Today's Robotics Pulse
ROBOTIS’s AI Sapiens learns K‑POP dance from a phone video
South Korean robotics firm ROBOTIS showcased its AI Sapiens humanoid robot mastering a complex K‑POP routine using only a smartphone video. The approach leverages video‑based motion capture, reinforcement‑learning simulation and Sim2Real transfer, removing the need for costly motion‑capture studios. The 1.3‑meter, 34‑kg robot is equipped with 23 DYNAMIXEL‑Q actuators.
Also developing:
By the numbers: Waymo acquires Apple’s Arizona Proving Ground for $220M
UiPath Unveils Native Integration for Coding Agents to Deliver Enterprise Transformation at Scale
UiPath launched UiPath for Coding Agents, a native integration that lets any LLM coding agent generate, test, deploy, and govern enterprise automations through natural‑language conversation. The open platform supports multiple agents such as Claude Code and OpenAI Codex and will add more by 2026, while maintaining built‑in governance, audit trails, and role‑based access. By combining visual orchestration with AI‑generated code, the solution enables business analysts and developers to build production‑ready bots in real time, dramatically shortening development cycles.
Shore Capital Plans to Build Industrial Automation Distributor
Shore Capital Partners has appointed Aurelio Banda as an executive operating partner to spearhead the creation of an industrial automation distribution platform. Banda will source and evaluate acquisition targets while shaping a commercial strategy centered on technical expertise, applications support,...
South Korea Launches $22 Million Program to Train 500,000 Drone Operators by 2026
South Korea’s Ministry of National Defense approved a 33 billion‑won ($22 M) procurement of 11,000 commercial drones and a training scheme for 500,000 conscripts, aiming to field a new generation of “drone warriors” by 2026. The move comes as neighboring North Korea...
Hanwha Aerospace, Milrem Partner for Romanian UGV Programme
Hanwha Aerospace and Estonia’s Milrem Robotics signed a partnership at Bucharest’s BSDA 2026 to supply Romania’s uncrewed ground vehicle (UGV) programme. Hanwha will act as prime contractor, delivering its Arion‑SMET wheeled platform and the upgraded GRUNT 6×6 vehicle, while Milrem contributes...
Around the Commercial Drone Industry: NOTAM Rescinded, Technology at AUVSI’s XPONENTIAL, Heavy-Lift eVTOL
The FAA has withdrawn its controversial NOTAM that barred drone flights near federal buildings, replacing the blanket ban with a caution‑advice while litigation over First Amendment rights continues. At XPONENTIAL 2026, TECO Electric & Machinery showcased a new 10‑100 kg payload...
WIRobotics Raises USD $68M in Series B Funding to Develop Humanoid Robotics Platform
South Korean robotics firm WIRobotics announced a $68 million Series B round led by JB Investment, aimed at expanding its humanoid platform ALLEX beyond its wearable robot roots. The capital will fund development of human‑level object manipulation, deepen collaborations with Nvidia and...
A Multimodal Variable‐speed Microrobot With Asymmetric Multilayer Structure for Moving Agility and Adaptability
Researchers have unveiled a soft piezoelectric microrobot that uses an asymmetric multilayer structure to achieve multimodal locomotion with variable speeds. By tuning the driving frequency, the robot switches between distinct gaits, reaching 20.6 and 43.2 body lengths per second in...
Latvia’s Prime Minister Resigns Over Drone Incursions, Highlighting Baltic Air‑Defense Gaps
Latvia’s prime minister, Evika Siliņa, resigned on May 14 after the Progressive party withdrew support following her dismissal of Defence Minister Andris Sprūds. The trigger was two Ukrainian drones that veered into Latvian airspace and exploded at an oil storage...
Drone Makers ACSL and Draganfly Partner to Bring NDAA-Compliant Japanese Drones to Canadian Market; Signs Exclusive Distributor Agreement and Launches...
Draganfly announced an exclusive master distributor agreement with Japan’s ACSL to sell the ACSL SOTEN drone platform in Canada, launching in June 2026. The SOTEN system offers a modular, multi‑mission design with swappable payloads ranging from 6.6 lb to over 100 lb...
Egrobots Unveils AI-Powered Harvesting Robot Built Entirely by Egyptian Engineers
Egrobots announced the launch of the first autonomous agricultural harvesting robot built entirely by Egyptian engineers. The robot combines AI, computer‑vision and autonomous navigation to identify ripe crops and harvest them with up to four robotic arms, delivering roughly 160...
Hexagon and Fill Maschinenbau Partner to Advance Manufacturing Autonomy Using Humanoids
Hexagon Robotics and Austrian automation specialist Fill Maschinenbau have teamed up to pilot Hexagon’s AEON humanoid robot in a real‑world manufacturing setting in Gurten, Austria. The collaboration will test AEON across machine‑tending, inspection and data‑capture tasks, integrating it with Fill’s existing...
Turn a Photo Into Full 3D Robotics Sim in Minutes
Robotics engineers & hardware builders… this one is actually for you: (Completely open source and free) Drop ONE workbench photo into this open-source toolkit → 2 minutes later: fully interactive 3D physics sim with real meshes (screwdrivers, PCBs, robot arms),...
RAPTOR Lets One Neural Net Master All Quadrotors
A new framework called RAPTOR can train a neural network to adapt to and control a wide range of quadrotors in different environments without retraining. Learn more in Science #Robotics: https://t.co/KLq6UDs4TO https://t.co/MXGV7kXUp0
Tesla to Open 1 Million‑Unit Humanoid Robot Factory in Fremont, Targeting Mass Production
Tesla announced that its Fremont plant will be converted into a large‑scale humanoid robot factory with an initial design capacity of 1 million units per year. A parallel effort at the Texas Gigafactory aims for 10 million units annually, signaling a shift...
Compact Six-Axis Robotic Arms Deliver Industrial Versatility
PiPER #Robotic Arms: Compact Powerhouses with Six-Axis Precision and Industrial Versatility by @IntEngineering #Robots #EmergingTech #Technology #Innovation https://t.co/lcn6HXpPSs
Figure AI's Helix-02 Robots Run Full 8‑Hour Shift at Human Speed
Figure AI’s Helix-02 humanoid robots completed an eight‑hour, fully autonomous shift on a package‑sorting line on May 13, 2026, processing barcoded parcels at speeds comparable to human workers. The test, run entirely on‑board without cloud support, showcases a major leap...
Mind Robotics Secures $400 Million to Deploy AI‑Powered Factory Robots
Mind Robotics, the industrial‑robotics spin‑out founded by Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe, announced a $400 million funding round led by Kleiner Perkins. The capital will accelerate deployment of AI‑powered robots that can handle complex, judgment‑based tasks on factory floors, marking the startup’s total...
'The Second Life of Drones': Why Thousands of UAVs in Ukraine Have Stopped Working, How a Team of 'Craftsmen' Is...
Ukraine’s massive drone purchases are outpaced by rapid electronic‑warfare advances, leaving thousands of UAVs grounded because their frequencies are jammed. A volunteer workshop called ReDrone, run by the Sternenko Community Foundation, now refurbishes about 2,000 drones each month—roughly 24,000 a...
French Navy Deploys Deep-Sea Robot to Uncover 16th‑Century Shipwreck Artifacts
A French Navy‑DRASSM team used a Travocean remotely operated vehicle to survey and retrieve rare 16th‑century artifacts from the Camarat 4 shipwreck, the deepest French‑jurisdiction site at over 8,200 feet. The mission captured 66,974 photos and recovered three unique pitchers and a...
Castoro Cellars Deploys Saga Robotics’ UV-C Bots Across 600 Organic Acres
Castoro Cellars is expanding Saga Robotics' autonomous Thorvald UV‑C bots to more than 600 certified organic acres on California’s Central Coast. The robots emit ultraviolet‑C light at night, disrupting the life cycle of powdery mildew, botrytis and sour rot without...
RLWRLD Unveils RLDX-1, a Dexterity-First Foundation Model for Humanoid Robots
RLWRLD introduced RLDX-1, a foundation model built for dexterous manipulation on humanoid robots. Developed on NVIDIA’s Isaac stack, the model integrates vision, language, action, tactile and memory streams via a Multi‑Stream Action Transformer. In benchmark tests it outperformed Nvidia’s Isaac...
Fugro Strengthens Offshore Safety with New ROV Test Pool Facility in Singapore
Fugro has commissioned a new remotely operated vehicle (ROV) test pool in Singapore, expanding its in‑house capability to conduct controlled testing, verification, and validation of offshore equipment and procedures. The facility allows engineers to perform functional testing, system integration, and...
China Field‑Tests AI‑Powered Humanoid Combat Robots, Sparking Arms‑Race Fears
China has begun field‑testing AI‑powered humanoid combat robots that can carry rifles and grenade launchers, prompting experts to warn of a fresh arms race. The move leverages China's massive industrial robot base, while the United States relies on combat data...
Ai2 Releases Open Robotics Model Designed for Real-World AI Automation
The Allen Institute for AI unveiled MolmoAct 2, an open‑source robotics foundation model that dramatically speeds up robot decision‑making and expands out‑of‑the‑box manipulation capabilities. The new architecture uses Action Reasoning to reason about 3‑D environments, cutting inference latency from 6.7 seconds to...
IEEE Explores Future of ‘Networked AI’ Where Robots Learn Collectively
The IEEE Signal Processing Society has launched a special issue on networked AI, calling for papers on autonomous and evolutive optimization in connected robotic systems. Researchers aim to shift AI from isolated machines to collaborative, distributed learning across fleets of...
Romania Eyes Polish UAVs and Loitering Munitions
Polish defence contractor WB Group has signed an agreement with Romania’s aerospace firm ROMAERO to assemble and produce the GLADIUS unmanned aerial system for the Romanian Ministry of Defence. The deal, announced at the Black Sea Defence and Aerospace exhibition...
PAL Robotics Unveils New Robotic Arm Platform for Advanced AI-Driven Manipulation
PAL Robotics introduced a new lightweight robotic arm platform targeting researchers and developers. The arm offers seven degrees of freedom, weighs under 10 kg, carries a 3 kg payload, and runs a 1 kHz control loop built on ROS 2 and ros_control. Integrated power...
Solar‑Powered Skydweller Drone Sets Jumbo‑Jet Wingspan Record Before Water Ditching Crash
Skydweller Aero’s solar‑powered Skydweller drone flew for eight days and 14 minutes, eclipsing all previous drone and crewed aircraft records, before a controlled water ditching off the coast of Mexico caused it to sink. The loss underscores both the promise...
AmbiStack Selected for 2026 RBR50 Awards, Marking Third Recognition for Ambi Robotics
Ambi Robotics announced that its AmbiStack system has been named a 2026 RBR50 Innovation Award winner for physical AI. The robot uses cameras, machine vision and AI to identify and stack both uniform and non‑uniform packages without prior knowledge of...
Hyundai Motor Group Ramps up Factory Robots, Igniting Labor‑management Clash
Hyundai Motor Group announced plans to install Boston Dynamics‑built humanoid robots in its vehicle assembly lines, starting with its Georgia factory in 2028. The move has triggered sharp warnings from labor groups that automation could erode jobs, adding to broader...
How to Launch a Successful Drone Service Business: Advice From Operators Who've Done It
Commercial UAV News hosted a webinar where seasoned operators—Robert Hart of Lidar Drone Services, Dan Tartaglia of DroneAbility LLC, and Matt Young of Aerial Ashes—shared a step‑by‑step playbook for launching a profitable drone service business. The panel emphasized four pillars:...
Piaggio Fast Forward Launches Grogu-Inspired Cargo Robot with Autonomous Following Technology
Piaggio Fast Forward unveiled the Grogu gitamini, a Star Wars‑themed cargo‑carrying robot that autonomously follows its owner. Developed with Disney, the robot mimics the floating pram used by Grogu and can transport up to 20 lb (≈$25) of items. It incorporates the...
Fanuc Shares Surge 16% After Partnering with Google on AI-Driven Robots
Fanuc Corp. saw its shares climb up to 16% to a record intraday level after unveiling a partnership with Alphabet’s Google to embed Gemini Enterprise AI into its robot arms. The move signals a major push to combine advanced cloud...
Physical AI Moves Closer to Factory Floors as Companies Test Humanoid Robots
British startup Humanoid will install up to 2,000 wheeled humanoid robots at Schaeffler’s global factories by 2032, with the first deployment slated for late 2026 to mid‑2027 at the German sites in Herzogenaurach and Schweinfurt. The initial phase focuses on...
Ondas’ Sentrycs to Present New Portable C-UAS Solution, Sentrycs Scout, at SOF Week
Ondas’ Sentrycs is unveiling Scout, a man‑carried, battery‑powered counter‑UAS system, at SOF Week in Florida. The portable solution leverages the company’s Cyber‑over‑RF (CoRF) technology to passively detect, identify, and cyber‑mitigate unauthorized drones without jamming. Scout delivers real‑time situational awareness and...
UNICCON Group Showcases Indigenous AI and Autonomous Systems Drones Through Its Defence Subsidiary, Babasky Technologies.
UNICCON Group, via its defence subsidiary Babasky Technologies, has entered a collaboration with Nigeria's Defence Headquarters to develop and field indigenous AI‑driven autonomous drones and related security systems. The partnership builds on UNICCON’s prior AI work, including the Omeife humanoid...
Fail‑Safe PLCs Outpace Relays for Complex Automation
The new fail safe IOs for the Siemens Industry S7 1200 G2 are officially here 🚀 With the new fail safe signal module, Siemens significantly expands the Safety capabilities of the S7 1200 G2 platform. And this raises an interesting...
Agentic Coding Advances Robotics: New Results at ICRA2026
My students and I are very excited about the potential of agentic coding for robotics. Looking fwd to presenting new results in plenary talk on Tues 2 June, the first day of @IEEEorg #ICRA2026 in Vienna: https://t.co/REMCUkmrDz
SiFly Wants to Replace Costly Drone Dock Networks with This
SiFly Aviation unveiled DronePort, a centralized multi‑drone infrastructure platform that replaces traditional single‑drone dock networks. The system functions like a mini airport, allowing several drones to launch, recharge, and operate from one node. SiFly claims a single DronePort can deliver...
Bidirectional Robot Hand Achieves Superhuman Dexterity
This #Robot Hand Bends Both Ways — Unlocking Superhuman Dexterity via @ZappyZappy7 #AI #Robotics #MachineLearning #ArtificialIntelligence #ML #MI https://t.co/o3ipiX87GQ
Gremsy Launches Elite Integrators Program & Kestrel Payload System
Gremsy unveiled its Elite Integrators Program to partner with select system integrators on the rollout of Kestrel, an ultra‑compact, lightweight camera payload for unmanned platforms. The program will allocate a limited batch of Kestrel units to vetted partners, enabling hands‑on...
Automotive Manufacturing Expected to Fuel Humanoid Robot Growth
Humanoid robots are nearing commercial use in manufacturing, with automotive assembly identified as the primary early‑adoption market. IDTechEx forecasts a $25 billion market by the early 2030s and 1.8 million units shipped annually by 2036. Falling hardware costs could drive average robot...
Drone Innovation Drives Precision Agriculture, Infrastructure Safety and Emergency Response
Global Aerospace’s latest Jetstream report shows unmanned aerial systems are reshaping precision agriculture, critical‑infrastructure inspection and emergency response, offering lower costs, higher safety and richer data than traditional manned aircraft.
Beatbot Launches iSkim Ultra Pool‑Cleaning Skimmer for Home Use at $599
Beatbot introduced the iSkim Ultra robotic pool‑skimming robot, priced at $599 after a $400 discount, marking the company's first dedicated surface‑cleaning device for residential pools. The launch broadens Beatbot's portfolio beyond indoor floor cleaners and signals growing consumer interest in...
Drone Task Force Inks Deal with US-Based Association
The Drone Diplomacy Task Force signed a letter of intent with the Association for Uncrewed Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI) at the XPONENTIAL robotics show in Detroit, aiming to foster talent exchanges and joint certification for unmanned aircraft. Taiwan was highlighted...
Figure Founder: F.04 Robot Initiates Component Delivery Process
Figure AI founder Brett Adcock announced on X that the design of the F.04 humanoid robot is finalized, triggering the start of component deliveries. The F.04 is billed as the biggest generational leap for the company, following the launch of...
China Currently Has 1,025 Humanoid Robot-Related Enterprises
China now hosts 1,025 active humanoid‑robot companies, up from 1,021 at the end of 2025. East China holds nearly half of the firms (47.8%), while South China accounts for 22.9% and the Northwest and Northeast each contain under 3%. The...
Narwal Freo Z10 Turbo Robot Vacuum Debuts at $600 After Discount
Narwal announced the Freo Z10 Turbo robot vacuum, priced at $900 but discounted to $600 through May 31. The mid‑range unit packs a 25,000 Pa suction motor, a self‑emptying dock that also cleans mop pads with 167 °F water, and structured‑light navigation,...
Parrot’s ANAFI UKR Selected for Integrationunder a Major European Armored VehicleProgram
Parrot announced its ANAFI UKR micro‑UAV has been selected for integration into a major European armored‑vehicle program. To date the company has delivered 250 units and will ship an additional 175 in Q2 2026, with more possible under a 10‑year framework. The...
DHS Plans Experiment Running ‘Reconnaissance’ Drones Along the US-Canada Border
The Department of Homeland Security, together with Canada’s Defense Research and Development Canada, announced ACE‑CASPER, a multiday experiment slated for November that will send autonomous drones and ground vehicles along the U.S.–Canada border to stream live video and sensor data...