Today's Robotics Pulse
Chinese startup Spirit AI tops global AI robot leaderboard, beating Nvidia
Spirit AI’s embodied intelligence model, Spirit v1.6, achieved a score of 1,924 on the RoboArena benchmark, surpassing Nvidia’s Cosmos3‑Nano‑Policy. The company also disclosed a ¥1.5 billion (≈$222 million) funding round to accelerate its robotics AI platform.
Also developing:
By the numbers: OneRobotics acquires Nanoleaf for $40M
Milrem Outlines Plans for Havoc and Vector as Ukrainian THeMIS Numbers Set to Double
Estonian robotics firm Milrem Robotics announced it will deliver 150 Tracked Hybrid Modular Infantry System (THeMIS) uncrewed ground vehicles to Ukrainian forces by the end of 2026, more than doubling the 70 already supplied. The majority—about 90%—are configured for basic cargo transport and casualty evacuation, though the platform can be re‑tasked for other roles after delivery. Two of the previously delivered units have been lost, including one destroyed by a first‑person‑view UAV. Milrem also outlined development timelines for larger next‑generation platforms, Havoc and an upgraded Vector, aiming for production before the decade closes.
U.S. Air Force Seeks VTOL Drone for Operations in Qatar
The U.S. Air Force’s Task Force 99 is seeking a vertical‑take‑off‑and‑landing (VTOL) unmanned aircraft system to replace its runway‑dependent Group 2 drone for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance missions in Qatar. Existing platforms need a 200‑meter runway, limiting launch locations and increasing risk....
WOMEN in ROBOTICS 2026 Awarded by International Federation of Robotics
The International Federation of Robotics (IFR) recognized eleven women in 2026 for their contributions to robotics, highlighting the growing role of female talent in the sector. Global industrial robot installations are expected to exceed 700,000 units by 2028, driven by...
TI Accelerates the Next Generation of Physical AI with NVIDIA
Texas Instruments announced a partnership with NVIDIA to accelerate safe humanoid robot deployment. The collaboration merges TI’s real‑time motor control, sensing, radar and power technologies with NVIDIA’s Jetson Thor compute and Holoscan ecosystem. A sensor‑fusion solution using TI’s IWR6243 mmWave radar...
Dexterity's World Model, Foresight, Delivers a Big Leap for Physical AI Powered Truck Loading
Dexterity unveiled Foresight, a physics‑consistent world model and 4D packing agent that powers its dual‑arm robot Mech for autonomous truck loading. The system evaluates up to 400 placement options per box in under 400 ms, optimizing density, stability, reachability and parallelism....
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The Battery Decision in the New Age of Commercial UAV Operations
The commercial UAV sector is approaching a post‑Part 108 era where fleet‑based operations will dominate, shifting focus from single‑aircraft flight time to rapid aircraft turnaround. Operators must choose between battery‑swapping docks that deliver minute‑level exchanges and fast‑charging stations that minimize inventory...
Humanoid Robots Master Parkour and Acquire Human-Like Agility
Researchers at Amazon Frontier AI & Robotics and UC Berkeley unveiled Perceptive Humanoid Parkour (PHP), a framework that lets the Unitree G1 humanoid robot perform dynamic parkour using onboard perception. By combining motion‑matching with a teacher‑student reinforcement‑learning pipeline, a single visuomotor...
New Optical Tactile Sensor Tracks Head Motion in Radiotherapy
Developing an optical tactile sensor for tracking head motion during radiotherapy: an interview with Bhoomika Gandhi https://t.co/RvtMbgrSUf
Hampshire Hospitals Celebrates 100th Surgical Procedure Using Pioneering State-of-the-Art Robotic System
Surgeons at Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust have performed their 100th operation using the da Vinci 5 robotic‑assisted surgical system, just six months after becoming the first UK NHS trust to install the next‑generation robot. The system, deployed at Basingstoke...
Launch of the VIGILANSEA Project: Toward Autonomous Maritime Persistence Between Surface and Aerial Systems
DIODON has launched VIGILANSEA, a three‑year France 2030‑funded programme with SeaOwl and ISAE‑SUPAERO to create a long‑endurance maritime UAV and the DIODON REEF station that autonomously launches, recovers and recharges the UAV from a USV. Building on prior NATO and Dronathlon integrations,...
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries to Test Autonomous Vehicle Ramp-Merging System on Tokyo Expressway
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Machinery Systems will conduct a live demonstration of an infrastructure‑based ramp‑merging support system for autonomous vehicles on Tokyo’s Metropolitan Expressway. The trial, scheduled for September to November 2026 near the Yoyogi inbound entrance, will test how roadside...
Samoco Begins Prototyping Flagship Product with PHTA Makerspace
Samoco, a smart medical transport device firm, has begun prototyping its flagship blood‑preservation system in the PHTA Makerspace. The device actively cools and agitates blood during road or drone transport, aiming to keep units viable in hot, remote environments. Up...
SOLen 3D Printed Soft Optical Sensor For Mechanosensing
Researchers unveiled SOLen, a fully 3D‑printed soft optical sensor that embeds a miniature lens to guide light through an elastomeric waveguide for mechanosensing. By routing light internally, the device measures pressure, stretch and shear without metal traces, reducing drift, hysteresis...
What Does Ukraine’s P1SUN Drone Name Actually Mean?
I’m on the edge of my seat waiting for foreign operators of Ukraine’s interceptor drone P1SUN to discover what its seemingly purely technical name actually stands for.
PAL Robotics Showcases TIAGo Pro at MWC Barcelona 2026
PAL Robotics used Mobile World Congress Barcelona 2026 to showcase its next‑generation mobile manipulator, TIAGo Pro. The robot’s open‑source software stack and real‑time teleoperation demo highlighted its adaptability for research and industry deployments. CEO Francesco Ferro led a round‑table on human‑robot...
HD Hyundai Selects Siemens Xcelerator for Integrated Digital Shipbuilding Platform
HD Hyundai’s shipbuilding arm, HD KSOE, has selected Siemens’ Xcelerator platform to create an integrated digital shipbuilding environment. The platform will provide a unified data backbone linking CAD, PLM, digital manufacturing, automation and simulation, eliminating data discontinuities from design through...
Industrial IoT in Manufacturing: Driving Smart Factory Efficiency and Sustainability
Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) is turning smart factories from concept to reality, linking sensors, edge devices, AI analytics and cloud platforms across production lines. Real‑time data enables predictive maintenance, automated workflows and energy optimization, driving higher productivity while trimming...
How to Build Trust Into Automation at Scale
Autonomous robots are moving from pilot projects to large‑scale deployments across warehouses, retail and healthcare, turning robotics‑as‑a‑service into a core managed‑service offering. As fleets grow, each additional machine widens the attack surface, blurring IT and OT responsibilities and exposing misconfigurations,...
MQ‑9 Reapers Dominate Ground and Naval Strikes In
MQ-9 Reapers appear do be doing a LOT of the heavy lifting against mobile ground targets and vessels in Epic Fury.
Self-Supervised VLMs Reset Thousands of Pick‑place Demos
Congrats @willjhliang, @JasonMa2020 @dineshjayaraman and collaborators on this cool combination of VLMs, keypoint detectors, and GOFE trajectory warping to self-supervise and reset 1000s of diverse pick-and-place demonstrations that are then used to train a VLA policy.
Of Microchips and Mud: Repelling Drones in the Donbas
Ukrainian forces on the Donbas front line are confronting a relentless wave of Russian attack drones that patrol the open terrain. Soldiers rely on handheld drone detectors and small‑arms fire to knock out the buzzing threats, while command posts fuse...
Bio-Inspired Methods Help Guide Coordination in Underwater Robot Swarms
A new review of 446 papers from 2001‑2025 shows underwater swarm robotics gaining rapid traction. Researchers highlight bio‑inspired coordination rules—drawn from fish schools and predator‑prey dynamics—as a way to overcome the latency and bandwidth limits of acoustic communication. The study...
Example of a Pick Up / Drop Off Maneuver by Nuro-Lucid-Uber Test Vehicle
A joint demonstration in San Francisco showed a robotaxi built on Lucid’s Gravity electric‑vehicle platform, powered by Nuro’s autonomous driver software and operated by Uber. The vehicle performed a seamless pick‑up/drop‑off (PuDo) maneuver, highlighting the integration of high‑end EV hardware...
Near Earth Autonomy and Team Fly Uncrewed Logistics Black Hawks
Near Earth Autonomy, together with Honeywell, Moog and XP Services, has completed a year of integration and flight testing for the RUC‑60, an optionally crewed Black Hawk converted for autonomous logistics. The team demonstrated the first fully automated takeoff‑to‑landing flight...
Robot Learns by Real‑world Play, Not Simulation
Super awesome - instead of learning in sim, the robot *learns in real life*, moving objects like a toddler for 26+ hours. I feel for the poor Cal grad student who had to babysit this 😔 https://tether-research.github.io
Perspective From Zebra Technologies: Pocket Automation – the Pragmatic Path to a Resilient Supply Chain in 2026
Zebra Technologies argues that by 2026 the most effective supply‑chain upgrade will be "pocket automation"—targeted, workflow‑level upgrades rather than full‑site, lights‑out factories. The approach promises ROI within 24 months, leveraging AI‑enabled handhelds, wearables and RFID to augment frontline workers. Incremental...
Will AI Drones, Robots and Wearable Sensors Revolutionize Workplace Safety?
Artificial intelligence‑enabled wearables, drones and robots are poised to transform occupational health and safety, especially in high‑risk sectors such as construction, mining and oil‑gas. Real‑time monitoring of posture, fatigue, noise and hazardous exposure can alert workers before injuries occur, while...
Michigan House Committee Hears Proposal to Restrict State Drone Purchases
Michigan’s House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee reviewed a bipartisan package of five bills (HB 5328‑5332) aimed at tightening drone regulations for state agencies. The core provisions ban the use of state funds to purchase or operate drones manufactured by companies...
Comau Expands Wearable Robotics with New Mate-XT GO Exoskeleton
Comau has introduced the Mate‑XT GO, a sub‑3 kg wearable exoskeleton that supports arm and shoulder movements for repetitive or overhead tasks. Certified as Category II personal protective equipment, it can be donned in 30 seconds and removed in 10 seconds, delivering up to 50 percent...
ANYbotics Achieves ISO 27001 Certification
ANYbotics earned ISO 27001 certification on its first audit, achieving zero non‑conformities. The independent, third‑party audit validates the company’s world‑class Information Security Management System. Certification directly benefits customers operating robots in hazardous and mission‑critical environments by embedding security into design, build,...
Mutable Tactics Raises $2.1 Million for AI Drone Coordination in Satellite-Denied Environments
Mutable Tactics, a British AI startup, secured $2.1 million in pre‑seed funding to build software that lets swarms of military drones operate autonomously when satellite navigation and communications are unavailable. The round was led by Seraphim Space, with participation from the...
Warthog: A Rugged Platform for Industrial Automation
The Warthog UGV is a rugged, all‑terrain unmanned ground vehicle built for industrial automation and research, offering a 272 kg payload, 18 km/h top speed, and IP65‑rated steel/aluminum construction. It comes with ROS 2 preinstalled, a Gazebo simulation model, and flexible power outputs...
Stryker Execs Discuss Mako RPS Launch at AAOS
Stryker unveiled its handheld surgical robot, Mako RPS, at the AAOS meeting, following FDA clearance and its first cases in January. The device is in a limited market release that will run through the first half of the year, with broader...
Robotics Incubator at Technical University of Munich Receives Additional €3.5M in Government Funding
Technical University of Munich’s robo.innovate incubator has secured an additional €3.5 million from the Bavarian Ministry of Economic Affairs, bringing total public funding to over €7 million and extending the program for the next three and a half years. Since its 2021...
Sony to Showcase Advanced Drone Imaging and Sensor Technologies at Amsterdam Drone Week 2026
Sony will exhibit at Amsterdam Drone Week 2026, showcasing its imaging and sensor portfolio for commercial drones. The lineup includes the full‑frame ILX‑LR1 camera, Alpha series cameras, the FCB‑ER9500 4K/60 block camera, and the AS‑DT1 miniature LiDAR sensor. Sony also...
AI Takes Center Stage at MWC 2026
Artificial intelligence takes centrestage at Mobile World Congress 2026! https://t.co/hNUVQcsmb1 via @YouTube #MWC26 #MWC2026 #AI #Robotics #Robots #PhysicalAI #humanoid #ArtificialIntelligence @lexfridman @KirkDBorne @Ronald_vanLoon @erikbryn @antgrasso @sallyeaves @Nicochan33 @HaroldSinnott @mvollmer1 @marcusborba @CatherineAdenle @vinod1975 @YuHelenYu @ingliguori @fogoros @ylecun @TerenceLeungSF @SourabhSKatoch @wil_bielert @HsrYueli...
Ukraine Dispatches Drone Warfare Experts to Middle East and Gulf States
Ukraine will send experts in drone warfare to help the Middle East and Gulf states
EPropelled Announces Largest Expansion of Motor Controllers (ESCs) and Intelligent Power Systems, Strengthening Electronic Propulsion Leadership
ePropelled announced its largest expansion of electronic control technologies, adding new motor controllers (ESCs) and Intelligent Power Systems (iPS) for aerial, ground and marine platforms. The upgraded ESCs feature advanced algorithms, real‑time diagnostics and networked data services that boost torque...
IEEE Launches New Robot Learning Journal March 30
The @IEEE Transactions on Robot Learning (T-RL) will launch on March 30! Co-EiCs: Todd Murphey and Vincent Vanhoucke https://t.co/v8bRowWtHr
MIT Breakthrough Lets Rescue Robots Map Environments Instantly
This is where #AI + #IoT + #robotics become mission-critical. Robots that understand their environment don’t just move faster, they save lives. MIT just unveiled a breakthrough that lets search-and-rescue robots rapidly map large, unpredictable spaces in real time. @MITAeroAstro @MITEngineering #CES2026 🔗...
Canada’s Able Innovations Deploys Robotic System That Transfers Patients Between Beds at US Hospital
Able Innovations has installed its ALTA Platform robotic patient‑transfer system at Lahey Hospital & Medical Center, marking the first U.S. deployment of the technology. The system automates lateral moves between beds, imaging tables, stretchers and operating‑room tables, allowing a single...
Altera Advances FPGA-Based Physical AI for Robotics and Edge Applications
Altera showcased its Agilex 3 and Agilex 5 FPGA families at Embedded World, highlighting a unified sensor‑to‑actuator architecture for physical AI in robotics, industrial vision, and edge devices. Live demos demonstrated high‑definition camera fusion, medical imaging preprocessing, and deterministic low‑latency robotic control....
Simbe Becomes First Retail Robotics Company to Achieve UL 3300 Certification for Autonomous Robot Tally
Simbe announced that its autonomous shelf‑scanning robot Tally has earned UL 3300 certification, making it the first retail robotics company to achieve the standard. The certification validates Tally’s mechanical, electrical and software safety after passing more than 40 rigorous tests for...
Video Wednesday
On November 20, 2020, Verb and Johnson & Johnson unveiled OTTAVA, a six‑armed robotic platform designed for minimally invasive procedures. The system combines advanced haptic feedback with AI‑driven motion planning to enhance surgeon precision. Early trials suggest OTTADA can reduce operative time...
Why Even the Most Automated Factories Still Need the Human Touch
The article examines the rise of "lights‑out" or dark‑factory manufacturing, where robotics, AI, and machine‑vision enable production with minimal human presence. While high‑volume, low‑variability lines—such as Chinese EV plants—show impressive productivity gains, the piece warns that full automation falters in...
Softbank Robotics America Introduces New AI-Enabled Commercial Cleaning Robots
SoftBank Robotics America unveiled three AI‑enabled commercial cleaning robots—Omnie, V40 2.0, and Phantas 1.3—developed with Gausium. The machines combine computer vision, vision‑language models, and 3D LiDAR to navigate complex indoor environments with minimal human input. Targeted at airports, retail hubs, senior living...
Cyngn Deploys DriveMod Tugger at WEG Electric Motor Facility
Cyngn announced a commercial contract to install its DriveMod Tugger at WEG’s electric‑motor plant in Bluffton, Indiana. The autonomous tugger will move up to 60 pallets of components daily, replacing single‑pallet forklift runs. By handling predictable transport, the system frees forklift...
Inside CMR Surgical’s Big Pivot Before US Robot Launch
CMR Surgical’s new CEO, Massimiliano Colella, halted the planned U.S. debut of the first‑generation Versius robot, opting to wait for the upgraded Versius Plus platform. The second‑generation system secured FDA clearance for gallbladder‑removal surgery and is slated for a soft launch later...
Sunseeker Launches New Self-Driving-Level Robot Mower
Sunseeker Robotics is set to launch the S4 robotic mower on March 3, 2026, a wire‑free system that uses LiDAR and AI‑vision to autonomously tend residential lawns up to 1,000 square meters. The mower maps terrain in real time, avoids...
Torc Robotics Takes Autonomous Trucks Into Michigan’s Snow and Ice
Torc Robotics is extending its autonomous‑truck program to Michigan, testing the latest Freightliner Cascadia‑based chassis on snow, ice and rain‑slicked roads. The initiative marks a strategic shift from the Sun Belt corridors that dominate the industry, allowing Torc to validate...