Video Friday: Atlas in the Lab

IEEE Spectrum ( ]robotics]has a weekly selection of amazing robotics videos. We also publish a weekly calendar with upcoming robotics events. Please submit your events to be included.

RoboCup German Open (19459159) : 12-16 march 2025, NUREMBERG GERMANY (19659005)

German Robotics Conference (19459159) : 13-15 march 2025, NUREMBERG GERMANY (19659006)

European Robotics Forum: 25-27 March 2025, STUTTGART, GERMANY

RoboSoft 2025 (19459159) : 23-26 Apr 2025, LAUSANNE SWITZERLAND (19659008)

ICUAS 2025 (19459159) : 14-17 may 2025, CHARLOTTE NC

ICRA 2025 (19459159) : 19-23 MAY 2025, ATLANTA GA

London Humanoids Summit: 29-30 May 20,25, LONDON (19659011)

IEEE RCAR 2025: 1-6 June 2025, TOYAMA, JAPAN

2025 Energy Drone & Robotics Summit (19459159) : 16-18 Jun 2025, HOUSTON TX

RSS 2025– 21-25 June 2025 LOS ANGELES (19659014)

ETH Robotics Summer School: 21-27 June 2025, GENEVA

IAS 2025 (19459159) : 30 June-4 Jul 2025, GENOA ITALY (19659016)

ICRES 2025 () : 3-4 Jul 2025, PORTO PORTUGAL (19659017)

IEEE World Haptics (19459159) : 8-11 Jul 2025, SUWON, KOREA (19659018)

IFAC Symposium on Robotics (19459159) : 15-18 Jul 2025, PARIS (19659019)

Enjoy today’s videos. RoboCup 2020– 15-21 July 2025 BAHIA, BRAZIL

We unveiled the new Atlas last year–faster and stronger, compacter and less messy. We are designing the most dynamic humanoid robotic system that can do anything. But we take it one step at a tim. Our first task was part sequencing, which is a common logistical task in automotive manufacturing. Discover why we began with sequencing, what we are doing to solve hard problems, and the value of a humanoid robotic system.

I love the 1:40 mark, when Atlas squats to pick up a piece from the ground.

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Boston Dynamics]

I’m most impressed that the robot doesn’t fall over when it makes contact with the stick.

[

Unitree

Patricia Alves-Oliveira, Professor, is studying the authenticity of artworks created by an artist in collaboration with a robot. Her Robot Studio research lab is developing methods for authenticating artworks by analyzing the entire creative process. This is done by analyzing the artist’s biometrics and the creation process, from the very first brushstroke up to the final painting. This work aims at giving ownership back to artists, in the age of generative artificial intelligence.

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Robot Studio]at

University of Michigan

It’s hard to believe that RoMeLa is developing humanoid robotics for 20 years (!) years. Let’s celebrate 20 more years!

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RoMeLa]at

University of California Los Angeles ()

In the demo, Reachy sort healthy and unhealthy food autonomously. No pre-trained AI, no machine learning – just real-time object recognition!

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Pollen]

The biological snakes are able to move with high mobility thanks to their many joints. This has inspired the design of robots that look like snakes. Conventional designs have a limited number joints. This paper presents a snake robot with a limited number of joints. It is composed of many passive links and can change its joint coupling configuration dynamically by repositioning motorized joint units along internal racks. A soft robot skin powers the units wirelessly, eliminating wire tangles and disconnection hazards.

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Paper]

Thanks, Ayato!

Tech United Eindhoven has been working on quadrupedal robots for soccer, which should be fun.

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Tech United]

Autonomous manipulating in everyday tasks requires flexible actions generation to handle complex and diverse real-world environments such as objects of varying hardness or softness. Imitation Learning (IL), a technique that allows robots to learn complex skills from expert demonstrations, is possible. Many existing methods rely on unidirectional control and position, which can be problematic for tasks that require force-related information/control. For example, carefully grasping objects of varying hardness or fragility. To address these challenges we introduce Bilateral Control Based Imitation Learning via Transformers (Bi-ACT) as well as “A” Low-cost “Physical Hardware Considering Diverse motor control modes for Research in Everyday Bimanual Manipulation” (ALPHA -a).

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Alpha-Biact ]

Thanks, Masato!

Powered with UBTECH’s revolutionary framework, “BrainNet”, a Walker S1 team of humanoid robotics works together to master complex tasks in Zeekr Smart Factory! Teamwork is the key to making robots a reality.

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UBTECH ]]

Personal Mobile Robotic Assistants are expected to find widespread applications in industry and health care. Manually steering a robot in motion requires a high level of concentration, especially when the space is crowded or tight. This work presents a virtual lead with which a robotic device can follow an operator. We have successfully validated on the

The robustness and performance our entire pipeline in real world experiments.

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ETH Zurich Robotic Systems Lab ]

I would never want to look at a blade of a windmill from the inside.

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Flyability

You can learn more about robots from a video unboxing than from a fancy demonstration.

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DEEP Robotics

Penn Engineering researchers have discovered that AI-governed robots contain security vulnerabilities and weaknesses which were previously unknown and unidentified. The research was funded by the National Science Foundation, the Army Research Laboratory and aims to address a new vulnerability in order to ensure the safe deployment of large-language models (LLMs).

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RoboPAIR

ReachBot was developed by Stanford and NASA as a joint venture to explore new mobility solutions in challenging environments, such as caves on Mars. It is a compact robot with very long extending arm, based on booms for extendable antennas. The booms can be extended many meters by unrolling from a coil in low gravity. In this talk, I will discuss the ReachBot design, motion planning, and field test results with a single ReachBot in a lava-tube in the Mojave desert. I will also discuss future plans that include mounting one or more ReachBots equipped with wrists, grippers, and other features on a mobile platform, such as ANYMal.

ReachBot ( )