Video Friday: High Mobility Logistics (19459000)
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.
ICUAS 2025 (19459139) : 14-17 may 2025, CHARLOTTE NC
ICRA 2025 (19459139) : 19-23 MAY 2025, ATLANTA (19659006)
London Humanoids Summit: 29-30 May 20,25, LONDON (19659007)
IEEE RCAR 2025: 1-6 June 2025, TOYAMA, JAPAN
2025 Energy Drone & Robotics Summit (19459139) : 16-18 Jun 2025, HOUSTON (19659009)
RSS 2025– 21-25 June 2025 LOS ANGELES (19659010)
ETH Robotics Summer School: 21-27 June 2025, GENEVA
IAS 2025– 30 June-4 July 2025 GENOA, ITALY (19659012)
ICRES 2025 () : 3-4 Jul 2025, PORTO PORTUGAL (19659013)
IEEE World Haptics: 8-11 July 2025 SUWON (KOREA)
IFAC Symposium on Robotics (19459139) : 15-18 Jul 2025, PARIS (19659015)
RoboCup 2020– 15-21 July 2025 BAHIA, BRAZIL (
RO-MAN 2025 (19459139) : 25-29 Aug 2025, EINDHOVEN THE NETHERLANDS (19659017)
CLAWAR 2025 (19459139) : 5-7 Sept 2025, SHENZHEN (19659018)
CoRL 2025: 27-30 September 20,25, Seoul
IEEE Humanoids: 30 September-2 Oct 2025, Seoul
World Robot Summit: 10-12 October 20,25, OSAKA JAPAN
Enjoy today’s videos with IROS 2025 ()! 19-25 October 2025 in HANGZHOU.
Over the past year, LEVA was designed from the ground-up as a novel robotic system to transport payloads. While robotics are widely used in logistics, very few solutions have the capability to transport payloads in both controlled and unstructured environment. Four-legged robotics are perfect for navigating any terrain that a human could, but few have the capabilities to move payloads autonomously. LEVA is the best at this. LEVA is highly versatile because it strikes a balance by combining legs and wheels, which are both ideal for moving quickly and precisely on flat surfaces.
Over the past year, LEVA was designed from the ground-up as a novel robotic system to transport payloads. While robotics are widely used in logistics, very few solutions have the capability to transport payloads in both controlled and unstructured environment. Four-legged robotics are perfect for navigating any terrain that a human could, but few have the capabilities to move payloads autonomously. LEVA is the best at this. LEVA is highly versatile because it strikes a balance by combining legs and wheels, which are both ideal for moving quickly and precisely on flat surfaces.
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LEVA
You’ve likely heard about the humanoid robotic half-marathon that took place in China. I assume this was done to get media attention. For those of us who can remember when
Asimo’smarathon running was a big thing, but it is still impressive. It’s hard to relate that to robots doing something practical, you know.
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NBC]]
To plan and perceive its surroundings, a robot that is navigating in an outdoor environment without prior knowledge of the area must rely on local sensing. This can be in the form a local metric chart or a local policy with a fixed horizon. Beyond that, the fog of unknown space is marked with a fixed cost. In this work, a key observation is that long-range planning only requires a good understanding of frontier directions. We propose the Long Range Navigator, which maps high-dimensional camera imagery to affordable frontiers and then optimizes for maximum alignment with the goal. We found that adding LRN to existing navigation stacks on Spot and Big Vehicles reduced human intervention at test time, and led to faster decision-making. This shows the relevance of LRN.
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LRN
Goby, a compact robot, is capable, programmable and low-cost. It allows you to discover miniature worlds through its tiny perspective.
Now available on Kickstarter for only $80.
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Kickstarter]
Thanks, Rich!
HEBI robots demonstrated inchworm movement during the Innovation Faire at the FIRST Robotics Championships in Houston.
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HEBI]
Thanks, Andrew!
Flexiv wishes you a Happy Easter!
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Flexiv
Our proprietary reinforcement learning algorithm has been refined through extensive simulations, and a vast amount of training data. This algorithm allows our full-scale robot Adam to master humanlike movement. Our RL-driven gait control approach is more adaptable than model-based gait controls. Adam adjusts pace, stride and balance in real-time on challenging terrains such as uneven surfaces. This ensures a stable, natural movement, while increasing efficiency and safety. The algorithm delivers fluid, graceful movement with smooth joint coordination. This reduces mechanical wear and extends operational life while reducing energy consumption for enhanced endurance.
Dr. Michael Posa and DAIR Lab. Michael Posa and DAIR Lab. Our research focuses on the control, learning and planning of robots in their interactions with the world. Robots are required to interact with complex environments in a safe, controlled manner. This is true whether they are helping in the home or working in a factory. We are focused on developing computationally tractable, data-efficient algorithms that allow robots to operate dynamically and safely while they quickly maneuver and interact with their environment.
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DAIR Lab ]
I will never understand robotics companies who add the sounds of sick actuators to their robots when they move.
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Kepler ]
Join Matt Trossen founder of Trossen Robotics on a time-traveling teardown of the evolution of our robot arms! Matt Trossen, founder of Trossen Robotics, takes you on a deep dive to unbox the ghosts from robots’ past. He shares behind-the scenes stories, bold design choices, lessons learned, as well as how the industry has changed gears.
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Trossen ]
This week’s Carnegie Mellon University Robotics Institute seminar (CMU RI), is a retro version (2008!) Charlie Kemp, formerly of the Healthcare Robotics Lab in Georgia Tech and currently at Hello Robot.
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CMU RI ]]
This week’s CMU RI Seminar is a much modernized version of Charlie Kemp.
My goal when I first started in robotics was to help robots mimic humans. My definition of success changed as my lab began working with people who had mobility impairments. Emulation of humans in assistive applications is less important than usability and ease of use. Even seemingly simple tasks like scratching an itch or picking up a dropped item can make a significant difference in someone’s life. Even full autonomy may not be desirable, as actively directing a robotic assistant can provide a feeling of independence and agency. Robots are nonhuman in nature and have many advantages, including being able to work without interruption, being directly controllable and not having social characteristics which can be a barrier to use.
Despite the technical challenges that home robots face in attempting to mimic humans, I will present evidence that mobile manipulators that are human-scale could be beneficial for people with mobility impairments in the near future. I will describe the work of my lab and Hello Robot, which illustrates valuable assistance at home. This includes supporting activities of daily life, leading exercise games, strengthening social connections, and more. I will also discuss recent progress made by Hello Robot in enabling daily, unsupervised use at home by a person who has severe mobility impairments.
