Watch: Cyborg Beetles, Open Source Humanoids, More

Video Friday is your weekly collection of superior robotics movies, collected by your mates at IEEE Spectrum robotics. We additionally publish a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics occasions for the following few months. Please send us your events for inclusion.

IEEE World Haptics: 8–11 July 2025, SUWON, SOUTH KOREA

IFAC Symposium on Robotics: 15–18 July 2025, PARIS

RoboCup 2025: 15–21 July 2025, BAHIA, BRAZIL

RO-MAN 2025: 25–29 August 2025, EINDHOVEN, THE NETHERLANDS

CLAWAR 2025: 5–7 September 2025, SHENZHEN, CHINA

ACTUATE 2025: 23–24 September 2025, SAN FRANCISCO

CoRL 2025: 27–30 September 2025, SEOUL

IEEE Humanoids: 30 September–2 October 2025, SEOUL

World Robot Summit: 10–12 October 2025, OSAKA, JAPAN

IROS 2025: 19–25 October 2025, HANGZHOU, CHINA

Take pleasure in at the moment’s movies!

Widespread beetles outfitted with microchip backpacks may in the future be used to assist search and rescue crews find survivors inside hours as a substitute of days following disasters resembling constructing and mine collapses. The College of Queensland’s Dr. Thang Vo-Doan and Analysis Assistant Lachlan Fitzgerald have demonstrated they’ll remotely information darkling beetles (Zophobas morio) fitted with the packs by way of online game controllers.

[ Paper ] by way of [ University of Queensland ]

Thanks, Thang!

That is our newest work about six-doF hand-based teleoperation for omnidirectional aerial robots, which reveals an intuitive teleoperation system for superior aerial robotic. This work has been offered in 2025 IEEE/RSJ Worldwide Convention on Clever Robots and Programs (IROS 2025).

[ DRAGON Lab ]

Thanks, Moju!

Fairly positive we’ve seen this LimX humanoid earlier than, and we’re seeing it once more proper now, however hey, the primary reveal is simply forward!

[ LimX Dynamics ]

Thanks, Jinyan!

Soft robot arms use gentle supplies and constructions to imitate the passive compliance of organic arms that bend and prolong. Right here, we present how counting on patterning constructions as a substitute of inherent materials properties permits gentle robotic arms to stay compliant whereas repeatedly transmitting torque to their atmosphere. We exhibit a soft robotic arm constituted of a pair of mechanical metamaterials that act as compliant constant-velocity joints.

[ Paper ] by way of [ Transformative Robotics Lab ]

Promoting a platform is admittedly onerous, however I hope Ok-Scale can succeed with their open source humanoid.

[ K-Scale ]

MIT CSAIL researchers mixed GenAI and a physics simulation engine to refine robot designs. The outcome: a machine that out-jumped a robotic designed by people.

[ MIT News ]

ARMstrong Dex is a human-scale dual-arm hydraulic robotic below improvement on the Korea Atomic Vitality Analysis Institute (KAERI) for disaster response functions. Designed with dimensions much like an grownup human, it combines human-equivalent attain and dexterity with power output that exceeds human bodily capabilities, enabling it to carry out excessive heavy-duty duties in hazardous environments.

[ Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute ]

This can be a demonstration of in-hand object rotation with Torobo Hand. Torobo Hand is modeled in simulation, and a management coverage is educated inside a number of hours utilizing large-scale parallel reinforcement learning in Isaac Sim. The educated coverage may be executed with none extra coaching in each a distinct simulator (MuJoCo) and on the actual Torobo Hand.

[ Tokyo Robotics ]

Since 2005, Ekso Bionics has been growing and manufacturing exoskeleton bionic devices that may be strapped on as wearable robots to boost the power, mobility, and endurance of troopers, sufferers, and employees. These robots have a wide range of functions within the medical, navy, industrial, and shopper markets, serving to rehabilitation sufferers stroll once more and employees protect their power.

[ Ekso Bionics ]

Sponsored by Raytheon, an RTX enterprise, the 2025 east coast Autonomous Car Competitors was held at XElevate in Northern Virginia. Scholar Engineering Groups from 5 universities participated in a two-semester undertaking to design, develop, combine, and compete two autonomous vehicles that might determine, talk, and ship a medical package with the most effective accuracy and time.

[ RTX ]

This panel is from the Humanoids Summit in London: “Investing within the Humanoids Robotics Ecosystem—a VC Perspective.”

[ Humanoids Summit ]