Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your friends at IEEE Spectrum robotics. We also post a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next few months. Please send us your events for inclusion.
IEEE RO-MAN 2023: 28–31 August 2023, BUSAN, SOUTH KOREA
IROS 2023: 1–5 October 2023, DETROIT
CLAWAR 2023: 2–4 October 2023, FLORIANOPOLIS, BRAZIL
Humanoids 2023: 12–14 December 2023, AUSTIN, TEXAS
Enjoy today’s videos!
Humans are social creatures and learn from each other, even from a young age. Infants keenly observe their parents, siblings, or caregivers. They watch, imitate and replay what they see to learn skills and behaviors.
The way babies learn and explore their surroundings inspired researchers at Carnegie Mellon University and Meta AI to develop a new way to teach robots how to simultaneously learn multiple skills and leverage them to tackle unseen, everyday tasks. The researchers set out to develop a robotic AI agent with manipulation abilities equivalent to a 3-year-old child.
[ CMU ]
You’ll never be able to justify using a disposable coffee cup again thanks to a robot that does all the dishes for you.
[ Dino Robotics ]
While filming our new robot, this lovely curious cat became interested in the robot and drone. After a while, it started approaching the robot, and the following interaction ensued.
[ Zarrouk Lab ]
Robots are 100 percent more capable in slow motion with music.
[ MIT ]
Legged robots are heading to Mars!
[ JPL ]
I’m not sure how practical this is, but it’s sure fascinating to watch.
[ Somatic ]
Watch until the end, which is mildly NSFW.
Fun experiment aiming to gather data [for modeling] autonomous vehicles’ motion on ice. This is related to our vehicle dynamics work led by Dominic Baril, a Ph.D. student in our lab! Stay tuned for... paper preprint!
[ Norlab ]
Nauticus Robotics is working on something new.
The UBTECH humanoid robot Walker X can be used for smart SPS component sorting and intelligent aging testing in automated factory settings, which is another innovative step forward in the exploration of the commercial applications of humanoid robots.
With floors like those, why the heck wouldn’t you be using wheels, though?
[ UBTECH ]
BASF collaborates with ANYbotics to evaluate the potential of automated condition monitoring and digital documentation of operational data at their facilities. ANYmal X demonstrates its capabilities for extending robotic inspection into Ex-environments (Zone 1) that haven’t been accessible for this technology before.
[ ANYbotics ]
What meal is this robot kitting? My guess is some little tortillas, a single cherry tomato, guacamole, and walnuts. Grim.
[ Covariant ]
We present a mobile robot that provides an older adult with a handlebar located anywhere in space—“Handle Anywhere.” The robot consists of an omnidirectional mobile base attached to a repositionable handlebar.
[ MIT ]
The KUKA Innovation Award has been held annually since 2014 and is addressed to developers, graduates and research teams from universities or companies. For this year’s award, the applicants were asked to use open interfaces in our newly introduced robot operating system iiQKA and to add their own hardware and software components.
The Team Fashion & Robotics from the University of Art and Design Linz worked to create a way for small and medium-sized textile companies and designers to increase their production by setting up microfactories with collaborative robot systems, while simultaneously enabling more efficient sorting and finishing processes on an industrial scale.
[ Kuka ]
Dive into a world of cutting-edge innovation and robotic cuteness, as we take a peek into Misty’s unique personality and human expressions. From surprise to excitement, from curiosity to joy, from amusement to sadness–Misty is a canvas to create your very own fun and engaging social interactions!
[ Misty Robotics ]
We are thrilled to launch ICCV 2023 SLAM Challenge. Navigate through complex and challenging environments with our TartanAir &SubT-MRS datasets, pursing the robustness of your SLAM algorithms. Let’s redefine sim-to-real transfer together.
[ AirLab ]
Check out how the ZenRobotics Fast Picker was retrofitted into a Grundon MRF in England. The Fast Picker has optimised their waste sorting process to pick higher-value products (HDPE & PET Plastic) and increase efficiency.
[ ZenRobotics ]
Ants are highly capable in many behaviors relevant to robotics. Our recent work has focused on bridging the gap to understanding the neural circuits that underlie capacities such as visual orientation, path integration, and the combination of multiple cues. A new direction for this research is to investigate the manipulation capabilites of ants, which allow them to handle a wide diversity of arbitrary, unknown objects with a skill that goes well beyond current robotics.
[ Festo ]
Evan Ackerman is a senior editor at IEEE Spectrum. Since 2007, he has written over 6,000 articles on robotics and technology. He has a degree in Martian geology and is excellent at playing bagpipes.
