Video Friday: Make This Face

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.

CLAWAR 2022: 12–14 September 2022, AZORES, PORTUGAL

IROS 2022: 23–27 October 2022, KYOTO, JAPAN

ANA Avatar XPRIZE Finals: 4–5 November 2022, LOS ANGELES

Enjoy today's videos!

The engineering here is definitely impressive, but I’m (still) not sold on anthropomorphic robots.

[ Engineered Arts ]

The best look we’ve had yet at Robust.AI’s hardware and software.

[ Robust.ai ]

Featuring 4K/60fps video, a 155-degree FOV, and an upgraded stabilization algorithm, DJI Avata is the ultimate flight experience drone.

[ DJI ]

I know this commercial is supposed to be selling me on Vector, but what is that store, and how do I buy all those other robots?

And here’s what Vector has going on inside, all of which you can get for US $400:

[ DDL ]

This little device can cleverly communicate spatial information based entirely on feel. It may not be quite as easy to follow as looking at a screen, but on the other hand, you’re far less likely to mindlessly walk into traffic while using it.

[ Paper ]

Thanks, Ad!

Naver Labs’ ARTO-1 robot is learning to draw.

[ Naver Labs ]

Since November 2021, University of Washington researchers from the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science and Engineering and the Applied Physics Laboratory have been advancing autonomous driving in off-road terrain with novel approaches to perception, planning, and control. UW has been developing this work under DARPA’s Robotic Autonomy in Complex Environments with Resiliency (RACER) program.

UW’s approach uses only onboard sensors and compute and does not reference GPS or predefined maps for localization. The team conducts autonomous vehicle testing in a variety of terrain and weather conditions in the State of Washington.

[ UW ]

Asimov forgot to include the law about bananas being gross, and how robots should refuse to work with them.

[ Shadow ]

Haven’t seen one of Toyota’s musical robots in a while.

[ Kazumichi Moriyama ]

Always interesting to see robots and humans building cars while paying attention to who is doing what.

[ Kawasaki ]

A complete autonomous aerial system that can fly smoothly through tunnels with dimensions narrow to 0.6 m is presented. The system contains a motion planner that generates smooth mini-jerk trajectories along the tunnel center lines, which are extracted according to the map and Euclidean Distance Field (EDF), and its practical speed range is obtained through computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and flight data analyses. Extensive flight experiments on the quadrotor are conducted inside multiple narrow tunnels to validate the planning framework as well as the robustness of the whole system.

[ Paper ]

Part of me wants to be grumpy that DJI is buzzing drones around Everest, but the footage is amazing.

[ DJI ]

We are developing a new smart robotic assistant to help humans in multiple manufacturing applications. This enables human to focus on value-added tasks such as the assembly and inspection of a motor module, while our robotic assistant performs supportive tasks such as putting the tools away.

[ CAM USC Viterbi ]

This is a highlight reel of ground (UGV), aerial (UAS, UAV), and marine (USV, AUV, ROV) robots deployed by the Center for Robot-Assisted Search and Rescue to over 30 disasters, starting in 2001 with World Trade Center.

[ CRASAR ]

MEAM 510 - Design of Mechatronic Systems is a class offered at the School of Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania. This upper-level/graduate elective course provides an integrated introduction to the design of computer-controlled electromechanical systems. It is a hands-on course that focuses on individual and team projects culminating in a public event at the end of the semester where the electromechanical creations are demonstrated.

[ UPenn ]