Today's Robotics Pulse
Spirit AI tops global robot AI leaderboard, secures $222M funding
Chinese robotics startup Spirit AI’s embodied intelligence model, Spirit v1.6, achieved the highest score of 1,924 on the RoboArena benchmark, overtaking Nvidia’s Cosmos3‑Nano‑Policy. The company also announced ¥1.5 billion (≈$222 million) of funding to accelerate its technology.
Also developing:
By the numbers: Shifters raises $10.2M seed round
3 Finalists Announced for 2026 Hermes Award
The 2026 Hermes Award finalists are Festo, Schaeffler and Ziehl‑Abegg, each showcasing breakthrough automation technology. Festo presents integrated fluid‑handling manifolds with embedded sensors, Schaeffler offers compact high‑torque actuators for humanoid robots, and Ziehl‑Abegg delivers a rare‑earth‑free synchronous elevator motor. The award honors innovations that combine technical novelty, market maturity and cost‑effectiveness. The winner will be announced at the Hannover Messe opening ceremony on April 19, presented by Federal Minister Dorothee Bär.
Bones Studio to Release BONES-SEED - the First Multimodal Motion Dataset Purpose-Built for Humanoid Robotics
Bones Studio announced the release of BONES‑SEED, a multimodal motion dataset tailored for humanoid robotics. The open‑source collection contains 142,000 high‑fidelity human motion sequences, each enriched with up to six natural‑language captions, precise temporal segmentation, and detailed skeletal metadata. Built...
PTC Teams with NVIDIA to Unite Design and Robotics Simulation by Connecting Onshape to NVIDIA Isaac Sim
PTC announced a cloud‑native integration that links its Onshape CAD and PDM platform directly with NVIDIA’s Isaac Sim robotics simulation framework. The workflow streams mechanical relationships from Onshape into Isaac Sim, automatically updating physics‑based simulations whenever designs change. Demonstrated at...
FANUC Accelerates Physical AI in Industrial Robotics, Leveraging NVIDIA Technologies
FANUC announced a strategic partnership with NVIDIA to accelerate "physical AI" in its industrial robot lineup. The collaboration embeds NVIDIA Jetson edge modules, Isaac Sim, and Omniverse into FANUC's robots and ROBOGUIDE software, enabling photorealistic digital twins and real‑time AI...
Thermal Cameras Used in Drones and Robots Can Be Tricked by Heat Sources, Study Finds
University of Florida researchers uncovered three previously unknown vulnerabilities in thermal‑camera perception systems used by autonomous drones and robots. The flaws—rooted in image equalization, sensor calibration and lens optics—can be triggered by ordinary or malicious heat sources, causing real obstacles...
European Client First to Use Exail’s 9-Meter USV for Civil Offshore Operations
Exail has completed its first civil offshore sale of the 9‑meter DriX H‑9 uncrewed surface vessel to an undisclosed European client. The USV is fitted with a multibeam echosounder, side‑scan sonar, sub‑bottom profiler and magnetometer for comprehensive offshore infrastructure surveys. With...
Gecko Robotics Lands the Largest US Navy Robotics Deal Yet
The U.S. Navy has signed a five‑year IDIQ contract with Pittsburgh‑based Gecko Robotics, starting with a $54 million award and a $71 million ceiling. Gecko’s autonomous inspection robots will crawl inside 18 Pacific Fleet vessels to generate detailed digital twins and feed...
US Navy to Use Wall-Climbing Robots to Inspect Ships
The U.S. Navy and the General Services Administration awarded Gecko Robotics a $71 million contract to deploy wall‑climbing robots and AI‑driven drones for inspecting ships, aircraft and other equipment. Gecko claims its systems can locate structural defects up to 50 times...
Cobots Handle Furniture-Making Drudgery, People Focus on Company Growth
Furniture maker Foliot equipped its Quebec and Las Vegas plants with Fanuc CRX‑30 collaborative robots after a successful pilot, expanding to 31 cobots in 2026. The automation shifted operators from repetitive panel‑feeding tasks to supervisory roles, boosting line throughput by 15%...
PDW Introduces CORE 1.4 Software Update for C100 Platform
Performance Drone Works has launched CORE 1.4, the latest software upgrade for its C100 unmanned platform. The update introduces Vision‑Based Navigation that enables GPS‑free “Cold Start” missions and fully activates the Multi‑Mission Payload suite. It also enhances SROC communications with...
Antigravity A1 Drone Discount Arrives Before April Feature Update
Antigravity is offering a flat 20 % discount on its A1 8K 360 drone across all bundles, just weeks before a major April software update. The A1 remains the only consumer‑grade drone in the United States capable of true 8K 360...
From Demo to Global Scale: Zero‑Shot AI Driving
Exciting to see how far the industry has come since we gave our first end-to-end AI driving demo a decade ago. But what matters now is scaled deployment. Every day this week we are releasing a new hour long video of...
Humanoid Robot Masterfully Plays Piano in Real Time
This robot that can actually play the piano. 🤖🎹 https://t.co/rCTCMXuXYk #MusicLovers #music #piano #humanoidtech #humanoid #robot #Robotics #AI #TechRevolution #TechInnovation #ArtificialInteligence #PhysicalAI @lexfridman @KirkDBorne @Ronald_vanLoon @erikbryn @antgrasso @sallyeaves @Nicochan33 @HaroldSinnott @mvollmer1 @marcusborba @CatherineAdenle @vinod1975 @YuHelenYu @ingliguori @fogoros @ylecun @TerenceLeungSF @SourabhSKatoch @wil_bielert...
NVIDIA and Bolt Team up for European Robotaxis
At GTC 2026, NVIDIA and European rideshare firm Bolt announced a partnership to develop robotaxis across Europe. Bolt will leverage NVIDIA’s Cosmos, Omniverse, the Alpamayo autonomous‑vehicle model, and Drive Hyperion platform to turn its fleet data into a scalable learning...
Robot Dogs Become Harvest Season MVP
Who knew robot dogs would be the MVP of harvest season?🤖🥬 https://t.co/Il32qEkboM #humanoidtech #humanoid #robot #Robotics #AI #TechRevolution #TechInnovation #ArtificialInteligence #PhysicalAI #robotdog #harvest @AlbertoEMachado @Eli_Krumova @postoff25 @Khulood_Almani @anand_narang @NutritiousMind @baski_LA @TanyaSinha_ @devaang @AlAmadi1 @jeancayeux @enilev @efipm @mvollmer1 @Nicochan33 @RagusoSergio @FrRonconi @Shi4Tech @sallyeaves...
Robots Already Delivering Hotel Room Service in China
#WhosNext? Hotel Room Service workers? #Robots are already being used in China to deliver food and other needed items from the kitchen to meeting rooms and customer rooms. #Robotics https://t.co/sEh7IqFCmi
Frog-Cell 'Neurobots' Grow Self-Organized Nervous Systems and Alter Gene Activity
Researchers at the Wyss Institute have created the first “neurobots,” living robots built from frog embryonic cells that incorporate neuronal precursor cells to form self‑organizing nervous systems. The neurobots develop mature neurons that connect internally and extend processes to surface...
Diverse, Large-Scale Data Drives Better Robotics Models
No doubt @tonyzzhao knows what’s up. Diversity and scale of data is becoming key in training robotics models. And not all data is made equal.
Nadine: Social Robot Offers Companionship for Seniors
#WhosNext? SocialWorkers? Meet Nadine, the social robot designed to provide companionship to older adults. (NowThis News) #Robotics #Robots #AI https://t.co/Ha9yhmZuit
Nvidia Releases Open Physical AI Models for Healthcare Robotics
At its GTC conference, Nvidia unveiled a suite of open physical AI models tailored for healthcare robotics. The models provide pre‑trained control frameworks for surgical robots, enabling faster integration of AI into operating rooms. Early adopters include surgical robotics firms...
Robotic Tea Harvester Cuts Manual Labor Drastically
#WhosNext? Tea harvesters? This motorized tea plucking machine eliminates a lot of manual labor and as a result laborers. (GiGadgets) #AgTech #Automation https://t.co/saGtJTH3Dk
Humanoid Robot Successfully Pilots Aircraft in Test
#WhosNext? Airline Pilots? Scientists Build Humanoid #Robot That Can Pilot a Plane. (Futurism) #AI #Robotics https://t.co/bcdVuA59Ro https://t.co/i6r9BkJ6uY
Memories AI Is Building the Visual Memory Layer for Wearables and Robotics
Memories.ai announced a partnership with Nvidia to build a visual‑memory layer for AI wearables and robotics, using Nvidia's Cosmos‑Reason 2 and Metropolis tools. The startup launched its Large Visual Memory Model (LVMM) in July 2025, positioning it against Google’s Gemini Embedding 2. It...
Drones and Robotics Replace Manual Panel Cleaning
#WhosNext? Solar panel washers? Window washers? Let the #Robotics plus automated systems take care of it. Or better still get rid of all the tracking and infrastructure by getting #Drones to do it! (GiGadgets) ...
Robots Learn Skills Through Real-World Interaction
How can robots acquire skills through interactions with the physical world? An interview with Jiaheng Hu by @aihuborg and Lucy Smith https://t.co/HF0EtUnsaR
4D Printing Technology Uses Waste Sulfur to Enable Self-Actuating Soft Robots
Researchers at KRICT, Hanyang University and Sejong University have unveiled the world’s first 4D‑printing platform that uses sulfur‑rich polymers derived from petroleum‑refining waste. By engineering a loosely cross‑linked sulfur polymer network, the material can be extruded, printed, and programmed to...
Humanoid Robot Rentals Plunge 80% in China
“In the spring of 2025, renting a humanoid robot for a corporate event in China cost…10,000 [to] 20,000 yuan per day. By March 2026, JDcom’s rental storefront lists a Unitree humanoid, with on-site engineer included, starting at 1,796 yuan.” @poezhao0605 https://t.co/yotqwvFfWf
Kodiak Teams with NVIDIA to Power Truck‑Scale Driverless AI
The era of Physical AI requires us to solve the hardest problems in unpredictable conditions in real time. @KodiakRobotics is doubling down on its ability to do exactly that. We announced a collaboration with @nvidia today in which our next-generation driverless...
Niqo Robotics Charts Path to Profitability as Physical AI Weeding Platform Expands Into New Crops, Markets, and New Generation of...
Niqo Robotics announced that its core AI‑powered weeding business is on track to become profitable in its first full commercial year, a first for agricultural robotics. The company’s one‑time‑purchase RoboWeeder, which delivers 99% edge‑AI accuracy without recurring fees, has gained...
Cheap Drone Defenses Drive Expensive Russian Strike Packages
Many of the early countermeasures to cheap OWA drones are also relatively cheap, such as mobile machinegun teams. This requires the modernization of the drones, employing them in greater numbers, and new methods of employment to overcome cheap countermeasures, which...
Cybertrol Engineering Celebrates 30 Years of Automation Excellence
Cybertrol Engineering marks three decades of industrial automation services, celebrating its 30th anniversary as a Rockwell Automation PartnerNetwork™ Gold System Integrator. Founded in 1996, the Minnesota‑based firm now operates multi‑disciplinary teams serving food, chemical and life‑science manufacturers across North America....
EPC91202 Evaluation Board Added for Three-Phase BLDC Motor Drive Inverter
Efficient Power Conversion (EPC) launched the EPC91202 evaluation board, a three‑phase brushless DC motor‑drive inverter built around its EPC2361 100 V eGaN FET. The board can deliver up to 70 A peak (50 A RMS) current and switch PWM signals as fast as...
What Is Functional Safety?
Functional safety shifts machine protection from an all‑or‑nothing shutdown to engineered, controlled behavior under fault conditions. By using standards such as IEC 61508, manufacturers perform risk assessments to assign a Safety Integrity Level (SIL) and implement functions like safe speed, safe...
4D Occupancy Drives Photoreal
🚀 ORV: 4D Occupancy-centric Robot Video Generation (CVPR 2026) https://t.co/9ILR3w3XND What if we could generate photorealistic robot manipulation videos with precise 4D control? With ORV, we condition video generation on 4D semantic occupancy, enabling: ✨ High-fidelity robot videos with fine-grained motion control 🎥 Multi-view generation...
Lucid Unveils “Lunar” Robotaxi Concept
Lucid Motors shows off robotaxi concept called ‘Lunar’ by Sean O'Kane @TechCrunch Learn more: https://t.co/Ebg95EvEWR #EV #Automotive #Transport #Technology #Innovation https://t.co/6Y4goAcpB3
BlueSword’s AMR Lineup Manages Materials Across Industries and Countries
BlueSword Intelligent Technology has broadened its autonomous mobile robot (AMR) and automated guided vehicle (AGV) portfolio, adding forklift‑type robots, latent mobile robots and a unified control platform. The company leverages digital‑twin simulation to pre‑validate deployments, shortening commissioning and boosting reliability....
Ukraine's Sting Interceptor Could Halt Iran Drone Assault
Defenses in the Persian Gulf are collapsing as Iran continues large drone attacks, but there's a country that already has the answer. Enter Ukraine's Sting interceptor. Note: name correction at the end 📸: Wild Hornets #drone #iranwar #geopolitics
Augmented Autonomy Powers Unsupervised Farming Robots
Augmented Autonomy Enables Unsupervised #Robotic Operations in Agriculture by @naiotech #AgriTech #Robotics #Innovation #Technology #TechForGood https://t.co/ujMYsfKUwV
The Coming Compute War in Ukraine
Ukrainian forces depend on cloud‑based AI to coordinate massive drone swarms, but Russian electronic‑warfare can sever the uplinks, turning pre‑programmed drones into ineffective assets. Bandwidth constraints and energy shortages expose a critical compute vulnerability, prompting a shift toward a layered...
Tetsuwan
Tetsuwan Scientific, an AI‑driven robotics firm, has unveiled autonomous scientific agents that can independently design, execute, and interpret wet‑lab experiments. By integrating large‑language‑model reasoning with precision robotic hardware, the platform automates complex protocols traditionally performed by human technicians. The company’s...
Fly-Inspired Vision Lets Tiny Robots Fly Smarter
Small robots that mimic the sensor-rich fly motion vision system could optimize flight dynamics without the need for complex computation. Learn more in Science #Robotics: https://t.co/HQUR8LdubY https://t.co/aMJfGWwYKT
Tech Stacks, AI, and New Regulations: What Drone Surveyors Need to Know Now
The Commercial UAV News webinar highlighted how drone surveying firms must first secure data‑first workflows before layering AI, adopt a three‑tiered, modular tech stack, and address new regulatory demands. Panelists stressed that clean, structured data and automated pipelines are prerequisites...
Terra’s Drones Will Now Come with Weapons as It Begins Building Combat Ready Systems for the Nigerian Military
Terra Industries, a Nigerian‑focused defence startup, is now fitting its UAVs with machine guns and rocket launchers, turning surveillance platforms into combat‑ready systems for the Nigerian military. The classified project will be operated remotely by military personnel rather than Terra’s...
Arctech Presents Dry Cleaning Robot Weighing Just 38 Kg
Chinese firm Arctech Solar has launched the Star Shine I, a 38 kg autonomous dry‑cleaning robot for utility‑scale photovoltaic plants. The robot can travel 10‑18 m per minute, covering up to 3 km round‑trip (9 km one‑way) and achieves more than 99.5 % cleaning efficiency....
Private 5G Seen as Fix for Warehouse Robot Connectivity
Private‑5G specialist Celona and Digi International have teamed up to deliver a plug‑and‑play Robots‑as‑a‑Service (RaaS) platform that replaces unreliable Wi‑Fi in large‑scale warehouses. By integrating Digi’s rugged edge routers and gateways with Celona’s 5G LAN, the solution offers low‑latency, high‑capacity...
DHL Supply Chain Deploys SVT Robotics’ SOFTBOT Across Global Network
DHL Supply Chain has rolled out SVT Robotics’ SOFTBOT platform across its global warehouse network, now live in 30 sites with a target of over 100 within three years. The middleware replaces custom‑coded integrations that once took six to eight...
A 2016 Warning About Weaponized Drones: The Army’s Early sUAS Threat Experiment
In August 2016 the U.S. Army Systems Adaptive Red Team ran the UAS Threat Experiment 2‑16, using off‑the‑shelf drones to simulate attacks on convoys and urban targets. The trials examined improvised explosive payloads, autonomous targeting of moving vehicles, and command‑and‑control...
How Automation Is Solving Operational Inefficiency
Operational bottlenecks—approval delays, duplicated effort, siloed systems—continue to drain productivity and erode customer experience. SS&C Blue Prism argues that pinpointing root causes through process mapping and employee feedback is the first step toward remediation. The firm outlines a three‑stage automation...
The Clementine Churchill Hospital First Private Hospital in the UK to Install Da Vinci 5
Circle Health Group’s Clementine Churchill Hospital in London has become the UK’s first private facility to install Intuitive’s da Vinci 5 surgical system. The fifth‑generation robot, featuring AI analytics and ten‑thousand‑fold computing power, supports minimally invasive procedures in general surgery,...
What We're Watching: Touring the ABB Robotics Headquarters | 2025
ABB Robotics unveiled a new Auburn Hills, Michigan campus that consolidates training, manufacturing, testing, and customer‑facing operations under a single roof. The expansion reflects a strategic push to deepen ABB’s U.S. footprint and streamline product development cycles. Facility features include...