help explain why Ernie and his Roomba brethren get so much attention from the station residents. “There’s more to do at the South Pole than people think,” Amy Lowitz tells us, “but you’re still pretty much within a half mile radius of the main station, all of the time. So people get a little bored and a little stir crazy, and we look for new and strange ways to entertain ourselves. The ransom notes were just some goofy hijinks from some bored people at the South Pole.”

Lowitz also remembers a party where either Bert or Ernie was drafted as a DJ, with a Bluetooth speaker and some fancy lighting. “We had it running around up on a table so that people wouldn’t trip over it,” she recalls. And as recently as this winter, says Kyle Ferguson, a befurred Roomba could be seen on station: “Someone put up a silly ‘lost cat’ poster earlier in the winter, with a picture not even of a cat but of like a raccoon or something. And then someone else took that and decided to run with it, so they had this fake raccoon fur that they put to the top of one of the Roombas and sent it out to wander the hallways.”

Sam, the “station cat.”Kyle Ferguson

Covering a Roomba with fur may be getting the robot a little closer to what people at the South Pole are actually missing, suggests Lowitz: “my guess is that at least some Polies [i.e. South Pole residents] are into the Roombas because we’re not allowed to have pets at the South Pole, and when there are these little Roombas running around, it’s sort of close. People do odd things at that altitude [the pressure altitude at the south pole is nearly 3500 meters], and when they miss home… a Roomba is just like a cute little thing to personify and pay attention to.”

Ferguson agrees. “We all miss our pets down here. Sometimes we joke about trying to smuggle down a puppy or a kitten even though it’s a huge violation of the Antarctic Treaty. One of the things that I think gives the Roombas some of their charm is how they keep running into walls. If I was to ascribe a personality to them, it would be kind of dumb and aloof, which evokes some of those pet memories—maybe like the time that your dog ate something it shouldn’t have.”

A recent picture of Ernie, who is currently living underneath a popcorn machine.Kyle Ferguson

Sadly, we’ve heard that the South Pole Roombas are not at their Roomb-iest right now. They’re not as young as they used to be, and getting spare parts (like new batteries) is only possible during the austral summer and requires a lead time of six months. We’ll be checking in on Bert, Ernie, Sam, and Frodo towards the end of the year once the Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station reopens for the austral summer. But for now, please enjoy the lyrics to Kyle Ferguson’s Ernie-themed “5000 Candles in the Wind” parody, adapted from ‘5,000 Candles in the Wind’ from Parks and Recreation.

Up in Roomba Heaven, here’s the thing;

You trade your wheels for angel’s wings,

And once we’ve all said goodbye,

You stop running into walls and you learn to fly.

Bye-bye, Roomba Ernie.

You were taken from us too early.

Bye-bye, Roomba Ernie.

You’re 5,000 candles in the wind.

Though we all miss you everyday,

We know you’re up there cleaning heaven’s waste.

Here’s the part that hurts the most:

Humans cannot recharge a ghost.

Bye-bye, Roomba Ernie.

You were taken from us too early.

Bye-bye, Roomba Ernie.

You’re 5,000 candles in the wind.

EVERYBODY NOW!

Bye-bye, Roomba Ernie.

You were taken from us too early.

Bye-bye, Roomba Ernie.

You’re 5,000 candles in the wind.

Maybe some day you’ll clean these halls again.

And I know I’ll always miss my Roomb-iest friend.

Spread your wings and fly.

Special thanks to the National Science Foundation, brr.fyi, and the Polies that we spoke to for this article. And if you’d like even more South Pole winter shenanigans, there’s an Antarctic Film Festival open to all of the research stations in Antarctica. Kyle Ferguson stars in John Wiff, an action movie that was written, filmed, and produced in just 48 hours, and you can watch it here (mildly NSFW for a truly astonishing amount of Nerf gun violence).

Soft robots are becoming more popular because they can solve issues stiff robots cannot. Soft component and system design have seen several innovations recently. Next-generation robot–human interactions will depend on soft robotics. Soft material technologies integrate safety at the material level, speeding its integration with biological systems. Soft robotic systems must be as resilient as biological systems in unexpected, uncontrolled situations. Self-healing materials, especially polymeric and elastomeric ones, are widely studied. Since most currently under-development soft robotic systems are composed of polymeric or elastomeric materials, this finding may provide immediate assistance to the community developing soft robots. Self-healing and damage-resilient systems are making their way into actuators, structures, and sensors, even if soft robotics remains in its infancy. In the future, self-repairing soft robotic systems composed of polymers might save both money and the environment. Over the last decade, academics and businesses have grown interested in soft robotics. Despite several literature evaluations of the soft robotics subject, there seems to be a lack of systematic research on its intellectual structure and development despite the rising number of articles. This article gives an in-depth overview of the existing knowledge base on damage resistance and self-healing materials’ fundamental structure and classifications. Current uses, problems with future implementation, and solutions to those problems are all included in this overview. Also discussed are potential applications and future directions for self-repairing soft robots.

This sponsored article is brought to you by BESydney.

In the dynamic landscape of Australian technology, market advancements are often attributed to consumer-focused products like Canva and Afterpay. Capturing headlines and attention with their renowned success stories, these, along with other global companies like Atlassian, Facebook, and Apple, have become the face of the tech industry.

The accomplishments of these companies are remarkable. They generate immense wealth for stakeholders and employees and boast a staggering market value. But this high-profile side of the industry is just the tip of the iceberg. Deep tech – characterised by breakthrough scientific innovations – is where hidden impacts take place. Beneath the surface of these tech giants lies a thriving industry dedicated to researching and developing solutions that address large-scale problems, with a profound effect on society.

The tech industry in Australia is a powerhouse, employing one in 16 Australians and ranking as the country’s third-largest industry. In 2021, it accounted for 8.5 percent of the GDP, an undeniably significant contribution to the nation’s economy.

For nearly two decades, Sydney has also nurtured a thriving community of resilient problem solvers, quietly pushing the boundaries of scientific discovery. While consumer-focused tech giants often steal the spotlight, it is imperative to recognize the profound impact of deep tech solutions that operate behind the scenes.

From eco-friendly fabric manufacturing and hydrogen storage to molecular diagnostics and sustainable alternatives to plastics, Sydney’s brightest minds are tackling some of the world’s most pressing challenges.

Navigating the deep tech landscape is no small feat. These enterprises offer long-term solutions to pressing global challenges – a benefit that cannot be ignored – but deep tech innovations require significant time for research and development, often incubating for years before reaching the market.

They demand substantial investment and unwavering focus. Finding the right path to commercialization is paramount. Thankfully, incubators are emerging as champions in successfully transforming deep tech startups into thriving businesses.

“Sydney’s DNA demands a deep-rooted vision, an unwavering belief in problem-solving, and the determination to persevere despite challenges.” —Sally-Ann Williams, Cicada Innovations

Cicada Innovations is Australia’s oldest and largest deep tech incubator. It knows better than anyone the extent to which Australia’s deep tech evolution hinges on the power of startups. With over 365 resident companies incubated, over $1.7 billion raised, over $1.4 billion exits, and over 900 patents filed, these dynamic ventures are already spearheading groundbreaking advancements.

It’s creating intelligent robots and pioneering scaled drone delivery to minimize environmental impacts in transportation. It’s slashing the cost of cancer drugs, offering hope for prolonged lifespans and alleviating suffering. And it’s crafting innovative farming tools to enhance agricultural yields and contribute to global food security.

With its vibrant ecosystem, Sydney emerges as an ideal hub for unveiling and further developing deep tech innovations. The Australian spirit, shaped by resilience and problem-solving, thrives in this city. Sally-Ann Williams, chief executive of Cicada Innovations, affirms that “Sydney’s DNA demands a deep-rooted vision, an unwavering belief in problem-solving, and the determination to persevere despite challenges.”

The city offers a supportive community, facilitating connections and access to the talent necessary for entrepreneurs to pursue their dreams. It’s this unique blend of ingredients that fuels the growth of deep tech companies, propelling them toward success.

Deep tech is just one facet of what’s happening at Tech Central. While we shed light on these industry accomplishments and celebrated breakthroughs, it’s crucial to support and foster the growth of a wider industry: one that thrives on resilience, problem-solving, and visionary entrepreneurship.

Sydney – with its unique blend of community, talent, and resources – stands at the forefront of this transformative revolution, ready to propel tech innovation for the benefit of all.

For more information on Sydney’s Tech Industry and hosting your next conference in Sydney, visit besydney.com.au.

To truly grasp the essence of deep tech, we must explore the stories of individuals and companies that are driving change. Here are a few examples of how deep tech is flourishing at Tech Central:

Xefco is a groundbreaking new materials company revolutionizing fabric manufacturing. Its innovative process significantly reduces water usage by up to 90% and eliminates the need for dyes and harsh chemicals. Traditionally, textile mills worldwide have polluted rivers and harmed local communities – Xefco aims to transform the textile industry, benefitting both the environment and economically disadvantaged communities worldwide.

Another trailblazing company in Sydney’s deep tech ecosystem, Rux Energy is tackling the challenge of hydrogen storage. Hydrogen presents immense potential in the energy transition movement, but efficient and scalable storage solutions are essential for its widespread adoption. Rux is developing new materials and technologies to store hydrogen more effectively, paving the way for a cleaner and more sustainable future.

Amidst the global pandemic, SpeeDX, a Sydney-based company, emerged as a key player in molecular diagnostic testing and antimicrobial resistance. SpeeDX aims to address the rising concern of antibiotic overuse by providing personalized recommendations for effective treatment. This groundbreaking technology has far-reaching implications, reducing unnecessary antibiotic usage, minimizing the risk of antimicrobial resistance, and safeguarding public health on a global scale.

This sponsored article is brought to you by BESydney.

In the dynamic landscape of Australian technology, market advancements are often attributed to consumer-focused products like Canva and Afterpay. Capturing headlines and attention with their renowned success stories, these, along with other global companies like Atlassian, Facebook, and Apple, have become the face of the tech industry.

The accomplishments of these companies are remarkable. They generate immense wealth for stakeholders and employees and boast a staggering market value. But this high-profile side of the industry is just the tip of the iceberg. Deep tech – characterised by breakthrough scientific innovations – is where hidden impacts take place. Beneath the surface of these tech giants lies a thriving industry dedicated to researching and developing solutions that address large-scale problems, with a profound effect on society.

The tech industry in Australia is a powerhouse, employing one in 16 Australians and ranking as the country’s third-largest industry. In 2021, it accounted for 8.5 percent of the GDP, an undeniably significant contribution to the nation’s economy.

For nearly two decades, Sydney has also nurtured a thriving community of resilient problem solvers, quietly pushing the boundaries of scientific discovery. While consumer-focused tech giants often steal the spotlight, it is imperative to recognize the profound impact of deep tech solutions that operate behind the scenes.

From eco-friendly fabric manufacturing and hydrogen storage to molecular diagnostics and sustainable alternatives to plastics, Sydney’s brightest minds are tackling some of the world’s most pressing challenges.

Navigating the deep tech landscape is no small feat. These enterprises offer long-term solutions to pressing global challenges – a benefit that cannot be ignored – but deep tech innovations require significant time for research and development, often incubating for years before reaching the market.

They demand substantial investment and unwavering focus. Finding the right path to commercialization is paramount. Thankfully, incubators are emerging as champions in successfully transforming deep tech startups into thriving businesses.

“Sydney’s DNA demands a deep-rooted vision, an unwavering belief in problem-solving, and the determination to persevere despite challenges.” —Sally-Ann Williams, Cicada Innovations

Cicada Innovations is Australia’s oldest and largest deep tech incubator. It knows better than anyone the extent to which Australia’s deep tech evolution hinges on the power of startups. With over 365 resident companies incubated, over $1.7 billion raised, over $1.4 billion exits, and over 900 patents filed, these dynamic ventures are already spearheading groundbreaking advancements.

It’s creating intelligent robots and pioneering scaled drone delivery to minimize environmental impacts in transportation. It’s slashing the cost of cancer drugs, offering hope for prolonged lifespans and alleviating suffering. And it’s crafting innovative farming tools to enhance agricultural yields and contribute to global food security.

With its vibrant ecosystem, Sydney emerges as an ideal hub for unveiling and further developing deep tech innovations. The Australian spirit, shaped by resilience and problem-solving, thrives in this city. Sally-Ann Williams, chief executive of Cicada Innovations, affirms that “Sydney’s DNA demands a deep-rooted vision, an unwavering belief in problem-solving, and the determination to persevere despite challenges.”

The city offers a supportive community, facilitating connections and access to the talent necessary for entrepreneurs to pursue their dreams. It’s this unique blend of ingredients that fuels the growth of deep tech companies, propelling them toward success.

Deep tech is just one facet of what’s happening at Tech Central. While we shed light on these industry accomplishments and celebrated breakthroughs, it’s crucial to support and foster the growth of a wider industry: one that thrives on resilience, problem-solving, and visionary entrepreneurship.

Sydney – with its unique blend of community, talent, and resources – stands at the forefront of this transformative revolution, ready to propel tech innovation for the benefit of all.

For more information on Sydney’s Tech Industry and hosting your next conference in Sydney, visit besydney.com.au.

To truly grasp the essence of deep tech, we must explore the stories of individuals and companies that are driving change. Here are a few examples of how deep tech is flourishing at Tech Central:

Xefco is a groundbreaking new materials company revolutionizing fabric manufacturing. Its innovative process significantly reduces water usage by up to 90% and eliminates the need for dyes and harsh chemicals. Traditionally, textile mills worldwide have polluted rivers and harmed local communities – Xefco aims to transform the textile industry, benefitting both the environment and economically disadvantaged communities worldwide.

Another trailblazing company in Sydney’s deep tech ecosystem, Rux Energy is tackling the challenge of hydrogen storage. Hydrogen presents immense potential in the energy transition movement, but efficient and scalable storage solutions are essential for its widespread adoption. Rux is developing new materials and technologies to store hydrogen more effectively, paving the way for a cleaner and more sustainable future.

Amidst the global pandemic, SpeeDX, a Sydney-based company, emerged as a key player in molecular diagnostic testing and antimicrobial resistance. SpeeDX aims to address the rising concern of antibiotic overuse by providing personalized recommendations for effective treatment. This groundbreaking technology has far-reaching implications, reducing unnecessary antibiotic usage, minimizing the risk of antimicrobial resistance, and safeguarding public health on a global scale.

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.

Enjoy today’s videos!

[ Agility ]

[ Boston Dynamics ]

The moral of this video is to always give your robots a gentle pat on the sensors when they do a good job at a challenging task.

[ ANYbotics ]

[ Paper ] via [ KIMLAB ]

Happy 100 Ikeadroneversary to Verity!

[ Verity ]

If you’re wondering what kind of black magic is making this work, the answer is the best kind of black magic: magnets.

[ Paper ] via [ Freeform Robotics ]

[ Honda ]

[ BruBotics ]

The U.S. Navy is working on four-legged friends for sailors, and the ship’s cat is very upset.

[ USNRL ]

[ SMART ITN ]

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.

Enjoy today’s videos!

[ Agility ]

[ Boston Dynamics ]

The moral of this video is to always give your robots a gentle pat on the sensors when they do a good job at a challenging task.

[ ANYbotics ]

[ Paper ] via [ KIMLAB ]

Happy 100 Ikeadroneversary to Verity!

[ Verity ]

If you’re wondering what kind of black magic is making this work, the answer is the best kind of black magic: magnets.

[ Paper ] via [ Freeform Robotics ]

[ Honda ]

[ BruBotics ]

The US Navy is working on four-legged friends for sailors and the ship’s cat is very upset.

[ USNRL ]

[ SMART ITN ]

In recent years, soft robots gain increasing attention as a result of their compliance when operating in unstructured environments, and their flexibility that ensures safety when interacting with humans. However, challenges lie on the difficulty to develop control algorithms due to various limitations induced by their soft structure. In this paper, we introduce a novel technique that aims to perform motion control of a modular bio-inspired soft-robotic arm, with the main focus lying on facilitating the qualitative reproduction of well-specified periodic trajectories. The introduced method combines the notion behind two previously developed methodologies both based on the Movement Primitive (MP) theory, by exploiting their capabilities while coping with their main drawbacks. Concretely, the requested actuation is initially computed using a Probabilistic MP (ProMP)-based method that considers the trajectory as a combination of simple movements previously learned and stored as a MP library. Subsequently, the key components of the resulting actuation are extracted and filtered in the frequency domain. These are eventually used as input to a Central Pattern Generator (CPG)-based model that takes over the generation of rhythmic patterns at the motor level. The proposed methodology is evaluated on a two-module soft arm. Results show that the first algorithmic component (ProMP) provides an immediate estimation of the requested actuation by avoiding time-consuming training, while the latter (CPG) further simplifies the execution by allowing its control through a low-dimensional parameterization. Altogether, these results open new avenues for the rapid acquisition of periodic movements in soft robots, and their compression into CPG parameters for long-term storage and execution.

Now that Rockwell Automation’s acquisition of Clearpath Robotics and OTTO Motors is complete (at something like US $600 million, according to one source), it’s more important than ever to get at least some understanding of what the future holds for those iconic yellow-and-black research robots. And it’s not just about their robots, either: Clearpath Robotics was one of the original champions of the Robot Operating System (ROS), and the company has provided a massive amount of support to the ROS community over the past decade.

At the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS 2023) in Detroit earlier this month, we spoke with Clearpath Robotics cofounder Ryan Gariepy to get a better sense of where things are headed for Clearpath Robotics.

Now that you are part of Rockwell, what’s staying the same?

Ryan Gariepy: Both Clearpath Robotics and OTTO Motors are still very much in existence. We’re still operating with our own road maps, and Rockwell Automation has a desire to keep these brands around. We plan to keep the iconic Clearpath colors. Basically, we’re going to continue business as usual. As much as I appreciate people’s concern, we do intend to continue building this for the long-term.

“We’re now in a world where one of the largest industrial automation companies has decided that robotics is a strategic interest. We think there will be a lot of things that the robotics research community will be excited about.”
—Ryan Gariepy, Clearpath Robotics

What’s going to be different?

Gariepy: We anticipate being able to take larger risks, with more of a long-term view on some of our products and services. Rockwell also has established global scale in sales, deployment, support, supply chain, everything. It’ll really allow us to focus much more on what we’re good at, rather than having to choose between product development and operations.

Rockwell currently does a lot of stuff which is peripheral to the robotics community. They’re a global leader in motion control, in sensing, in safety—these are things that could be of great interest. I think any long-time researcher will remember the days when sensor manufacturers didn’t even support using their sensors on robots, and you had to reverse-engineer those protocols yourself. But we’re now in a world where one of the largest industrial automation companies has decided that robotics is a strategic interest. We think there will be a lot of things that the robotics research community will be excited about.

What about long-term support for existing Clearpath research robots?

Gariepy: If anything, a company like Rockwell gives us more stability rather than less stability. They’re used to supporting their products for far longer than us—the oldest Huskies are coming up on 12 or 13 years old. Rockwell has products that have been on the market for 20 years that they’re still supporting, so they very much respect that. I know that for a lot of researchers, it seems like Clearpath Robotics has been around forever, but we’ve only been around for 14 years. Rockwell has been around for 120 years.

What about TurtleBot?

Gariepy: TurtleBot 5 would be a future road map discussion, and that’s more in the hands of Open Robotics than Clearpath Robotics. We do love the TurtleBot, we’re building as many TurtleBots as we possibly can, and we have a long-term agreement with Open Robotics to continue the TurtleBot partnership. That agreement continues.

How does Rockwell feel about ROS?

Gariepy: Rockwell wants to work more with ROS, and has definitely been excited by the leadership that we have with the ROS community. There are a lot of things that we’ve been talking about on how to build on this, but I can’t really get into any details. Honestly, this is because there are so many good ideas we have, that even with this larger company, I don’t have the people to pull everything off right now.

Again, it wasn’t that many years ago when you couldn’t get an API for a manipulator arm so that you could even use it, much less have the manufacturer of that arm support ROS themselves. Things have changed substantially, and now you have a company like Rockwell becoming very excited about the potential in the ROS community.

Clearpath Robotics has of course only ever been one part of the ROS community—an important part, certainly, but the continued success of ROS has (we hope) grown beyond what might be going on at any one company. It’s a little worrisome that several other important parts of the ROS community, including Fetch Robotics and Open Robotics, have also been acquired relatively recently. So with all this in mind, we’ll be at ROSCon in New Orleans later this week to try to get a better sense of how the community feels about the future of ROS.

Now that Rockwell Automation’s acquisition of Clearpath Robotics and OTTO Motors is complete (at something like US $600 million, according to one source), it’s more important than ever to get at least some understanding of what the future holds for those iconic yellow-and-black research robots. And it’s not just about their robots, either: Clearpath Robotics was one of the original champions of the Robot Operating System (ROS), and the company has provided a massive amount of support to the ROS community over the past decade.

At the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS 2023) in Detroit earlier this month, we spoke with Clearpath Robotics cofounder Ryan Gariepy to get a better sense of where things are headed for Clearpath Robotics.

Now that you are part of Rockwell, what’s staying the same?

Ryan Gariepy: Both Clearpath Robotics and OTTO Motors are still very much in existence. We’re still operating with our own road maps, and Rockwell Automation has a desire to keep these brands around. We plan to keep the iconic Clearpath colors. Basically, we’re going to continue business as usual. As much as I appreciate people’s concern, we do intend to continue building this for the long-term.

“We’re now in a world where one of the largest industrial automation companies has decided that robotics is a strategic interest. We think there will be a lot of things that the robotics research community will be excited about.”
—Ryan Gariepy, Clearpath Robotics

What’s going to be different?

Gariepy: We anticipate being able to take larger risks, with more of a long-term view on some of our products and services. Rockwell also has established global scale in sales, deployment, support, supply chain, everything. It’ll really allow us to focus much more on what we’re good at, rather than having to choose between product development and operations.

Rockwell currently does a lot of stuff which is peripheral to the robotics community. They’re a global leader in motion control, in sensing, in safety—these are things that could be of great interest. I think any long-time researcher will remember the days when sensor manufacturers didn’t even support using their sensors on robots, and you had to reverse-engineer those protocols yourself. But we’re now in a world where one of the largest industrial automation companies has decided that robotics is a strategic interest. We think there will be a lot of things that the robotics research community will be excited about.

What about long-term support for existing Clearpath research robots?

Gariepy: If anything, a company like Rockwell gives us more stability rather than less stability. They’re used to supporting their products for far longer than us—the oldest Huskies are coming up on 12 or 13 years old. Rockwell has products that have been on the market for 20 years that they’re still supporting, so they very much respect that. I know that for a lot of researchers, it seems like Clearpath Robotics has been around forever, but we’ve only been around for 14 years. Rockwell has been around for 120 years.

What about TurtleBot?

Gariepy: TurtleBot 5 would be a future road map discussion, and that’s more in the hands of Open Robotics than Clearpath Robotics. We do love the TurtleBot, we’re building as many TurtleBots as we possibly can, and we have a long-term agreement with Open Robotics to continue the TurtleBot partnership. That agreement continues.

How does Rockwell feel about ROS?

Gariepy: Rockwell wants to work more with ROS, and has definitely been excited by the leadership that we have with the ROS community. There are a lot of things that we’ve been talking about on how to build on this, but I can’t really get into any details. Honestly, this is because there are so many good ideas we have, that even with this larger company, I don’t have the people to pull everything off right now.

Again, it wasn’t that many years ago when you couldn’t get an API for a manipulator arm so that you could even use it, much less have the manufacturer of that arm support ROS themselves. Things have changed substantially, and now you have a company like Rockwell becoming very excited about the potential in the ROS community.

Clearpath Robotics has of course only ever been one part of the ROS community—an important part, certainly, but the continued success of ROS has (we hope) grown beyond what might be going on at any one company. It’s a little worrisome that several other important parts of the ROS community, including Fetch Robotics and Open Robotics, have also been acquired relatively recently. So with all this in mind, we’ll be at ROSCon in New Orleans later this week to try to get a better sense of how the community feels about the future of ROS.

Introduction: Thanks to technological advances, robots are now being used for a wide range of tasks in the workplace. They are often introduced as team partners to assist workers. This teaming is typically associated with positive effects on work performance and outcomes. However, little is known about whether typical performance-reducing effects that occur in human teams also occur in human–robot teams. For example, it is not clear whether social loafing, defined as reduced individual effort on a task performed in a team compared to a task performed alone, can also occur in human–robot teams.

Methods: We investigated this question in an experimental study in which participants worked on an industrial defect inspection task that required them to search for manufacturing defects on circuit boards. One group of participants worked on the task alone, while the other group worked with a robot team partner, receiving boards that had already been inspected by the robot. The robot was quite reliable and marked defects on the boards before handing them over to the human. However, it missed 5 defects. The dependent behavioural measures of interest were effort, operationalised as inspection time and area inspected on the board, and defect detection performance. In addition, subjects rated their subjective effort, performance, and perceived responsibility for the task.

Results: Participants in both groups inspected almost the entire board surface, took their time searching, and rated their subjective effort as high. However, participants working in a team with the robot found on average 3.3 defects. People working alone found significantly more defects on these 5 occasions–an average of 4.2.

Discussion: This suggests that participants may have searched the boards less attentively when working with a robot team partner. The participants in our study seemed to have maintained the motor effort to search the boards, but it appears that the search was carried out with less mental effort and less attention to the information being sampled. Changes in mental effort are much harder to measure, but need to be minimised to ensure good performance.

We live in a time of unprecedented scientific and human progress while being increasingly aware of its negative impacts on our planet’s health. Aerial, terrestrial, and aquatic ecosystems have significantly declined putting us on course to a sixth mass extinction event. Nonetheless, the advances made in science, engineering, and technology have given us the opportunity to reverse some of our ecosystem damage and preserve them through conservation efforts around the world. However, current conservation efforts are primarily human led with assistance from conventional robotic systems which limit their scope and effectiveness, along with negatively impacting the surroundings. In this perspective, we present the field of bioinspired robotics to develop versatile agents for future conservation efforts that can operate in the natural environment while minimizing the disturbance/impact to its inhabitants and the environment’s natural state. We provide an operational and environmental framework that should be considered while developing bioinspired robots for conservation. These considerations go beyond addressing the challenges of human-led conservation efforts and leverage the advancements in the field of materials, intelligence, and energy harvesting, to make bioinspired robots move and sense like animals. In doing so, it makes bioinspired robots an attractive, non-invasive, sustainable, and effective conservation tool for exploration, data collection, intervention, and maintenance tasks. Finally, we discuss the development of bioinspired robots in the context of collaboration, practicality, and applicability that would ensure their further development and widespread use to protect and preserve our natural world.

When Figure announced earlier this year that it was working on a general purpose humanoid robot, our excitement was tempered somewhat by the fact that the company didn’t have much to show besides renders of the robot that it hoped to eventually build. Figure had a slick looking vision, but without anything to back it up (besides a world-class robotics team, of course), it was unclear how fast they’d be able to progress.

As it turns out, they’ve progressed pretty darn fast, and today Figure is unveiling its Figure 01 robot, which has gone from nothing at all to dynamic walking in under a year.

A couple of things to note about the video, once you tear your eyes away from that shiny metal skin and the enormous battery backpack: first, the robot is walking dynamically without a tether and there are no nervous-looking roboticists within easy grabbing distance. Impressive! Dynamic walking means that there are points during the robot’s gait cycle where abruptly stopping would cause the robot to fall over, since it’s depending on momentum to keep itself in motion. It’s the kind of walking that humans do, and is significantly more difficult than a more traditional “robotic” walk, in which a robot makes sure that its center of mass is always safely positioned above a solid ground contact. Dynamic walking is also where those gentle arm swings come from—they’re helping keep the robot’s motion smooth and balanced, again in a human-like way.

The second thing that stands out is how skinny (and shiny!) this robot is, especially if you can look past the cable routing. Figure had initially shown renderings of a robot with the form factor of a slim human, but there’s usually a pretty big difference between an initial fancy render and real hardware that shows up months later. It now looks like Figure actually has a shot at keeping to that slim design, which has multiple benefits—there are human-robot interaction considerations, where a smaller form factor is likely to be less intimidating, but more importantly, the mass you save by slimming down as much as possible leads to a robot that’s more efficient, cheaper, and safer.

Obviously, there’s a lot more going on here than Figure could squeeze into is press release, so for more details, we spoke with Jenna Reher, a Senior Robotics/AI Engineer at Figure, and Jerry Pratt, Figure’s CTO.

What was the process like for you to teach this robot how to walk? How difficult was it to do that in a year?

Jenna Reher: We’ve been really focused on making sure that we’re validating a lot of the hardware as it’s built. With the robot that’s shown in the video, earlier this year it was just the pelvis bolted onto a test fixture. Then we added the spine joints and all the joints connected to that pelvis, and literally built the robot out from that pelvis. We added the legs and had those swinging in the air, and then built up the torso on top of that. At each of those stages, we were making sure to have a good process for validating that those low level pieces of this overall system were really well tuned in. I think that once you get to something as complex as a whole humanoid, all that validation really saves you a lot of time on the other end, since you have a lot more confidence in the lower level systems as you start working on higher level behaviors like locomotion

We also have a lot of people at the company that have experience on prior legged robotic platforms, so there’s a well of knowledge that we can draw from there. And there’s a large pool of literature that’s been published by people in the locomotion community that roboticists can now pull from. With our locomotion controller, it’s not like we’re trying to reinvent stable locomotion, so being able to implement things that we know already work is a big help.

Jerry Pratt: The walking algorithm we’re using has a lot of similarities to the ones that were developed during the DARPA Robotics Challenge. We’re doing a lot of machine learning on the perception side, but we’re not really doing any machine learning for control right now. For the walking algorithm, it’s pretty much robotics controllers 101.

And Jenna mentioned the step-by-step hardware bring-up. While that’s happening, we’re doing a lot of development on the controller in simulation to get to the point where the robot is walking in simulation pretty well, which means that we have a good chance of the controller working on the real robot once it comes online. I think as a company, we’ve done a good job coordinating all the pieces, and a lot of that has come from having people with the experience of having done this several times before.

More broadly, eight years after the DARPA Robotics Challenge, how hard is it to get a human-sized bipedal robot to walk?

Pratt: Theoretically, we understand walking pretty well now. There are a lot of different simple models, different toolboxes that are available, and about a dozen different approaches that you can take. A lot of it depends on having good hardware—it can be really difficult if you don’t have that. But for okay-ish walking on flat ground, it’s become easier and easier now with all of the prior work that’s been done.

There are still a lot of challenges for walking naturally, though. We really want to get to the point where our robot looks like a human when it walks. There are some robots that have gotten close, but none that I would say have passed the Turing test for walking, where if you looked at a silhouette of it, you’d think it was a human. Although, there’s not a good business case for doing that, except that it should be more efficient.

Jenna: Walking is becoming more and more understood, and also accessible to roboticists if you have the hardware for it, but there are still a lot of challenges to be able to walk while doing something useful at the same time—interacting with your environment while moving, manipulating things while moving—these are still challenging problems.

What are some important things to look for when you see a bipedal robot walk to get a sense of how capable it might be?

Reher: I think we as humans have pretty good intuition for judging how well something is locomoting—we’re kind of hardwired to do it. So if you see buzzing oscillations, or a very stiff upper body, those may be indications that a robot’s low-level controls are not quite there. A lot of success in bipedal walking comes down to making sure that a very complex systems engineering architecture is all playing nice together.

Pratt: There have been some recent efforts to come up with performance metrics for walking. Some are kind of obvious, like walking speed. Some are harder to measure, like robustness to disturbances, because it matters what phase of gait the robot is at when it gets pushed—if you push it at just the right time, it’s much harder for it to recover. But I think the person pushing the robot test is a pretty good one. While we haven’t done pushes yet, we probably will in an upcoming video.

How important is it for your robot to be able to fall safely, and at what point do you start designing for that?

Pratt: I think it’s critical to fall safely, to survive a fall, and be able to get back up. People fall— not very often, but they do— and they get back up. And there will be times in almost any application where the robot falls for one reason or another and we’re going to have to just accept that. I often tell people working on humanoids to build in a fall behavior. If the robot’s not falling, make it fall! Because if you’re trying to make the robot so that it can never fall, it’s just too hard of a problem, and it’s going to fall anyway, and then it’ll be dangerous.

I think falling can be done safely. As long as computers are still in control of the hardware, you can do very graceful, judo-style falls. You should be able to detect where people are if you are falling, and fall away from them. So, I think we can make these robots relatively safe. The hardest part of falling, I think, is protecting your hands so they don’t break as you’re falling. But it’s definitely not an insurmountable problem.

Industrial design is a focus of Figure.Figure

You have a very slim and shiny robot. Did the design require any engineering compromises?

Pratt: It’s actually a really healthy collaboration. We’re trying to fit inside a medium-size female body shape, and so the industrial design team will make these really sleek looking robot silhouettes and say, “okay mechanical team, everything needs to fit in there.” And the mechanical team will be like, “we can’t fit that motor in, we need a couple more millimeters.” It’s kind of fun watching the discussions, and sometimes there will be arguments and stuff, but it almost always leads to a better design. Even if it’s simply because it causes us to look at the problem a couple of extra times.

Reher: From my perspective, the kind of interaction with the mechanical engineers that led to the robot that we have now has been very beneficial for the controls side. We have a sleeker design with lower inertia legs, which means that we’re not trying to move a lot of mass around. That ends up helping us down the line for designing control algorithms that we can execute on the hardware.

Pratt: That’s right. And keeping the legs slim allows you to do things like crossover steps—you get more range of motion because you don’t have parts of the robot bumping into each other. Self-collisions are something that you always have to worry about with a robot, so if your robot has fewer protruding cables or bumps, it’s pretty important.

Your CEO posted a picture of some compact custom actuators that your robot is using. Do you feel like your actuator design (or something else) gives your robot some kind of secret sauce that will help it be successful?

Figure’s custom actuator (left) vs. off-the-shelf actuator (right) with equal torque.Figure

Pratt: At this point, it’s mostly really amazing engineering and software development and super talented people. About half of our team have worked on humanoids before, and half of our team have worked in some related field. That’s important— things like, making batteries for cars, making electric motors for cars, software and management systems for electric airplanes. There are a few things we’ve learned along the way that we hadn’t learned before. Maybe they’re not super secret things that other people don’t know, but there’s a handful of tricks that we’ve picked up from bashing our heads against some problem over and over. But there’s not a lot of new technology going into the robot, let’s put it that way.

Are there opportunities in the humanoid robot space for someone to develop a new technology that would significantly change the industry?

Pratt: I think getting to whatever it takes to open up new application areas, and do it relatively quickly. We’re interested in things like using large language models to plan general purpose tasks, but they’re not quite there yet. A lot of the examples that you see are at the research-y stage where they might work until you change up what’s going on—it’s not robust. But if someone cracks that open, that’s a huge advantage.

And then hand designs. If somebody can come up with a super robust large degree of freedom hand that has force sensing and tactile sensing on it, that would be huge too.

The robot is designed to fit inside a medium-size female body shape.Figure

This is a lot of progress from Figure in a very short time, but they’re certainly not alone in their goal of developing a commercial bipedal robot, and relative to other companies who’ve had operational hardware for longer, Figure may have some catching up to do. Or they may not—until we start seeing robots doing practical tasks outside of carefully controlled environments, it’s hard to know for sure.

When Figure announced earlier this year that it was working on a general purpose humanoid robot, our excitement was tempered somewhat by the fact that the company didn’t have much to show besides renders of the robot that it hoped to eventually build. Figure had a slick looking vision, but without anything to back it up (besides a world-class robotics team, of course), it was unclear how fast they’d be able to progress.

As it turns out, they’ve progressed pretty darn fast, and today Figure is unveiling its Figure 01 robot, which has gone from nothing at all to dynamic walking in under a year.

A couple of things to note about the video, once you tear your eyes away from that shiny metal skin and the enormous battery backpack: first, the robot is walking dynamically without a tether and there are no nervous-looking roboticists within easy grabbing distance. Impressive! Dynamic walking means that there are points during the robot’s gait cycle where abruptly stopping would cause the robot to fall over, since it’s depending on momentum to keep itself in motion. It’s the kind of walking that humans do, and is significantly more difficult than a more traditional “robotic” walk, in which a robot makes sure that its center of mass is always safely positioned above a solid ground contact. Dynamic walking is also where those gentle arm swings come from—they’re helping keep the robot’s motion smooth and balanced, again in a human-like way.

The second thing that stands out is how skinny (and shiny!) this robot is, especially if you can look past the cable routing. Figure had initially shown renderings of a robot with the form factor of a slim human, but there’s usually a pretty big difference between an initial fancy render and real hardware that shows up months later. It now looks like Figure actually has a shot at keeping to that slim design, which has multiple benefits—there are human-robot interaction considerations, where a smaller form factor is likely to be less intimidating, but more importantly, the mass you save by slimming down as much as possible leads to a robot that’s more efficient, cheaper, and safer.

Obviously, there’s a lot more going on here than Figure could squeeze into is press release, so for more details, we spoke with Jenna Reher, a Senior Robotics/AI Engineer at Figure, and Jerry Pratt, Figure’s CTO.

What was the process like for you to teach this robot how to walk? How difficult was it to do that in a year?

Jenna Reher: We’ve been really focused on making sure that we’re validating a lot of the hardware as it’s built. With the robot that’s shown in the video, earlier this year it was just the pelvis bolted onto a test fixture. Then we added the spine joints and all the joints connected to that pelvis, and literally built the robot out from that pelvis. We added the legs and had those swinging in the air, and then built up the torso on top of that. At each of those stages, we were making sure to have a good process for validating that those low level pieces of this overall system were really well tuned in. I think that once you get to something as complex as a whole humanoid, all that validation really saves you a lot of time on the other end, since you have a lot more confidence in the lower level systems as you start working on higher level behaviors like locomotion

We also have a lot of people at the company that have experience on prior legged robotic platforms, so there’s a well of knowledge that we can draw from there. And there’s a large pool of literature that’s been published by people in the locomotion community that roboticists can now pull from. With our locomotion controller, it’s not like we’re trying to reinvent stable locomotion, so being able to implement things that we know already work is a big help.

Jerry Pratt: The walking algorithm we’re using has a lot of similarities to the ones that were developed during the DARPA Robotics Challenge. We’re doing a lot of machine learning on the perception side, but we’re not really doing any machine learning for control right now. For the walking algorithm, it’s pretty much robotics controllers 101.

And Jenna mentioned the step-by-step hardware bring-up. While that’s happening, we’re doing a lot of development on the controller in simulation to get to the point where the robot is walking in simulation pretty well, which means that we have a good chance of the controller working on the real robot once it comes online. I think as a company, we’ve done a good job coordinating all the pieces, and a lot of that has come from having people with the experience of having done this several times before.

More broadly, eight years after the DARPA Robotics Challenge, how hard is it to get a human-sized bipedal robot to walk?

Pratt: Theoretically, we understand walking pretty well now. There are a lot of different simple models, different toolboxes that are available, and about a dozen different approaches that you can take. A lot of it depends on having good hardware—it can be really difficult if you don’t have that. But for okay-ish walking on flat ground, it’s become easier and easier now with all of the prior work that’s been done.

There are still a lot of challenges for walking naturally, though. We really want to get to the point where our robot looks like a human when it walks. There are some robots that have gotten close, but none that I would say have passed the Turing test for walking, where if you looked at a silhouette of it, you’d think it was a human. Although, there’s not a good business case for doing that, except that it should be more efficient.

Jenna: Walking is becoming more and more understood, and also accessible to roboticists if you have the hardware for it, but there are still a lot of challenges to be able to walk while doing something useful at the same time—interacting with your environment while moving, manipulating things while moving—these are still challenging problems.

What are some important things to look for when you see a bipedal robot walk to get a sense of how capable it might be?

Reher: I think we as humans have pretty good intuition for judging how well something is locomoting—we’re kind of hardwired to do it. So if you see buzzing oscillations, or a very stiff upper body, those may be indications that a robot’s low-level controls are not quite there. A lot of success in bipedal walking comes down to making sure that a very complex systems engineering architecture is all playing nice together.

Pratt: There have been some recent efforts to come up with performance metrics for walking. Some are kind of obvious, like walking speed. Some are harder to measure, like robustness to disturbances, because it matters what phase of gait the robot is at when it gets pushed—if you push it at just the right time, it’s much harder for it to recover. But I think the person pushing the robot test is a pretty good one. While we haven’t done pushes yet, we probably will in an upcoming video.

How important is it for your robot to be able to fall safely, and at what point do you start designing for that?

Pratt: I think it’s critical to fall safely, to survive a fall, and be able to get back up. People fall— not very often, but they do— and they get back up. And there will be times in almost any application where the robot falls for one reason or another and we’re going to have to just accept that. I often tell people working on humanoids to build in a fall behavior. If the robot’s not falling, make it fall! Because if you’re trying to make the robot so that it can never fall, it’s just too hard of a problem, and it’s going to fall anyway, and then it’ll be dangerous.

I think falling can be done safely. As long as computers are still in control of the hardware, you can do very graceful, judo-style falls. You should be able to detect where people are if you are falling, and fall away from them. So, I think we can make these robots relatively safe. The hardest part of falling, I think, is protecting your hands so they don’t break as you’re falling. But it’s definitely not an insurmountable problem.

Industrial design is a focus of Figure.Figure

You have a very slim and shiny robot. Did the design require any engineering compromises?

Pratt: It’s actually a really healthy collaboration. We’re trying to fit inside a medium-size female body shape, and so the industrial design team will make these really sleek looking robot silhouettes and say, “okay mechanical team, everything needs to fit in there.” And the mechanical team will be like, “we can’t fit that motor in, we need a couple more millimeters.” It’s kind of fun watching the discussions, and sometimes there will be arguments and stuff, but it almost always leads to a better design. Even if it’s simply because it causes us to look at the problem a couple of extra times.

Reher: From my perspective, the kind of interaction with the mechanical engineers that led to the robot that we have now has been very beneficial for the controls side. We have a sleeker design with lower inertia legs, which means that we’re not trying to move a lot of mass around. That ends up helping us down the line for designing control algorithms that we can execute on the hardware.

Pratt: That’s right. And keeping the legs slim allows you to do things like crossover steps—you get more range of motion because you don’t have parts of the robot bumping into each other. Self-collisions are something that you always have to worry about with a robot, so if your robot has fewer protruding cables or bumps, it’s pretty important.

Your CEO posted a picture of some compact custom actuators that your robot is using. Do you feel like your actuator design (or something else) gives your robot some kind of secret sauce that will help it be successful?

Figure’s custom actuator (left) vs. off-the-shelf actuator (right) with equal torque.Figure

Pratt: At this point, it’s mostly really amazing engineering and software development and super talented people. About half of our team have worked on humanoids before, and half of our team have worked in some related field. That’s important— things like, making batteries for cars, making electric motors for cars, software and management systems for electric airplanes. There are a few things we’ve learned along the way that we hadn’t learned before. Maybe they’re not super secret things that other people don’t know, but there’s a handful of tricks that we’ve picked up from bashing our heads against some problem over and over. But there’s not a lot of new technology going into the robot, let’s put it that way.

Are there opportunities in the humanoid robot space for someone to develop a new technology that would significantly change the industry?

Pratt: I think getting to whatever it takes to open up new application areas, and do it relatively quickly. We’re interested in things like using large language models to plan general purpose tasks, but they’re not quite there yet. A lot of the examples that you see are at the research-y stage where they might work until you change up what’s going on—it’s not robust. But if someone cracks that open, that’s a huge advantage.

And then hand designs. If somebody can come up with a super robust large degree of freedom hand that has force sensing and tactile sensing on it, that would be huge too.

The robot is designed to fit inside a medium-size female body shape.Figure

This is a lot of progress from Figure in a very short time, but they’re certainly not alone in their goal of developing a commercial bipedal robot, and relative to other companies who’ve had operational hardware for longer, Figure may have some catching up to do. Or they may not—until we start seeing robots doing practical tasks outside of carefully controlled environments, it’s hard to know for sure.

Inspired by some traits of human intelligence, it is proposed that wetware approaches based on molecular, supramolecular, and systems chemistry can provide valuable models and tools for novel forms of robotics and AI, being constituted by soft matter and fluid states as the human nervous system and, more generally, life, is. Bottom-up mimicries of intelligence range from the molecular world to the multicellular level, i.e., from the Ångström (10−10 meters) to the micrometer scales (10−6 meters), and allows the development of unconventional chemical robotics. Whereas conventional robotics lets humans explore and colonise otherwise inaccessible environments, such as the deep oceanic abysses and other solar system planets, chemical robots will permit us to inspect and control the microscopic molecular and cellular worlds. This article suggests that systems made of properly chosen molecular compounds can implement all those modules that are the fundamental ingredients of every living being: sensory, processing, actuating, and metabolic networks. Autonomous chemical robotics will be within reach when such modules are compartmentalised and assembled. The design of a strongly intertwined web of chemical robots, with or without the involvement of living matter, will give rise to collective forms of intelligence that will probably reproduce, on a minimal scale, some sophisticated performances of the human intellect and will implement forms of “general AI.” These remarkable achievements will require a productive interdisciplinary collaboration among chemists, biotechnologists, computer scientists, engineers, physicists, neuroscientists, cognitive scientists, and philosophers to be achieved. The principal purpose of this paper is to spark this revolutionary collaborative scientific endeavour.

In this paper, we introduce a new teen-sized humanoid platform dubbed DRACO 3, custom-built by Apptronik and altered for practical use by the Human Centered Robotics Laboratory at The University of Texas at Austin. The form factor of DRACO 3 is such that it can operate safely in human environments while reaching objects at human heights. To approximate the range of motion of humans, this robot features proximal actuation and mechanical artifacts to provide a high range of hip, knee, and ankle motions. In particular, rolling contact mechanisms on the lower body are incorporated using a proximal actuation principle to provide an extensive vertical pose workspace. To enable DRACO 3 to perform dexterous tasks while dealing with these complex transmissions, we introduce a novel whole-body controller (WBC) incorporating internal constraints to model the rolling motion behavior. In addition, details of our WBC for DRACO 3 are presented with an emphasis on practical points for hardware implementation. We perform a design analysis of DRACO 3, as well as empirical evaluations under the lens of the Centroidal Inertia Isotropy (CII) design metric. Lastly, we experimentally validate our design and controller by testing center of mass (CoM) balancing, one-leg balancing, and stepping-in-place behaviors.

Presence sensing systems are gaining importance and are utilized in various contexts such as smart homes, Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) and surveillance technology. Typically, these systems utilize motion sensors or cameras that have a limited field of view, leading to potential monitoring gaps within a room. However, humans release carbon dioxide (CO2) through respiration which spreads within an enclosed space. Consequently, an observable rise in CO2 concentration is noted when one or more individuals are present in a room. This study examines an approach to detect the presence or absence of individuals indoors by analyzing the ambient air’s CO2 concentration using simple Markov Chain Models. The proposed scheme achieved an accuracy of up to 97% in both experimental and real data demonstrating its efficacy in practical scenarios.