https://weeklyrobotics.com 2026-06-09T09:38:34+01:00 Weekly Robotics https://weeklyrobotics.com contact@weeklyrobotics.com https://weeklyrobotics.com/img/logos/logo_horizontal_black.svg 215ced https://weeklyrobotics.com/weekly-robotics-363 2026-06-09T00:00:00+01:00 Weekly Robotics 363: a benchmark for humanoids, robotics as a pre-paradigm field, kilometer-scale navigation for UAVs without GNSS, autonomous mapping with VSLAM using a cheap rover, how I was close to destroying my 3D printer, and more! https://weeklyrobotics.com/favicon.ico <blockquote> <p>ICRA 2026 was lots of fun! Having attended ICRA in 2023 and staying on top of what is happening in robotics, I thought I knew what I would see - lots of humanoids and VLA demos. Boy, was I wrong. It feels like 30% of the exhibition floor was about robot hands and tactile sensing. There were quite a few humanoid robots and VLA demos. Another change from three years ago I noticed: close to 40% of exhibitors were Chinese companies. The change and speed of development there is wild. Also, there was a <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7467947999168692225/">robot Panda</a>, which I really liked!</p> </blockquote> <div class="issue-sponsors-lineup"> <div class="issue-sponsors-divider"></div> <div class="issue-sponsors-content"> <span class="issue-sponsors-text">This issue is brought to you by our sponsors:</span> <div class="sponsor-lineup-container"> <a href="https://www.anyscale.com/?utm_source=newsletter&amp;utm_campaign=weeklyrobotics" target="_blank" rel="noopener" class="sponsor-logo-container"> <img src="https://weeklyrobotics.com/img/sponsors/anyscale.png" alt="anyscale logo" /> </a> <a href="https://foxglove.dev/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" class="sponsor-logo-container"> <img src="https://weeklyrobotics.com/img/sponsors/foxglove.png" alt="foxglove logo" /> </a> <a href="https://www.jiga.io/?utm_source=Jiga&amp;utm_medium=communities&amp;utm_campaign=weekly-robotics" target="_blank" rel="noopener" class="sponsor-logo-container"> <img src="https://weeklyrobotics.com/img/sponsors/jiga.png" alt="jiga logo" /> </a> <a href="https://pointonenav.com/?utm_source=weeklyrobotics&amp;utm_medium=newsletter" target="_blank" rel="noopener" class="sponsor-logo-container"> <img src="https://weeklyrobotics.com/img/sponsors/point_one.png" alt="point_one logo" /> </a> </div> </div> <div class="issue-sponsors-divider"></div> </div> <h2 id="nist-proposes-a-baseline-performance-benchmark-for-humanoid-robots">NIST proposes a baseline performance benchmark for humanoid robots</h2> <picture> <source srcset="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/363/NIST_proposes_a_baseline_performance_benchmark_for_humanoid_robots.webp" type="image/webp" /> <img src="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/363/NIST_proposes_a_baseline_performance_benchmark_for_humanoid_robots.jpg" alt="NIST proposes a baseline performance benchmark for humanoid robots cover" /> </picture> <p>The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is coming up with a benchmark ‘apparatus’ for a humanoid robot. The test aims to cover mobility, manipulation, and cognition. One thing that makes me wonder - can this approach work in the world of VLAs? Surely, one could train exclusively for an open benchmark while neglecting real-world scenarios? I’m looking forward to seeing how this is implemented and if the industry will follow.</p> <div class="learn-more-container"> <a href="https://www.therobotreport.com/nist-proposes-a-baseline-performance-benchmark-for-humanoid-robots/" class="pure-button">Source</a> </div> <hr /> <h2 id="why-robotics-is-a-pre-paradigm-field">Why Robotics is a Pre-Paradigm Field</h2> <picture> <source srcset="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/363/Why_Robotics_is_a_Pre-Paradigm_Field.webp" type="image/webp" /> <img src="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/363/Why_Robotics_is_a_Pre-Paradigm_Field.jpg" alt="Why Robotics is a Pre-Paradigm Field cover" /> </picture> <p>I thouroughly enjoyed this essay on the current state of robotics. It starts with a definition of a paradigm shift, and only gets better from there:</p> <blockquote> <p>Thomas Kuhn wrote The Structure of Scientific Revolutions in 1962, introducing the notion of a paradigm shift in science: when a field of science converges around an organizing principle that changes everything. The discovery of DNA. The periodic table of elements. The germ theory of disease.</p> </blockquote> <div class="learn-more-container"> <a href="https://whattotelltherobot.com/p/why-robotics-is-a-pre-paradigm-field" class="pure-button">Source</a> </div> <hr /> <h2 id="kilometer-scale-gnss-denied-uav-navigation">Kilometer-Scale GNSS-Denied UAV Navigation</h2> <picture> <source srcset="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/363/Kilometer-Scale_GNSS-Denied_UAV_Navigation.webp" type="image/webp" /> <img src="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/363/Kilometer-Scale_GNSS-Denied_UAV_Navigation.jpg" alt="Kilometer-Scale GNSS-Denied UAV Navigation cover" /> </picture> <p>Here is an interesting approach to drone localization: load a digital elevation model of the area you are flying in and use it as a reference for voxel-based mapping. The result is a system capable of correcting odometry errors during long-distance flights to within 5-15m of total error.</p> <div class="learn-more-container"> <a href="https://gnssdenied.github.io/" class="pure-button">Source</a> </div> <hr /> <h2 id="autonomously-mapping-with-visual-slam">Autonomously Mapping with Visual SLAM</h2> <picture> <source srcset="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/363/Autonomously_Mapping_with_Visual_SLAM.webp" type="image/webp" /> <img src="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/363/Autonomously_Mapping_with_Visual_SLAM.jpg" alt="Autonomously Mapping with Visual SLAM cover" /> </picture> <p>Michael Hart tinkered with the $99 Viam Rover to turn it into a ROS-based rover capable of doing autonomous mapping. Michael open-sourced this work through <a href="https://github.com/mikelikesrobots/viam-rover2">this GitHub repository</a>.</p> <div class="learn-more-container"> <a href="https://mikelikesrobots.github.io/blog/autonomous-viam-rover" class="pure-button">Source</a> </div> <hr /> <h2 id="the-evolution-of-execution-management-in-rclcpp">The Evolution of Execution Management in rclcpp</h2> <picture> <source srcset="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/363/The_Evolution_of_Execution_Management_in_rclcpp.webp" type="image/webp" /> <img src="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/363/The_Evolution_of_Execution_Management_in_rclcpp.jpg" alt="The Evolution of Execution Management in rclcpp cover" /> </picture> <p>Skye Medeiros did an excellent write-up that you should look into if you are using ROS and haven’t given much thought to executors yet.</p> <div class="learn-more-container"> <a href="https://www.polymathrobotics.com/blog/execution-management-in-rclcpp" class="pure-button">Source</a> </div> <hr /> <h2 id="opencv-5-deep-dive-a-new-foundation-for-computer-vision">OpenCV 5 Deep Dive: A New Foundation for Computer Vision</h2> <picture> <source srcset="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/363/OpenCV_5_Deep_Dive__A_New_Foundation_for_Computer_Vision.webp" type="image/webp" /> <img src="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/363/OpenCV_5_Deep_Dive__A_New_Foundation_for_Computer_Vision.jpg" alt="OpenCV 5 Deep Dive: A New Foundation for Computer Vision cover" /> </picture> <p>OpenCV 5 is here! In this blog post, you can learn about all the new features: from API improvements to the DNN engine and expanded 3D vision capabilities.</p> <div class="learn-more-container"> <a href="https://opencv.org/opencv-5/" class="pure-button">Source</a> </div> <hr /> <h2 id="ways-to-embed-magnets-in-3d-prints-and-not-ruin-printers">Ways To Embed Magnets In 3D Prints And Not Ruin Printers</h2> <picture> <source srcset="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/363/Ways_To_Embed_Magnets_In_3D_Prints_And_Not_Ruin_Printers.webp" type="image/webp" /> <img src="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/363/Ways_To_Embed_Magnets_In_3D_Prints_And_Not_Ruin_Printers.jpg" alt="Ways To Embed Magnets In 3D Prints And Not Ruin Printers cover" /> </picture> <p>I’m really glad I came across this feature because I would totally make all those mistakes. Being a magnet noob, I didn’t even know they demagnetize at high temperatures. Good to know!</p> <div class="learn-more-container"> <a href="https://hackaday.com/2026/06/04/ways-to-embed-magnets-in-3d-prints-and-not-ruin-printers/" class="pure-button">Source</a> </div> <hr /> <h2 id="our-sponsors">Our Sponsors</h2> <ul> <li><a href="https://www.anyscale.com/?utm_source=newsletter&amp;utm_campaign=weeklyrobotics">Anyscale</a> gives you a platform to run and scale all your ML and AI workloads, from data processing to training and inference.</li> <li><a href="https://foxglove.dev/">Foxglove</a> is a purpose-built, modular platform for robotics teams to collect, organize, and learn from vast quantities of multimodal data, creating the data flywheel to safely scale from development to distributed fleets</li> <li><a href="https://www.jiga.io/?utm_source=Jiga&amp;utm_medium=communities&amp;utm_campaign=weekly-robotics">Jiga</a> connects hardware teams directly with vetted manufacturers for reliable capacity from prototype to production, combining the speed of digital manufacturing with the trust of a long-term supplier relationship</li> <li><a href="https://pointonenav.com/?utm_source=weeklyrobotics&amp;utm_medium=newsletter">Point One Navigation</a> delivers centimeter-accurate positioning to robots and autonomous systems — powered by the world’s densest fully-owned RTK corrections network.</li> </ul> <h2 id="events">Events</h2> <ul> <li><a href="https://www.edrcoalition.com/2026-energy-drone-robotics-summit">2026 Energy Drone &amp; Robotics Summit</a>: Jun 22 - Jun 24, 2026. Houston, Texas, United States of America</li> <li><a href="https://roboticsconference.org/">Robotics: Science and Systems</a>: Jul 13 - Jul 16, 2026. Sydney, Australia</li> <li><a href="https://actuate.foxglove.dev/">Actuate 26</a>: Aug 18 - Aug 19, 2026. San Francisco, California, United States of America</li> <li><a href="https://www.expouav.com/">Commercial UAV Expo</a>: Sep 01 - Sep 03, 2026. Las Vegas, Nevada, United States of America</li> <li><a href="https://www.autonomyconf.com/">Autonomy</a>: Sep 14, 2026. Malmö, Sweden</li> <li><a href="https://events.linuxfoundation.org/open-source-summit-europe/">Open Source Summit</a>: Oct 07 - Oct 09, 2026. Prague, Czechia</li> <li><a href="https://roscon.org.es/roscon2026/ROSConES2026.html">ROSCon Spain 2026</a>: Oct 27 - Oct 28, 2026. Valencia, Spain</li> <li><a href="https://roscon.ros.org/be/2026/">ROSCon BE 2026</a>: Nov 25 - Nov 26, 2026. Nivelles, Belgium</li> <li><a href="https://2026.ieee-humanoids.org/">Humanoids 2026</a>: Dec 06 - Dec 09, 2026. Santa Clara, California, United States of America</li> </ul> <p>For more robotic events, check out our <a href="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/events">event page</a>.</p> <hr /> <p>Want to promote your product or service in Weekly Robotics? <a href="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/advertise">Check out our advertising options</a>.</p> https://weeklyrobotics.com/weekly-robotics-362 2026-06-01T00:00:00+01:00 Today in the Weekly Robotics newsletter: how to build a shitty robot, the best way to learn Point Cloud Library (PCL), reconfigurable space robots, lessons learned from using classical approach in a robotics AI challenge, and more! https://weeklyrobotics.com/favicon.ico <blockquote> <p>Today, I’m on my way to ICRA! I’m super excited to see what some of the top robotics researchers have been up to and catching up with some friends. If you are joining this event, let’s try to grab a coffee!</p> </blockquote> <div class="issue-sponsors-lineup"> <div class="issue-sponsors-divider"></div> <div class="issue-sponsors-content"> <span class="issue-sponsors-text">This issue is brought to you by our sponsors:</span> <div class="sponsor-lineup-container"> <a href="https://www.anyscale.com/?utm_source=newsletter&amp;utm_campaign=weeklyrobotics" target="_blank" rel="noopener" class="sponsor-logo-container"> <img src="https://weeklyrobotics.com/img/sponsors/anyscale.png" alt="anyscale logo" /> </a> <a href="https://foxglove.dev/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" class="sponsor-logo-container"> <img src="https://weeklyrobotics.com/img/sponsors/foxglove.png" alt="foxglove logo" /> </a> <a href="https://www.jiga.io/?utm_source=Jiga&amp;utm_medium=communities&amp;utm_campaign=weekly-robotics" target="_blank" rel="noopener" class="sponsor-logo-container"> <img src="https://weeklyrobotics.com/img/sponsors/jiga.png" alt="jiga logo" /> </a> <a href="https://pointonenav.com/?utm_source=weeklyrobotics&amp;utm_medium=newsletter" target="_blank" rel="noopener" class="sponsor-logo-container"> <img src="https://weeklyrobotics.com/img/sponsors/point_one.png" alt="point_one logo" /> </a> </div> </div> <div class="issue-sponsors-divider"></div> </div> <h2 id="how-torc-robotics-scales-multimodal-ai-for-autonomous-driving-with-ray-sponsored">How Torc Robotics Scales Multimodal AI for Autonomous Driving with Ray [Sponsored]</h2> <picture> <source srcset="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/362/How_Torc_Robotics_Scales_Multimodal_AI_for_Autonomous_Driving_with_Ray.webp" type="image/webp" /> <img src="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/362/How_Torc_Robotics_Scales_Multimodal_AI_for_Autonomous_Driving_with_Ray.jpg" alt="How Torc Robotics Scales Multimodal AI for Autonomous Driving with Ray cover" /> </picture> <p>Join us on June 10 to hear from a Staff ML Engineer and ML Ops Tech Lead at Torc Robotics, a company driving the future of autonomous commercial vehicles. Torc runs a wide range of multimodal data processing and curation workloads that are mission-critical to their AI development. Join his live presentation to learn how they tackled their toughest data challenges.</p> <div class="learn-more-container"> <a href="https://www.anyscale.com/events/2026/06/10/how-torc-robotics-scales-multimodal-ai-for-autonomous-driving-with-ray?utm_source=newsletter&amp;utm_campaign=robotics" class="pure-button">Anyscale</a> </div> <hr /> <h2 id="how-to-build-a-shitty-robot">How to build a shitty robot</h2> <picture> <source srcset="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/362/How_to_build_a_shitty_robot.webp" type="image/webp" /> <img src="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/362/How_to_build_a_shitty_robot.jpg" alt="How to build a shitty robot cover" /> </picture> <p>I thoroughly enjoyed this blog post by Mario Zechner. Mario bought a toy robot for 10 euros (with an interesting mechanism for walking and turning using a single motor) and then proceeded to rip it apart, connect an ESP32 to the robot’s H-bridge, and build a client-server LLM to use his laptop as the robot’s brain through text-to-speech, speech-to-text, and an LLM. Nice work!</p> <div class="learn-more-container"> <a href="https://mariozechner.at/posts/2026-05-30-shitty-robot/" class="pure-button">Source</a> </div> <hr /> <h2 id="pcl-tutorial">PCL Tutorial</h2> <picture> <source srcset="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/362/PCL_Tutorial.webp" type="image/webp" /> <img src="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/362/PCL_Tutorial.jpg" alt="PCL Tutorial cover" /> </picture> <p>I love this interactive tutorial by Hyungtae Lim. The tutorial consists of 14 interactive tutorials with sample data and an option to set custom parameters. This will definitely come in handy for anyone looking to learn about PointCloud operations. I added this project to our <a href="https://github.com/msadowski/awesome-weekly-robotics">Awesome Weekly Robotics list</a>.</p> <div class="learn-more-container"> <a href="https://limhyungtae.github.io/pcl_tutorial/" class="pure-button">Source</a> </div> <hr /> <h2 id="modkom-toolbox-of-modular-components-to-demonstrate-reconfigurable-space-robots">MODKOM: Toolbox of Modular Components to Demonstrate Reconfigurable Space Robots</h2> <picture> <source srcset="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/362/MODKOM__Toolbox_of_Modular_Components_to_Demonstrate_Reconfigurable_Space_Robots.webp" type="image/webp" /> <img src="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/362/MODKOM__Toolbox_of_Modular_Components_to_Demonstrate_Reconfigurable_Space_Robots.jpg" alt="MODKOM: Toolbox of Modular Components to Demonstrate Reconfigurable Space Robots cover" /> </picture> <blockquote> <p>The MODKOM (Modular Components as Building Blocks for Application-Specific Configurable Space Robots) project aims to create a toolbox that allows robots to be configured and recombined for specific tasks using specialized, standardized building blocks throughout different mission phases.</p> </blockquote> <div class="learn-more-container"> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xt8Sc-Hw5MM" class="pure-button">Source</a> </div> <hr /> <h2 id="post-qualification-contribution-coding-a-classical-robot-controller-in-the-age-of-coding-agents-an-honest-assessment">Post-Qualification Contribution: Coding a Classical Robot Controller in the Age of Coding Agents, an Honest Assessment</h2> <picture> <source srcset="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/362/Post-Qualification_Contribution__Coding_a_Classical_Robot_Controller_in_the_Age_of_Coding_Agents__an_Honest_Assessment.webp" type="image/webp" /> <img src="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/362/Post-Qualification_Contribution__Coding_a_Classical_Robot_Controller_in_the_Age_of_Coding_Agents__an_Honest_Assessment.jpg" alt="Post-Qualification Contribution: Coding a Classical Robot Controller in the Age of Coding Agents, an Honest Assessment cover" /> </picture> <p>In this Open Robotics Discourse post, Thanhtientc shares his team’s effort to compete in the <a href="https://www.intrinsic.ai/events/ai-for-industry-challenge">AI for Industry Challenge</a>, where the team decided to approach the problem of robotic cable and wire handling using classical methods coded with the help of LLMs. Even though the team didn’t win, they shared some quite interesting lessons about their journey.</p> <div class="learn-more-container"> <a href="https://discourse.openrobotics.org/t/post-qualification-contribution-coding-a-classical-robot-controller-in-the-age-of-coding-agents-an-honest-assessment/55120" class="pure-button">Source</a> </div> <hr /> <h2 id="a-sf-startup-is-secretly-testing-robots-in-airbnbs-and-trashing-them-lawsuit-claims">A SF startup is secretly testing robots in Airbnbs, and trashing them, lawsuit claims</h2> <picture> <source srcset="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/362/A_SF_startup_is_secretly_testing_robots_in_Airbnbs__and_trashing_them__lawsuit_claims.webp" type="image/webp" /> <img src="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/362/A_SF_startup_is_secretly_testing_robots_in_Airbnbs__and_trashing_them__lawsuit_claims.jpg" alt="A SF startup is secretly testing robots in Airbnbs, and trashing them, lawsuit claims cover" /> </picture> <p>Home robots are getting closer to real homes, but this is not exactly the test deployment anyone wants to see. A San Francisco Airbnb host is suing The Bot Company, alleging its employees rented his house under false pretenses to test chore-doing robot prototypes, leaving scratched appliances, damaged furniture, chipped tiles. Initially, I thought the approach of testing the robots in Airbnbs was ingenious but I never thought of the damage that could cause.</p> <div class="learn-more-container"> <a href="https://sfstandard.com/2026/05/28/sf-startup-secretly-testing-robots-airbnbs-trashing-lawsuit-claims/" class="pure-button">Source</a> </div> <hr /> <h2 id="frax">frax</h2> <blockquote> <p>frax is a fast kinematics and dynamics library in pure Python, using JAX for JIT-compilation and automatic differentiation. With frax, you can design high-performance inverse-kinematics and inverse-dynamics controllers at the speed of Pinocchio, ease of use of Python, and differentiation and parallelization-compatibility of MJX.</p> </blockquote> <p>To learn more about this work, check out <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.04310">this arXiv paper</a>.</p> <div class="learn-more-container"> <a href="https://github.com/StanfordASL/frax" class="pure-button">Source</a> </div> <hr /> <h2 id="school-of-football--the-rabona--boston-dynamics-x-hyundai">School of Football | The Rabona | Boston Dynamics x Hyundai</h2> <picture> <source srcset="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/362/School_of_Football___The_Rabona___Boston_Dynamics_x_Hyundai.webp" type="image/webp" /> <img src="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/362/School_of_Football___The_Rabona___Boston_Dynamics_x_Hyundai.jpg" alt="School of Football | The Rabona | Boston Dynamics x Hyundai cover" /> </picture> <p>I must be living under a rock as I have no clue what this video is about, but I appreciate the moves and ball kicking! Wish we had a soccer league with Atlas humanoids. Hopefully, one day!</p> <div class="learn-more-container"> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCcv90sUNbY" class="pure-button">Source</a> </div> <hr /> <h2 id="self-driving-bus-crashes-into-tram-on-debut-day-in-sweden">Self-driving bus crashes into tram on debut day in Sweden</h2> <picture> <source srcset="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/362/Self-driving_bus_crashes_into_tram_on_debut_day_in_Sweden.webp" type="image/webp" /> <img src="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/362/Self-driving_bus_crashes_into_tram_on_debut_day_in_Sweden.jpg" alt="Self-driving bus crashes into tram on debut day in Sweden cover" /> </picture> <p>This is definitely not the way you want to start your autonomous vehicle rollout. Fortunately, no one was injured in the accident.</p> <div class="learn-more-container"> <a href="https://www.turkiyetoday.com/region/self-driving-bus-crashes-into-tram-on-debut-day-in-sweden-3220658?s=1" class="pure-button">Source</a> </div> <hr /> <h2 id="our-sponsors">Our Sponsors</h2> <ul> <li><a href="https://www.anyscale.com/?utm_source=newsletter&amp;utm_campaign=weeklyrobotics">Anyscale</a> gives you a platform to run and scale all your ML and AI workloads, from data processing to training and inference.</li> <li><a href="https://foxglove.dev/">Foxglove</a> is a purpose-built, modular platform for robotics teams to collect, organize, and learn from vast quantities of multimodal data, creating the data flywheel to safely scale from development to distributed fleets</li> <li><a href="https://www.jiga.io/?utm_source=Jiga&amp;utm_medium=communities&amp;utm_campaign=weekly-robotics">Jiga</a> connects hardware teams directly with vetted manufacturers for reliable capacity from prototype to production, combining the speed of digital manufacturing with the trust of a long-term supplier relationship</li> <li><a href="https://pointonenav.com/?utm_source=weeklyrobotics&amp;utm_medium=newsletter">Point One Navigation</a> delivers centimeter-accurate positioning to robots and autonomous systems — powered by the world’s densest fully-owned RTK corrections network.</li> </ul> <h2 id="events">Events</h2> <ul> <li><a href="https://2026.ieee-icra.org/">ICRA 2026</a>: Jun 01 - Jun 05, 2026. Vienna, Austria</li> <li><a href="https://luma.com/xayz5tru">ROS Meetup @ ICRA 2026</a>: Jun 02, 2026. Vienna, Austria</li> <li><a href="https://www.edrcoalition.com/2026-energy-drone-robotics-summit">2026 Energy Drone &amp; Robotics Summit</a>: Jun 22 - Jun 24, 2026. Houston, Texas, United States of America</li> <li><a href="https://roboticsconference.org/">Robotics: Science and Systems</a>: Jul 13 - Jul 16, 2026. Sydney, Australia</li> <li><a href="https://actuate.foxglove.dev/">Actuate 26</a>: Aug 18 - Aug 19, 2026. San Francisco, California, United States of America</li> <li><a href="https://www.expouav.com/">Commercial UAV Expo</a>: Sep 01 - Sep 03, 2026. Las Vegas, Nevada, United States of America</li> <li><a href="https://www.autonomyconf.com/">Autonomy</a>: Sep 14, 2026. Malmö, Sweden</li> <li><a href="https://events.linuxfoundation.org/open-source-summit-europe/">Open Source Summit</a>: Oct 07 - Oct 09, 2026. Prague, Czechia</li> <li><a href="https://roscon.org.es/roscon2026/ROSConES2026.html">ROSCon Spain 2026</a>: Oct 27 - Oct 28, 2026. Valencia, Spain</li> <li><a href="https://roscon.ros.org/be/2026/">ROSCon BE 2026</a>: Nov 25 - Nov 26, 2026. Nivelles, Belgium</li> </ul> <p>For more robotic events, check out our <a href="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/events">event page</a>.</p> <hr /> <p>Want to promote your product or service in Weekly Robotics? <a href="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/advertise">Check out our advertising options</a>.</p> https://weeklyrobotics.com/weekly-robotics-361 2026-05-25T00:00:00+01:00 Weekly Robotics 361: DIY Disney's inspired BD-X droid, state estimation in contact-rich scenarios (very cool!), reverse engineering Unitree Go2 motors, ROS 2 Lyrical released, and more! https://weeklyrobotics.com/favicon.ico <blockquote> <p>It’s my pleasure to welcome <a href="https://pointonenav.com/?utm_source=weeklyrobotics&amp;utm_medium=newsletter">Point One</a> as a quarterly sponsor of Weekly Robotics! Point One makes centimeter-level positioning practical for production robotics teams — combining the world’s densest, fully owned RTK corrections network with a sensor-fusion positioning engine and API, so you’re not building and maintaining your own base station infrastructure.</p> <p>Another exciting update: we officially surpassed 6,000 e-mail newsletter subscribers! It’s been quite a journey, and I’m looking forward to seeing where it takes us.</p> <p>Finally, if you are joining ICRA 2026 and want to touch base, feel free to reach out! I’ll be mostly at Foxglove’s booth and might carry some Weekly Robotics stickers. Enjoy today’s newsletter!</p> </blockquote> <div class="issue-sponsors-lineup"> <div class="issue-sponsors-divider"></div> <div class="issue-sponsors-content"> <span class="issue-sponsors-text">This issue is brought to you by our sponsors:</span> <div class="sponsor-lineup-container"> <a href="https://www.anyscale.com/?utm_source=newsletter&amp;utm_campaign=weeklyrobotics" target="_blank" rel="noopener" class="sponsor-logo-container"> <img src="https://weeklyrobotics.com/img/sponsors/anyscale.png" alt="anyscale logo" /> </a> <a href="https://foxglove.dev/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" class="sponsor-logo-container"> <img src="https://weeklyrobotics.com/img/sponsors/foxglove.png" alt="foxglove logo" /> </a> <a href="https://www.jiga.io/?utm_source=Jiga&amp;utm_medium=communities&amp;utm_campaign=weekly-robotics" target="_blank" rel="noopener" class="sponsor-logo-container"> <img src="https://weeklyrobotics.com/img/sponsors/jiga.png" alt="jiga logo" /> </a> <a href="https://pointonenav.com/?utm_source=weeklyrobotics&amp;utm_medium=newsletter" target="_blank" rel="noopener" class="sponsor-logo-container"> <img src="https://weeklyrobotics.com/img/sponsors/point_one.png" alt="point_one logo" /> </a> </div> </div> <div class="issue-sponsors-divider"></div> </div> <h2 id="i-built-disneys-star-wars-robot---youtube">I Built Disney’s Star Wars Robot - YouTube</h2> <picture> <source srcset="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/361/I_Built_Disney_s_Star_Wars_Robot_-_YouTube.webp" type="image/webp" /> <img src="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/361/I_Built_Disney_s_Star_Wars_Robot_-_YouTube.jpg" alt="I Built Disney’s Star Wars Robot - YouTube cover" /> </picture> <p>Kayden Knapik built his own version of the BD-X droid, which runs on Robstride servos, a Jetson Orin Nano, and a lawnmower battery (nice life hack!). Then, Kayden trained the robot to walk using Reinforcement Learning. Nice project!</p> <div class="learn-more-container"> <a href="https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=r5bIgLKbuCI&amp;pp=iggUQAFKEFliMkdXOFNpMzBKdGpHSjU%3D&amp;ra=m" class="pure-button">Source</a> </div> <hr /> <h2 id="medium-access-control-protocols">Medium Access Control Protocols</h2> <picture> <source srcset="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/361/Medium_Access_Control_Protocols.webp" type="image/webp" /> <img src="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/361/Medium_Access_Control_Protocols.jpg" alt="Medium Access Control Protocols cover" /> </picture> <p>Jason Fantl wrote a fantastic explainer on Medium Access Control protocols, starting from ALOHAnet and walking through Ethernet, WiFi, cellular networks, Bluetooth, Zigbee, LoRa, mesh networks, and VANETs. The article does a great job of explaining a deceptively simple question: what happens when multiple devices try to talk over the same medium at the same time?</p> <p>I really enjoyed the progression from “send whenever you want and retry if it collides” in Pure ALOHA, through Ethernet’s collision detection, WiFi’s collision avoidance, and all the way to the much more complex scheduling and frequency/time/space allocation used in cellular systems. The sections on hidden nodes, stadium WiFi, and ad-hoc mesh networks are especially relevant for robotics, where robots often need to communicate in messy, dynamic, infrastructure-poor environments. This is a long read, but if you’ve ever had to debug unreliable wireless communication between robots, drones, sensors, or field devices, it’s well worth your time.</p> <div class="learn-more-container"> <a href="https://jasonfantl.com/posts/Multiple-Access-Protocols/" class="pure-button">Source</a> </div> <hr /> <h2 id="coco-inekf-state-estimation-with-learned-contact-covariances-in-dynamic-contact-rich-scenarios">CoCo-InEKF: State Estimation with Learned Contact Covariances in Dynamic, Contact-Rich Scenarios</h2> <picture> <source srcset="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/361/CoCo-InEKF__State_Estimation_with_Learned_Contact_Covariances_in_Dynamic__Contact-Rich_Scenarios.webp" type="image/webp" /> <img src="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/361/CoCo-InEKF__State_Estimation_with_Learned_Contact_Covariances_in_Dynamic__Contact-Rich_Scenarios.jpg" alt="CoCo-InEKF: State Estimation with Learned Contact Covariances in Dynamic, Contact-Rich Scenarios cover" /> </picture> <p>Since we are on the topic of Disney robots, check out this project from Disney Research:</p> <blockquote> <p>This paper presents CoCo-InEKF, a differentiable Invariant Extended Kalman Filter that utilizes continuous contact velocity covariances instead of binary contact states. These learned covariances allow the method to dynamically modulate contact confidence, representing states ranging from firm contact to directional slippage or no contact. To predict these covariances for a set of predefined contact candidate points, we employ a lightweight neural network trained end-to-end using a state-error loss.</p> </blockquote> <p>That’s a lot to take in, but the results speak for themselves - the robot state estimation looks top-notch!</p> <div class="learn-more-container"> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mfLNICByvE" class="pure-button">Source</a> </div> <hr /> <h2 id="unitree-go-m8018-6-motor-reverse-engineering">Unitree GO-M8018-6 Motor Reverse Engineering</h2> <picture> <source srcset="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/361/Unitree_GO-M8018-6_Motor_Reverse_Engineering.webp" type="image/webp" /> <img src="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/361/Unitree_GO-M8018-6_Motor_Reverse_Engineering.jpg" alt="Unitree GO-M8018-6 Motor Reverse Engineering cover" /> </picture> <p>Thomas Flayols reverse-engineered the Unitree Go2 motors to enable writing custom firmware for them. For more information about this work, check out <a href="https://github.com/thomasfla/go2_motor_analysis/">this GitHub repository</a>.</p> <div class="learn-more-container"> <a href="https://hackaday.com/2026/05/23/unitree-go-m8018-6-motor-reverse-engineering/" class="pure-button">Source</a> </div> <hr /> <h2 id="ros-2-lyrical-luth-released-">ROS 2 Lyrical Luth Released! 🎉</h2> <picture> <source srcset="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/361/ROS_2_Lyrical_Luth_Released.webp" type="image/webp" /> <img src="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/361/ROS_2_Lyrical_Luth_Released.jpg" alt="ROS 2 Lyrical Luth Released! 🎉 cover" /> </picture> <p>A new ROS 2 distribution, Lyrical Luth, targeting Ubuntu 26.04 as a first-tier platform, has been released! Check out the <a href="https://docs.ros.org/en/lyrical/Releases/Release-Lyrical-Luth.html">changelog</a> to see the new features that landed. It’s perhaps due to my work needs, but I’m going to find controlling rosbag records via services and Python very useful.</p> <div class="learn-more-container"> <a href="https://discourse.openrobotics.org/t/ros-2-lyrical-luth-released/55021" class="pure-button">Source</a> </div> <hr /> <h2 id="three-ways-to-see-distance">Three Ways to See Distance</h2> <picture> <source srcset="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/361/Three_Ways_to_See_Distance.webp" type="image/webp" /> <img src="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/361/Three_Ways_to_See_Distance.jpg" alt="Three Ways to See Distance cover" /> </picture> <p>Jaimin wrote an excellent summary of the state of the art of distance sensing currently used in robotics, including some state-of-the-art AI models for depth perception, all illustrated with nice XKCD-style graphics.</p> <div class="learn-more-container"> <a href="https://atomsfrontier.substack.com/p/three-ways-to-see-distance" class="pure-button">Source</a> </div> <hr /> <h2 id="marpy-a-50-micro-ros-robot">MARPY: a $50 micro-ROS robot</h2> <picture> <source srcset="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/361/MARPY__a__50_micro-ROS_robot.webp" type="image/webp" /> <img src="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/361/MARPY__a__50_micro-ROS_robot.jpg" alt="MARPY: a $50 micro-ROS robot cover" /> </picture> <p>MARPY, short for Most Affordable ROS2 Platform Yet, is a $50 mobile robot based on the ESP-32 and micro-ROS. Check the <a href="https://github.com/LevinTamir/MARPY">project’s repository</a> for more details.</p> <div class="learn-more-container"> <a href="https://discourse.openrobotics.org/t/marpy-a-50-micro-ros-robot/54536" class="pure-button">Source</a> </div> <hr /> <h2 id="ultralightweight-sonar-plus-ai-lets-tiny-drones-navigate-like-bats">Ultralightweight sonar plus AI lets tiny drones navigate like bats</h2> <picture> <source srcset="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/361/Ultralightweight_sonar_plus_AI_lets_tiny_drones_navigate_like_bats.webp" type="image/webp" /> <img src="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/361/Ultralightweight_sonar_plus_AI_lets_tiny_drones_navigate_like_bats.jpg" alt="Ultralightweight sonar plus AI lets tiny drones navigate like bats cover" /> </picture> <p>Unfortunately, this article is very light on details, but I thought I would still highlight it in today’s issue. The team is using ultrasound for navigation on the drone, adding a ‘shield’ to block some of the noise from the propellers and running edge AI to further denoise the signal.</p> <div class="learn-more-container"> <a href="https://robohub.org/ultralightweight-sonar-plus-ai-lets-tiny-drones-navigate-like-bats/" class="pure-button">Source</a> </div> <hr /> <h2 id="our-sponsors">Our Sponsors</h2> <ul> <li><a href="https://www.anyscale.com/?utm_source=newsletter&amp;utm_campaign=weeklyrobotics">Anyscale</a> gives you a platform to run and scale all your ML and AI workloads, from data processing to training and inference.</li> <li><a href="https://foxglove.dev/">Foxglove</a> is a purpose-built, modular platform for robotics teams to collect, organize, and learn from vast quantities of multimodal data, creating the data flywheel to safely scale from development to distributed fleets</li> <li><a href="https://www.jiga.io/?utm_source=Jiga&amp;utm_medium=communities&amp;utm_campaign=weekly-robotics">Jiga</a> connects hardware teams directly with vetted manufacturers for reliable capacity from prototype to production, combining the speed of digital manufacturing with the trust of a long-term supplier relationship</li> <li><a href="https://pointonenav.com/?utm_source=weeklyrobotics&amp;utm_medium=newsletter">Point One Navigation</a> delivers centimeter-accurate positioning to robots and autonomous systems — powered by the world’s densest fully-owned RTK corrections network.</li> </ul> <h2 id="events">Events</h2> <ul> <li><a href="https://www.roboticssummit.com/">Robotics Summit &amp; Expo 2026</a>: May 27 - May 28, 2026. Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America</li> <li><a href="https://luma.com/event/evt-sss1dDJ8J903dyI">Actuate Global — Boston: Community Meetup</a>: May 27, 2026. Boston, United States of America</li> <li><a href="https://2026.ieee-icra.org/">ICRA 2026</a>: Jun 01 - Jun 05, 2026. Vienna, Austria</li> <li><a href="https://luma.com/xayz5tru">ROS Meetup @ ICRA 2026</a>: Jun 02, 2026. Vienna, Austria</li> <li><a href="https://www.edrcoalition.com/2026-energy-drone-robotics-summit">2026 Energy Drone &amp; Robotics Summit</a>: Jun 22 - Jun 24, 2026. Houston, Texas, United States of America</li> <li><a href="https://roboticsconference.org/">Robotics: Science and Systems</a>: Jul 13 - Jul 16, 2026. Sydney, Australia</li> <li><a href="https://actuate.foxglove.dev/">Actuate 26</a>: Aug 18 - Aug 19, 2026. San Francisco, California, United States of America</li> <li><a href="https://www.expouav.com/">Commercial UAV Expo</a>: Sep 01 - Sep 03, 2026. Las Vegas, Nevada, United States of America</li> <li><a href="https://www.autonomyconf.com/">Autonomy</a>: Sep 14, 2026. Malmö, Sweden</li> <li><a href="https://events.linuxfoundation.org/open-source-summit-europe/">Open Source Summit</a>: Oct 07 - Oct 09, 2026. Prague, Czechia</li> </ul> <p>For more robotic events, check out our <a href="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/events">event page</a>.</p> <hr /> <p>Want to promote your product or service in Weekly Robotics? <a href="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/advertise">Check out our advertising options</a>.</p> https://weeklyrobotics.com/weekly-robotics-360 2026-05-18T00:00:00+01:00 Today in Weekly Robotics: Honeybees teach drones to navigate, how to test rotor blades for a Mars mission, a ride-in bipedal, Japan's robot wolf supply issue, fine control of excavators, and more! https://weeklyrobotics.com/favicon.ico <blockquote> <p>If you were eagerly awaiting your weekly dose of robotics news and it didn't come - apologies; I've been traveling quite a bit and getting older, I find it harder and harder to borrow 4+ hours of sleep time to wrap up a newsletter issue. To make up for it, please find Labububot towards the end of this issue. Enjoy today's news!</p> </blockquote> <div class="issue-sponsors-lineup"> <div class="issue-sponsors-divider"></div> <div class="issue-sponsors-content"> <span class="issue-sponsors-text">This issue is brought to you by our sponsors:</span> <div class="sponsor-lineup-container"> <a href="https://www.anyscale.com/?utm_source=newsletter&amp;utm_campaign=weeklyrobotics" target="_blank" rel="noopener" class="sponsor-logo-container"> <img src="https://weeklyrobotics.com/img/sponsors/anyscale.png" alt="anyscale logo" /> </a> <a href="https://foxglove.dev/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" class="sponsor-logo-container"> <img src="https://weeklyrobotics.com/img/sponsors/foxglove.png" alt="foxglove logo" /> </a> <a href="https://www.hellorobo.co/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" class="sponsor-logo-container"> <img src="https://weeklyrobotics.com/img/sponsors/hellorobo.png" alt="hellorobo logo" /> </a> <a href="https://www.jiga.io/?utm_source=Jiga&amp;utm_medium=communities&amp;utm_campaign=weekly-robotics" target="_blank" rel="noopener" class="sponsor-logo-container"> <img src="https://weeklyrobotics.com/img/sponsors/jiga.png" alt="jiga logo" /> </a> </div> </div> <div class="issue-sponsors-divider"></div> </div> <h2 id="actuate-26-early-bird-ticket-pricing-ends-in-two-weeks-sponsored">Actuate 26 early bird ticket pricing ends in two weeks! [Sponsored]</h2> <picture> <source srcset="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/360/Actuate_26_early_bird_ticket_pricing_ends_in_two_weeks.webp" type="image/webp" /> <img src="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/360/Actuate_26_early_bird_ticket_pricing_ends_in_two_weeks.jpg" alt="Actuate 26 early bird ticket pricing ends in two weeks! cover" /> </picture> <p>This year at Actuate, we'll bring together 1,000+ attendees to experience a full lineup of technical presentations, industry-leader keynotes, and a 15,000-square-foot exhibition hall. The full schedule and speaker lineup will be released next month; however, discounted early-bird tickets ($199 Expo Pass/$649 Full Access Pass) will end in 2 weeks. See you there!</p> <div class="learn-more-container"> <a href="https://actuate.foxglove.dev/?utm_source=weeklyrobotics&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=actuate2026" class="pure-button">Foxglove</a> </div> <hr /> <h2 id="honeybees-teach-drones-how-to-navigate">Honeybees teach drones how to navigate</h2> <picture> <source srcset="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/360/Honeybees_teach_drones_how_to_navigate.webp" type="image/webp" /> <img src="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/360/Honeybees_teach_drones_how_to_navigate.jpg" alt="Honeybees teach drones how to navigate cover" /> </picture> <p>This paper introduces an interesting strategy for the ‘home finding’ problem on drones. At the start, the drone will explore the area around the home point, building a view memory. As the insect flies away, the odometry error accumulates, making it impossible to return home using that method alone. It can easily return to a known area, though, where a neural vector with a home vector will kick in, and the aircraft will return safely. The <a href="https://youtu.be/Og6wvKqWLow">video explainer</a> for this paper is on another level, featuring a very nice stop-motion LEGO animation. Love it!</p> <div class="learn-more-container"> <a href="https://techxplore.com/news/2026-05-honeybees-drones.html" class="pure-button">Source</a> </div> <hr /> <h2 id="testing-the-next-generation-of-mars-helicopter-rotor-blades">Testing the Next Generation of Mars Helicopter Rotor Blades</h2> <picture> <source srcset="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/360/Testing_the_Next_Generation_of_Mars_Helicopter_Rotor_Blades.webp" type="image/webp" /> <img src="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/360/Testing_the_Next_Generation_of_Mars_Helicopter_Rotor_Blades.jpg" alt="Testing the Next Generation of Mars Helicopter Rotor Blades cover" /> </picture> <p>It’s more of a teaser than a full-fledged newsletter feature, but NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory is testing a new design of a Mars helicopter. With Mars’ atmosphere at 1% of Earth’s density, the team needs proper testing facilities and quite a bit of science to ensure the 30% payload increase is achievable.</p> <div class="learn-more-container"> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBJNtvAyt9g" class="pure-button">Source</a> </div> <hr /> <h2 id="unitree-unveils-gd01-a-manned-transformable-mecha-from-650000">Unitree Unveils: GD01, A Manned Transformable Mecha, from $650,000</h2> <picture> <source srcset="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/360/Unitree_Unveils__GD01__A_Manned_Transformable_Mecha__from__650_000.webp" type="image/webp" /> <img src="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/360/Unitree_Unveils__GD01__A_Manned_Transformable_Mecha__from__650_000.jpg" alt="Unitree Unveils: GD01, A Manned Transformable Mecha, from $650,000 cover" /> </picture> <p>Unitree unveiled a ride-in humanoid robot. At 500 kg (including human payload), and at $650k, it’s an interesting idea. I’m not sure about use cases and commercial viability, but I’ll be cheerfully observing where this design goes!</p> <div class="learn-more-container"> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWOyUMJWptc" class="pure-button">Source</a> </div> <hr /> <h2 id="japans-robot-wolf-sells-out-as-record-bear-attacks-drive-demand">Japan’s robot wolf sells out as record bear attacks drive demand</h2> <picture> <source srcset="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/360/Japan_s_robot_wolf_sells_out_as_record_bear_attacks_drive_demand.webp" type="image/webp" /> <img src="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/360/Japan_s_robot_wolf_sells_out_as_record_bear_attacks_drive_demand.jpg" alt="Japan’s robot wolf sells out as record bear attacks drive demand cover" /> </picture> <p>I have to admit, this is not a headline I was expecting to put in this newsletter, ever. According to the article, the robot wolf is outfitted with artificial fur draped over a pipe frame, a motion sensor, flashing LEDs, and a speaker that broadcasts 50 recorded sounds. According to the article, the company is planning to build a wheeled product soon, including a portable version for hikers.</p> <div class="learn-more-container"> <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/asia/japan/japan-robot-wolf-bear-attacks-ohta-seiki-b2975670.html" class="pure-button">Source</a> </div> <hr /> <h2 id="high-precision-excavator-control">High Precision Excavator Control</h2> <picture> <source srcset="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/360/High_Precision_Excavator_Control.webp" type="image/webp" /> <img src="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/360/High_Precision_Excavator_Control.jpg" alt="High Precision Excavator Control cover" /> </picture> <p>The team from ETH Zurich’s Robotic Systems Lab showcased high-precision work with their excavator, achieving up to 1.8cm precision. If you like that video, make sure to check out <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TyByGTAia4">this video</a> that goes into the material-handling framework for construction robotics.</p> <div class="learn-more-container"> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCOMYbRWv5I" class="pure-button">Source</a> </div> <hr /> <h2 id="f03-livestream---day-5">F.03 Livestream - Day 5</h2> <picture> <source srcset="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/360/F_03_Livestream_-_Day_5.webp" type="image/webp" /> <img src="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/360/F_03_Livestream_-_Day_5.jpg" alt="F.03 Livestream - Day 5 cover" /> </picture> <p>What started as an 8-hour experiment changed into “we will get these robots to sort packages until they break”. Aside from performance compared to a professional human, it’s interesting to see how consistent these robots are in this task. Now, the big question about general robots is: how well can this architecture adapt to other tasks in messy real-world scenarios? I guess we will see in the coming years!</p> <div class="learn-more-container"> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luU57hMhkak" class="pure-button">Source</a> </div> <hr /> <h2 id="exclusive-ousters-new-color-lidar-is-coming-to-replace-cameras">Exclusive: Ouster’s new color lidar is coming to replace cameras</h2> <picture> <source srcset="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/360/Exclusive__Ouster_s_new_color_lidar_is_coming_to_replace_cameras.webp" type="image/webp" /> <img src="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/360/Exclusive__Ouster_s_new_color_lidar_is_coming_to_replace_cameras.jpg" alt="Exclusive: Ouster's new color lidar is coming to replace cameras cover" /> </picture> <p>I don’t necessarily agree with TechCrunch here on LiDAR replacing cameras, but a dedicated chip outputting both PointCloud and color data is very interesting and should enable workflows without needing to perform LiDAR-camera calibration.</p> <div class="learn-more-container"> <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2026/05/04/ousters-new-color-lidar-is-coming-to-replace-cameras/?utm_source=dlvr.it&amp;utm_medium=twitter" class="pure-button">Source</a> </div> <hr /> <h2 id="labububot--one-of-the-rarest-monsters-on-earth">Labububot — one of the rarest monsters on Earth</h2> <picture> <source srcset="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/360/Labububot___one_of_the_rarest_monsters_on_Earth.webp" type="image/webp" /> <img src="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/360/Labububot___one_of_the_rarest_monsters_on_Earth.jpg" alt="Labububot — one of the rarest monsters on Earth cover" /> </picture> <p>I think that’s enough of robots for today for me…</p> <div class="learn-more-container"> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ve6ZYrgxqZw&amp;t=34s" class="pure-button">Source</a> </div> <hr /> <h2 id="our-sponsors">Our Sponsors</h2> <ul> <li><a href="https://www.anyscale.com/?utm_source=newsletter&amp;utm_campaign=weeklyrobotics">Anyscale</a> gives you a platform to run and scale all your ML and AI workloads, from data processing to training and inference.</li> <li><a href="https://foxglove.dev/">Foxglove</a> is a purpose-built, modular platform for robotics teams to collect, organize, and learn from vast quantities of multimodal data, creating the data flywheel to safely scale from development to distributed fleets</li> <li><a href="https://www.hellorobo.co/">HelloRobo</a> distils robotics tech into simple, usable interfaces</li> <li><a href="https://www.jiga.io/?utm_source=Jiga&amp;utm_medium=communities&amp;utm_campaign=weekly-robotics">Jiga</a> connects hardware teams directly with vetted manufacturers for reliable capacity from prototype to production, combining the speed of digital manufacturing with the trust of a long-term supplier relationship</li> </ul> <h2 id="events">Events</h2> <ul> <li><a href="https://luma.com/9kzvfh2p">Cracow Robotics &amp; AI Meetup</a>: May 18, 2026. Krakow, Poland</li> <li><a href="https://2026.oshwa.org/">Open Hardware Summit</a>: May 22 - May 23, 2026. Berlin, Germany</li> <li><a href="https://www.roboticssummit.com/">Robotics Summit &amp; Expo 2026</a>: May 27 - May 28, 2026. Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America</li> <li><a href="https://luma.com/event/evt-sss1dDJ8J903dyI">Actuate Global — Boston: Community Meetup</a>: May 27, 2026. Boston, United States of America</li> <li><a href="https://2026.ieee-icra.org/">ICRA 2026</a>: Jun 01 - Jun 05, 2026. Vienna, Austria</li> <li><a href="https://www.edrcoalition.com/2026-energy-drone-robotics-summit">2026 Energy Drone &amp; Robotics Summit</a>: Jun 22 - Jun 24, 2026. Houston, Texas, United States of America</li> <li><a href="https://roboticsconference.org/">Robotics: Science and Systems</a>: Jul 13 - Jul 16, 2026. Sydney, Australia</li> <li><a href="https://actuate.foxglove.dev/">Actuate 26</a>: Aug 18 - Aug 19, 2026. San Francisco, California, United States of America</li> <li><a href="https://www.expouav.com/">Commercial UAV Expo</a>: Sep 01 - Sep 03, 2026. Las Vegas, Nevada, United States of America</li> <li><a href="https://events.linuxfoundation.org/open-source-summit-europe/">Open Source Summit</a>: Oct 07 - Oct 09, 2026. Prague, Czechia</li> </ul> <p>For more robotic events, check out our <a href="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/events">event page</a>.</p> <hr /> <p>Want to promote your product or service in Weekly Robotics? <a href="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/advertise">Check out our advertising options</a>.</p> https://weeklyrobotics.com/weekly-robotics-359 2026-05-04T00:00:00+01:00 Today in Weekly Robotics: building a quadruped, Reinforcement Learning using Isaac Lab, an open-source book that will help you build a CubeSat, and more! https://weeklyrobotics.com/favicon.ico <blockquote> <p>Today issue turned into a bit of a YouTube party as I'm traveling and I don't have as much time as I would like to do some proper research for the newsletter. Still, these are some solid engineering projects that I hope you will too find interesting. Enjoy!</p> </blockquote> <div class="issue-sponsors-lineup"> <div class="issue-sponsors-divider"></div> <div class="issue-sponsors-content"> <span class="issue-sponsors-text">This issue is brought to you by our sponsors:</span> <div class="sponsor-lineup-container"> <a href="https://www.anyscale.com/?utm_source=newsletter&amp;utm_campaign=weeklyrobotics" target="_blank" rel="noopener" class="sponsor-logo-container"> <img src="https://weeklyrobotics.com/img/sponsors/anyscale.png" alt="anyscale logo" /> </a> <a href="https://foxglove.dev/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" class="sponsor-logo-container"> <img src="https://weeklyrobotics.com/img/sponsors/foxglove.png" alt="foxglove logo" /> </a> <a href="https://www.hellorobo.co/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" class="sponsor-logo-container"> <img src="https://weeklyrobotics.com/img/sponsors/hellorobo.png" alt="hellorobo logo" /> </a> <a href="https://www.jiga.io/?utm_source=Jiga&amp;utm_medium=communities&amp;utm_campaign=weekly-robotics" target="_blank" rel="noopener" class="sponsor-logo-container"> <img src="https://weeklyrobotics.com/img/sponsors/jiga.png" alt="jiga logo" /> </a> </div> </div> <div class="issue-sponsors-divider"></div> </div> <h2 id="build-real-supplier-relationships-sponsored">Build real supplier relationships [Sponsored]</h2> <picture> <source srcset="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/359/Build_real_supplier_relationships.webp" type="image/webp" /> <img src="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/359/Build_real_supplier_relationships.jpg" alt="Build real supplier relationships cover" /> </picture> <p>Most hardware teams are stuck choosing between two bad options: instant-quote platforms that hide suppliers behind a black box, or local shops that hit capacity walls right when you need them most. One trades away relationships for speed. The other offers trust but can't scale.</p> <p>Jiga gives you both. Direct access to vetted manufacturers with reliable capacity from prototype through production. You speak directly to the people making your parts. And when you come back, they already know your specs and technical needs. Same shop, same knowledge, consistently reliable quality without starting over every time.</p> <div class="learn-more-container"> <a href="https://jiga.io/?utm_source=weekly-robotics&amp;utm_medium=communities&amp;utm_campaign=sponsorships&amp;utm_content=better-supplier-relationships" class="pure-button">Jiga</a> </div> <hr /> <h2 id="i-built-an-even-better-robot-dog">I Built an Even Better Robot Dog</h2> <picture> <source srcset="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/359/I_Built_an_Even_Better_Robot_Dog.webp" type="image/webp" /> <img src="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/359/I_Built_an_Even_Better_Robot_Dog.jpg" alt="I Built an Even Better Robot Dog cover" /> </picture> <p>Aaed Musa made another video, this time showing a process of prototyping a cheaper version of a robot dog. If you like following engineering process, you will love this video.</p> <div class="learn-more-container"> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFLa1b1juUo" class="pure-button">Source</a> </div> <hr /> <h2 id="secrets-of-walking-robot-nvidia-isaac-lab-and-isaac-lab-arena">Secrets of Walking Robot (NVIDIA Isaac Lab and Isaac Lab Arena)</h2> <picture> <source srcset="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/359/Secrets_of_Walking_Robot__NVIDIA_Isaac_Lab_and_Isaac_Lab_Arena.webp" type="image/webp" /> <img src="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/359/Secrets_of_Walking_Robot__NVIDIA_Isaac_Lab_and_Isaac_Lab_Arena.jpg" alt="Secrets of Walking Robot (NVIDIA Isaac Lab and Isaac Lab Arena) cover" /> </picture> <p>Skyentific made quite a tutorial on Reinforcement Learning for a bipedal robot using NVIDIA Isaac Lab. The video is quite detailed, so if you are looking to run RL pipelines yourself, you might want to check it out.</p> <div class="learn-more-container"> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wJVWRbssu8" class="pure-button">Source</a> </div> <hr /> <h2 id="a-guide-to-cubesat-mission-and-bus-design">A Guide to CubeSat Mission and Bus Design</h2> <picture> <source srcset="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/359/A_Guide_to_CubeSat_Mission_and_Bus_Design.webp" type="image/webp" /> <img src="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/359/A_Guide_to_CubeSat_Mission_and_Bus_Design.jpg" alt="A Guide to CubeSat Mission and Bus Design cover" /> </picture> <p>This reference is an open-source book under Creative Commons licence on CubeSat design. The book covers system engineering, mechanics, electronics, communications, thermodynamics, control theory, and more!</p> <div class="learn-more-container"> <a href="https://pressbooks-dev.oer.hawaii.edu/epet302/" class="pure-button">Source</a> </div> <hr /> <h2 id="how-i-learned-what-a-decoupling-capacitor-is-for-the-hard-way">How I learned what a decoupling capacitor is for, the hard way</h2> <picture> <source srcset="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/359/How_I_learned_what_a_decoupling_capacitor_is_for__the_hard_way.webp" type="image/webp" /> <img src="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/359/How_I_learned_what_a_decoupling_capacitor_is_for__the_hard_way.jpg" alt="How I learned what a decoupling capacitor is for, the hard way cover" /> </picture> <p>Oh, the joy of electronics debugging. I can believe the author was frustrated getting into these kinds of issues, but thankfully we learned something from their experience. I highly recommend this read if you enjoy hardware debugging</p> <div class="learn-more-container"> <a href="https://nbelakovski.substack.com/p/how-i-learned-what-a-decoupling-capacitor" class="pure-button">Source</a> </div> <hr /> <h2 id="penpal-exploring-textural-mark-making-with-a-novel-handheld-actuated-drawing-tool">penPal: Exploring Textural Mark-Making with a Novel Handheld Actuated Drawing Tool</h2> <picture> <source srcset="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/359/penPal__Exploring_Textural_Mark-Making_with_a_Novel_Handheld_Actuated_Drawing_Tool.webp" type="image/webp" /> <img src="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/359/penPal__Exploring_Textural_Mark-Making_with_a_Novel_Handheld_Actuated_Drawing_Tool.jpg" alt="penPal: Exploring Textural Mark-Making with a Novel Handheld Actuated Drawing Tool cover" /> </picture> <p>This video shows a very clever continuum robot that can be used for drawing predefined shapes. I find it very interesting what a creative mind can do with just 2 degrees of freedom.</p> <div class="learn-more-container"> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhD57fbYj_k" class="pure-button">Source</a> </div> <hr /> <h2 id="skydio-raises-110m-series-f-expands-us-manufacturing---dronelife">Skydio Raises $110M Series F Expands U.S. Manufacturing - DRONELIFE</h2> <picture> <source srcset="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/359/Skydio_Raises__110M_Series_F_Expands_U_S__Manufacturing_-_DRONELIFE.webp" type="image/webp" /> <img src="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/359/Skydio_Raises__110M_Series_F_Expands_U_S__Manufacturing_-_DRONELIFE.jpg" alt="Skydio Raises $110M Series F Expands U.S. Manufacturing - DRONELIFE cover" /> </picture> <blockquote> <p><a href="https://www.skydio.com/">Skydio</a> has raised $110 million in Series F financing, led by existing investors, bringing the company’s valuation to $4.4 billion.</p> </blockquote> <div class="learn-more-container"> <a href="https://dronelife.com/2026/04/28/skydio-series-f-110m-funding-us-manufacturing/" class="pure-button">Source</a> </div> <hr /> <h2 id="sereact-raises-110m-series-b">Sereact Raises $110M Series B</h2> <picture> <source srcset="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/359/Sereact_Raises__110M_Series_B.webp" type="image/webp" /> <img src="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/359/Sereact_Raises__110M_Series_B.jpg" alt="Sereact Raises $110M Series B cover" /> </picture> <blockquote> <p>Sereact has raised a $110 million Series B round led by Headline, with participation from Bullhound Capital, Daphni, and Felix Capital. Existing investors Air Street Capital, Creandum (lead of Sereact’s 2025 Series A), and Point Nine all returned for this round.</p> </blockquote> <div class="learn-more-container"> <a href="https://sereact.ai/posts/series-b" class="pure-button">Source</a> </div> <hr /> <h2 id="our-sponsors">Our Sponsors</h2> <ul> <li><a href="https://www.anyscale.com/?utm_source=newsletter&amp;utm_campaign=weeklyrobotics">Anyscale</a> gives you a platform to run and scale all your ML and AI workloads, from data processing to training and inference.</li> <li><a href="https://foxglove.dev/">Foxglove</a> is a purpose-built, modular platform for robotics teams to collect, organize, and learn from vast quantities of multimodal data, creating the data flywheel to safely scale from development to distributed fleets</li> <li><a href="https://www.hellorobo.co/">HelloRobo</a> distils robotics tech into simple, usable interfaces</li> <li><a href="https://www.jiga.io/?utm_source=Jiga&amp;utm_medium=communities&amp;utm_campaign=weekly-robotics">Jiga</a> connects hardware teams directly with vetted manufacturers for reliable capacity from prototype to production, combining the speed of digital manufacturing with the trust of a long-term supplier relationship</li> </ul> <h2 id="events">Events</h2> <ul> <li><a href="https://luma.com/event/evt-qb7xSpbfUvG16PT">Actuate Global — Paris: Community Meetup</a>: May 04, 2026. Paris, France</li> <li><a href="https://luma.com/event/evt-kgSiIwU20HSwBG4">Actuate Global — Zurich: Field Session</a>: May 06, 2026. Zurich, Switzerland</li> <li><a href="https://www.odenserobotics.dk/nextgen-robotics-live/">NextGen Robotics LIVE</a>: May 06, 2026. Odense, Denmark</li> <li><a href="https://luma.com/event/evt-9gohwQTr1jvRdgm">Actuate Global — Munich: Community Meetup</a>: May 07, 2026. Munich, Germany</li> <li><a href="https://luma.com/9kzvfh2p">Cracow Robotics &amp; AI Meetup</a>: May 18, 2026. Krakow, Poland</li> <li><a href="https://2026.oshwa.org/">Open Hardware Summit</a>: May 22 - May 23, 2026. Berlin, Germany</li> <li><a href="https://www.roboticssummit.com/">Robotics Summit &amp; Expo 2026</a>: May 27 - May 28, 2026. Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America</li> <li><a href="https://luma.com/event/evt-sss1dDJ8J903dyI">Actuate Global — Boston: Community Meetup</a>: May 27, 2026. Boston, United States of America</li> <li><a href="https://2026.ieee-icra.org/">ICRA 2026</a>: Jun 01 - Jun 05, 2026. Vienna, Austria</li> <li><a href="https://www.edrcoalition.com/2026-energy-drone-robotics-summit">2026 Energy Drone &amp; Robotics Summit</a>: Jun 22 - Jun 24, 2026. Houston, Texas, United States of America</li> </ul> <p>For more robotic events, check out our <a href="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/events">event page</a>.</p> <hr /> <p>Want to promote your product or service in Weekly Robotics? <a href="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/advertise">Check out our advertising options</a>.</p> https://weeklyrobotics.com/weekly-robotics-358 2026-04-27T00:00:00+01:00 Today in the Weekly Robotics newsletter: a robot that plays tennis very well (check out the event camera integration!), a new open-source robot arm that can lift, an open-source visualization platform from NVIDIA, and more! https://weeklyrobotics.com/favicon.ico <blockquote> <p>The glider from today's issue seemed to have scratched an itch I didn't know I had. I seriously feel like doing a simple project like this, especially since it doesn't require so many resources (assuming that one has a 3D printer on hand). If I jump into something like this, I won't hesitate to inform you, dear reader. </p> </blockquote> <div class="issue-sponsors-lineup"> <div class="issue-sponsors-divider"></div> <div class="issue-sponsors-content"> <span class="issue-sponsors-text">This issue is brought to you by our sponsors:</span> <div class="sponsor-lineup-container"> <a href="https://www.anyscale.com/?utm_source=newsletter&amp;utm_campaign=weeklyrobotics" target="_blank" rel="noopener" class="sponsor-logo-container"> <img src="https://weeklyrobotics.com/img/sponsors/anyscale.png" alt="anyscale logo" /> </a> <a href="https://foxglove.dev/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" class="sponsor-logo-container"> <img src="https://weeklyrobotics.com/img/sponsors/foxglove.png" alt="foxglove logo" /> </a> <a href="https://www.hellorobo.co/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" class="sponsor-logo-container"> <img src="https://weeklyrobotics.com/img/sponsors/hellorobo.png" alt="hellorobo logo" /> </a> <a href="https://www.jiga.io/?utm_source=Jiga&amp;utm_medium=communities&amp;utm_campaign=weekly-robotics" target="_blank" rel="noopener" class="sponsor-logo-container"> <img src="https://weeklyrobotics.com/img/sponsors/jiga.png" alt="jiga logo" /> </a> </div> </div> <div class="issue-sponsors-divider"></div> </div> <h2 id="actuate-global-events-sponsored">Actuate: Global Events [Sponsored]</h2> <picture> <source srcset="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/358/Actuate__Global_Events.webp" type="image/webp" /> <img src="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/358/Actuate__Global_Events.jpg" alt="Actuate: Global Events cover" /> </picture> <p>Actuate is going global, with community meetups coming up in London, Paris, Zurich, and Munich. If you’d like to meet fellow roboticists, connect with builders, and talk about what’s happening in physical AI and robotics, these events should be well worth checking out. See you there!</p> <div class="learn-more-container"> <a href="https://actuate.foxglove.dev/global-events/" class="pure-button">Actuate</a> </div> <hr /> <h2 id="this-robot-can-beat-you-at-table-tennis">This robot can beat you at table tennis</h2> <picture> <source srcset="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/358/This_robot_can_beat_you_at_table_tennis.webp" type="image/webp" /> <img src="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/358/This_robot_can_beat_you_at_table_tennis.jpg" alt="This robot can beat you at table tennis cover" /> </picture> <p>Sony AI developed a robot manipulator mounted on a gantry called ‘Ace’ that shows outstanding table tennis skills. The system uses multiple RGB cameras running at 200Hz, but I think the most interesting insight here is the event camera to measure the spin of the ball.</p> <div class="learn-more-container"> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EH8kZDc7OLk" class="pure-button">Source</a> </div> <hr /> <h2 id="rebot-devarm">reBot-DevArm</h2> <picture> <source srcset="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/358/reBot-DevArm.webp" type="image/webp" /> <img src="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/358/reBot-DevArm.jpg" alt="reBot-DevArm cover" /> </picture> <p><a href="https://www.seeedstudio.com">SeedStudio</a> had released an open-source 6 DoF robot arm that’s also quite cost efficient at $1,200. What I find really interesting is the arm weight of 4.5 kg compared with the 1.5kg payload.</p> <div class="learn-more-container"> <a href="https://github.com/Seeed-Projects/reBot-DevArm" class="pure-button">Source</a> </div> <hr /> <h2 id="ncore">NCore</h2> <picture> <source srcset="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/358/NCore.webp" type="image/webp" /> <img src="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/358/NCore.jpg" alt="NCore cover" /> </picture> <p>NCore is NVIDIA’s open-source, python-based platform providing data representations, APIs, and tools for neural 3D reconstruction and simulation, with a focus on robotics and autonomous vehicle (AV) data. To learn more about this project, check out <a href="https://github.com/nvidia/ncore">the project’s repository</a>.</p> <div class="learn-more-container"> <a href="https://research.nvidia.com/labs/sil/projects/ncore/" class="pure-button">Source</a> </div> <hr /> <h2 id="vla-foundry---vision-language-action-model-training-framework">VLA Foundry - Vision-Language-Action Model Training Framework</h2> <picture> <source srcset="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/358/VLA_Foundry_-_Vision-Language-Action_Model_Training_Framework.webp" type="image/webp" /> <img src="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/358/VLA_Foundry_-_Vision-Language-Action_Model_Training_Framework.jpg" alt="VLA Foundry - Vision-Language-Action Model Training Framework cover" /> </picture> <blockquote> <p>We present VLA Foundry, an open-source framework that unifies LLM, VLM, and VLA training in a single codebase. Most open-source VLA efforts specialize on the action training stage, often stitching together incompatible pretraining pipelines. VLA Foundry instead provides a shared training stack with end-to-end control, from language pretraining to action-expert fine-tuning. VLA Foundry supports both from-scratch training and pretrained backbones from Hugging Face.</p> </blockquote> <div class="learn-more-container"> <a href="https://tri-ml.github.io/vla_foundry/" class="pure-button">Source</a> </div> <hr /> <h2 id="electric-wind-up-plane-uses-supercapacitors-for-free-flight-fun">Electric Wind-Up Plane Uses Supercapacitors For Free Flight Fun</h2> <picture> <source srcset="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/358/Electric_Wind-Up_Plane_Uses_Supercapacitors_For_Free_Flight_Fun.webp" type="image/webp" /> <img src="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/358/Electric_Wind-Up_Plane_Uses_Supercapacitors_For_Free_Flight_Fun.jpg" alt="Electric Wind-Up Plane Uses Supercapacitors For Free Flight Fun cover" /> </picture> <p>I love this project by Tom Stanton, where he builds an interesting wind-up plane. The method of 3D printing directly on a tissue paper is an interesting approach. I want to build some micro gliders now!</p> <div class="learn-more-container"> <a href="https://hackaday.com/2026/04/18/electric-wind-up-plane-uses-supercapacitors-for-free-flight-fun/" class="pure-button">Source</a> </div> <hr /> <h2 id="webodm---drone-mapping-software">WebODM - Drone Mapping Software</h2> <picture> <source srcset="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/358/WebODM_-_Drone_Mapping_Software.webp" type="image/webp" /> <img src="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/358/WebODM_-_Drone_Mapping_Software.jpg" alt="WebODM - Drone Mapping Software cover" /> </picture> <p>You probably won’t attach a camera to the drone from the previous feature, but if you were flying another drone and wanted to use photogrammetry, you can consider using WebODM to create your own 3D maps.</p> <div class="learn-more-container"> <a href="https://webodm.org/" class="pure-button">Source</a> </div> <hr /> <h2 id="free-thermodynamics-textbook-by-olivier-cleynen">Free Thermodynamics Textbook by Olivier Cleynen</h2> <picture> <source srcset="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/358/Free_Thermodynamics_Textbook_by_Olivier_Cleynen.webp" type="image/webp" /> <img src="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/358/Free_Thermodynamics_Textbook_by_Olivier_Cleynen.jpg" alt="Free Thermodynamics Textbook by Olivier Cleynen cover" /> </picture> <p>If you’d like to learn Thermodynamics, look no further. Olivier Cleynen created this free e-book. I love this initiative!</p> <div class="learn-more-container"> <a href="https://thermodynamicsbook.com/" class="pure-button">Source</a> </div> <hr /> <h2 id="pudu-robotics-raises-nearly-150m-as-it-targets-industrial-applications">Pudu Robotics raises nearly $150M as it targets industrial applications</h2> <picture> <source srcset="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/358/Pudu_Robotics_raises_nearly__150M_as_it_targets_industrial_applications.webp" type="image/webp" /> <img src="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/358/Pudu_Robotics_raises_nearly__150M_as_it_targets_industrial_applications.jpg" alt="Pudu Robotics raises nearly $150M as it targets industrial applications cover" /> </picture> <blockquote> <p><a href="https://www.pudurobotics.com/en">Pudu Technology Inc.</a> today said it has it raised nearly $150 million in a new funding round. Following this round, the company claimed that its valuation has exceeded $1.5 billion, and its cumulative funding exceeds $300 million.</p> </blockquote> <div class="learn-more-container"> <a href="https://www.therobotreport.com/pudu-robotics-raises-nearly-150m-targets-industrial-applications/" class="pure-button">Source</a> </div> <hr /> <h2 id="how-to-make-professional-enclosures-for-your-electronic-projects">How to make Professional Enclosures for your Electronic Projects</h2> <picture> <source srcset="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/358/How_to_make_Professional_Enclosures_for_your_Electronic_Projects.webp" type="image/webp" /> <img src="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/358/How_to_make_Professional_Enclosures_for_your_Electronic_Projects.jpg" alt="How to make Professional Enclosures for your Electronic Projects cover" /> </picture> <p>Mirko Pavleski made this wholesome video showing his approach to making professional-looking enclosures by hand, using PVC sheets and cutting and gluing them.</p> <div class="learn-more-container"> <a href="https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=t9KfsZ-eU5M&amp;t=555s&amp;pp=2AGrBJACAQ%3D%3D" class="pure-button">Source</a> </div> <hr /> <h2 id="our-sponsors">Our Sponsors</h2> <ul> <li><a href="https://www.anyscale.com/?utm_source=newsletter&amp;utm_campaign=weeklyrobotics">Anyscale</a> gives you a platform to run and scale all your ML and AI workloads, from data processing to training and inference.</li> <li><a href="https://foxglove.dev/">Foxglove</a> is a purpose-built, modular platform for robotics teams to collect, organize, and learn from vast quantities of multimodal data, creating the data flywheel to safely scale from development to distributed fleets</li> <li><a href="https://www.hellorobo.co/">HelloRobo</a> distils robotics tech into simple, usable interfaces</li> <li><a href="https://www.jiga.io/?utm_source=Jiga&amp;utm_medium=communities&amp;utm_campaign=weekly-robotics">Jiga</a> connects hardware teams directly with vetted manufacturers for reliable capacity from prototype to production, combining the speed of digital manufacturing with the trust of a long-term supplier relationship</li> </ul> <h2 id="events">Events</h2> <ul> <li><a href="https://luma.com/event/evt-9z6SgMhzFxS3CNR">Actuate Global — London: Community Meetup</a>: Apr 30, 2026. London, United Kingdom</li> <li><a href="https://luma.com/pm6qcjc4">Hands on Workshop: Scaling Vision-Language-Action (VLA) Models with Ray</a>: Apr 30, 2026. Pittsburgh, United States of America</li> <li><a href="https://luma.com/er8w9a8w">BARA Series: April Meeting and Pitches</a>: Apr 30, 2026. Mountain View, California, United States of America</li> <li><a href="https://luma.com/event/evt-qb7xSpbfUvG16PT">Actuate Global — Paris: Community Meetup</a>: May 04, 2026. Paris, France</li> <li><a href="https://luma.com/event/evt-kgSiIwU20HSwBG4">Actuate Global — Zurich: Field Session</a>: May 06, 2026. Zurich, Switzerland</li> <li><a href="https://www.odenserobotics.dk/nextgen-robotics-live/">NextGen Robotics LIVE</a>: May 06, 2026. Odense, Denmark</li> <li><a href="https://luma.com/event/evt-9gohwQTr1jvRdgm">Actuate Global — Munich: Community Meetup</a>: May 07, 2026. Munich, Germany</li> <li><a href="https://luma.com/9kzvfh2p">Cracow Robotics &amp; AI Meetup</a>: May 18, 2026. Krakow, Poland</li> <li><a href="https://2026.oshwa.org/">Open Hardware Summit</a>: May 22 - May 23, 2026. Berlin, Germany</li> <li><a href="https://www.roboticssummit.com/">Robotics Summit &amp; Expo 2026</a>: May 27 - May 28, 2026. Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America</li> </ul> <p>For more robotic events, check out our <a href="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/events">event page</a>.</p> <hr /> <p>Want to promote your product or service in Weekly Robotics? <a href="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/advertise">Check out our advertising options</a>.</p> https://weeklyrobotics.com/weekly-robotics-357 2026-04-20T00:00:00+01:00 Today in Weekly Robotics: it's raining general robots news, a new robotic simulator is in town, Chinese robot winning a half-marathon, quadruped robot fails, and more! https://weeklyrobotics.com/favicon.ico <blockquote> <p>We are again happy to be the media sponsor of <a href="https://luma.com/9kzvfh2p">Cracow Robotics and AI meetup</a>. Can't wait!</p> <p>Today's issue starts off very VLA/general-robots-heavy, since there have been quite a few interesting developments in recent days. Then we will go into some cool projects and end with some robot fails. Enjoy!</p> </blockquote> <div class="issue-sponsors-lineup"> <div class="issue-sponsors-divider"></div> <div class="issue-sponsors-content"> <span class="issue-sponsors-text">This issue is brought to you by our sponsors:</span> <div class="sponsor-lineup-container"> <a href="https://www.anyscale.com/?utm_source=newsletter&amp;utm_campaign=weeklyrobotics" target="_blank" rel="noopener" class="sponsor-logo-container"> <img src="https://weeklyrobotics.com/img/sponsors/anyscale.png" alt="anyscale logo" /> </a> <a href="https://foxglove.dev/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" class="sponsor-logo-container"> <img src="https://weeklyrobotics.com/img/sponsors/foxglove.png" alt="foxglove logo" /> </a> <a href="https://www.hellorobo.co/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" class="sponsor-logo-container"> <img src="https://weeklyrobotics.com/img/sponsors/hellorobo.png" alt="hellorobo logo" /> </a> <a href="https://www.jiga.io/?utm_source=Jiga&amp;utm_medium=communities&amp;utm_campaign=weekly-robotics" target="_blank" rel="noopener" class="sponsor-logo-container"> <img src="https://weeklyrobotics.com/img/sponsors/jiga.png" alt="jiga logo" /> </a> </div> </div> <div class="issue-sponsors-divider"></div> </div> <h2 id="multiply-labs-advances-ai-for-biologics-robotics-on-anyscale-sponsored">Multiply Labs Advances AI for Biologics Robotics on Anyscale [Sponsored]</h2> <picture> <source srcset="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/357/Multiply_Labs_Advances_AI_for_Biologics_Robotics_on_Anyscale.webp" type="image/webp" /> <img src="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/357/Multiply_Labs_Advances_AI_for_Biologics_Robotics_on_Anyscale.jpg" alt="Multiply Labs Advances AI for Biologics Robotics on Anyscale cover" /> </picture> <p>Multiply Labs is using advanced robotics to remove human-based contamination from biologics manufacturing. To drive coverage for more complex edge cases, the team needed to scale their training runs across multiple clouds - AWS, GCP and Nebius - to gain flexible, on-demand access to large GPUs (H100s and A100s). Learn how they achieved this with Ray - the world's most widely used engine for AI - on Anyscale. </p> <div class="learn-more-container"> <a href="https://www.anyscale.com/resources/case-study/multiply-labs?utm_source=newsletter&amp;utm_campaign=weeklyrobotics" class="pure-button">Anyscale</a> </div> <hr /> <h2 id="mimic-video-video-action-models-for-generalizable-robot-control-beyond-vlas">mimic-video: Video-Action Models for Generalizable Robot Control Beyond VLAs</h2> <picture> <source srcset="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/357/mimic-video__Video-Action_Models_for_Generalizable_Robot_Control_Beyond_VLAs.webp" type="image/webp" /> <img src="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/357/mimic-video__Video-Action_Models_for_Generalizable_Robot_Control_Beyond_VLAs.jpg" alt="mimic-video: Video-Action Models for Generalizable Robot Control Beyond VLAs cover" /> </picture> <p>Please allow me to quote the abstract instead of summarizing:</p> <blockquote> <p>we introduce mimic-video, a novel Video-Action Model (VAM) that pairs a pretrained Internet-scale video model with a flow matching-based action decoder conditioned on its latent representations. The decoder serves as an Inverse Dynamics Model (IDM), generating low-level robot actions from the latent representation of video-space action plans. Our extensive evaluation shows that our approach achieves state-of-the-art performance on simulated and real-world robotic manipulation tasks, improving sample efficiency by 10x and convergence speed by 2x compared to traditional VLA architectures.</p> </blockquote> <p>To learn more about this work, check out <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.15692">this paper</a>.</p> <div class="learn-more-container"> <a href="https://mimic-video.github.io/" class="pure-button">Source</a> </div> <hr /> <h2 id="gemini-robotics-er-16-enhanced-embodied-reasoning">Gemini Robotics ER 1.6: Enhanced Embodied Reasoning</h2> <picture> <source srcset="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/357/Gemini_Robotics_ER_1_6__Enhanced_Embodied_Reasoning.webp" type="image/webp" /> <img src="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/357/Gemini_Robotics_ER_1_6__Enhanced_Embodied_Reasoning.jpg" alt="Gemini Robotics ER 1.6: Enhanced Embodied Reasoning cover" /> </picture> <p>The team at DeepMind released Gemini Robotics ER 1.6, which is available to developers through the API. I really liked the gauge-reading examples, and I hope to see some developers apply this in their projects!</p> <div class="learn-more-container"> <a href="https://deepmind.google/blog/gemini-robotics-er-1-6/" class="pure-button">Source</a> </div> <hr /> <h2 id="a-steerable-model-with-emergent-capabilities">A Steerable Model with Emergent Capabilities</h2> <picture> <source srcset="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/357/A_Steerable_Model_with_Emergent_Capabilities.webp" type="image/webp" /> <img src="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/357/A_Steerable_Model_with_Emergent_Capabilities.jpg" alt="A Steerable Model with Emergent Capabilities cover" /> </picture> <p>Physical Intelligence has released a new model called Pi0.7. This time, the team created a model that can generalize and compose behaviors - being able to execute tasks that the model was not explicitly trained on. I have one question, though - is this how you are supposed to cook sweet potatoes in an air fryer?</p> <div class="learn-more-container"> <a href="https://www.pi.website/blog/pi07" class="pure-button">Source</a> </div> <hr /> <h2 id="chinese-robot-smashes-human-world-record-in-half-marathon-just-whooshed-right-past-me">Chinese robot smashes human world record in half-marathon: ‘Just whooshed right past me’</h2> <picture> <source srcset="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/357/Chinese_robot_smashes_human_world_record_in_half-marathon___Just_whooshed_right_past_me.webp" type="image/webp" /> <img src="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/357/Chinese_robot_smashes_human_world_record_in_half-marathon___Just_whooshed_right_past_me.jpg" alt="Chinese robot smashes human world record in half-marathon: 'Just whooshed right past me' cover" /> </picture> <p>The droids went racing in China, this time beating a human record for a half-marathon, completing the 13-mile race in 50 minutes and 26 seconds.</p> <div class="learn-more-container"> <a href="https://nypost.com/2026/04/19/world-news/chinese-robot-smashes-human-world-record-in-half-marathon/" class="pure-button">Source</a> </div> <hr /> <h2 id="unrealroboticslab">UnrealRoboticsLab</h2> <picture> <source srcset="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/357/UnrealRoboticsLab.webp" type="image/webp" /> <img src="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/357/UnrealRoboticsLab.jpg" alt="UnrealRoboticsLab cover" /> </picture> <blockquote> <p>URLab (Unreal Robotics Lab) is an Unreal Engine 5 plugin that embeds the MuJoCo physics engine directly into the editor and runtime. Drag-and-drop MJCF XML import, a component-based architecture that maps 1:1 to MuJoCo elements, the full MuJoCo C API accessible from C++ and Blueprints, ZMQ networking for external control, Python policy integration, 40+ sensor types, 8 actuator types, debug visualization, and a record/replay system.</p> </blockquote> <div class="learn-more-container"> <a href="https://github.com/URLab-Sim/UnrealRoboticsLab" class="pure-button">Source</a> </div> <hr /> <h2 id="the-hidden-hand-farms-of-india-fueling-the-ai-robot-revolution-with-human-motion">The Hidden “Hand Farms” of India: Fueling the AI Robot Revolution with Human Motion</h2> <picture> <source srcset="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/357/The_Hidden__Hand_Farms__of_India__Fueling_the_AI_Robot_Revolution_with_Human_Motion.webp" type="image/webp" /> &lt;img src="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/357/The_Hidden__Hand_Farms__of_India__Fueling_the_AI_Robot_Revolution_with_Human_Motion.jpg" alt="The Hidden "Hand Farms" of India: Fueling the AI Robot Revolution with Human Motion cover"&gt; </picture> <p>When I used to think of general robots, the comparison with autonomous cars always came to mind, but what I failed to factor in was that: a) it’s cheaper to collect this data, and b) it might be much easier to scale. This article will give you some insights into how datasets like these can be captured, including the ethics of such operations.</p> <div class="learn-more-container"> <a href="https://quasa.io/media/the-hidden-hand-farms-of-india-fueling-the-ai-robot-revolution-with-human-motion" class="pure-button">Source</a> </div> <hr /> <h2 id="robot-golf-vs-holes-that-keep-getting-harder">Robot golf vs holes that keep getting harder</h2> <picture> <source srcset="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/357/Robot_golf_vs_holes_that_keep_getting_harder.webp" type="image/webp" /> <img src="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/357/Robot_golf_vs_holes_that_keep_getting_harder.jpg" alt="Robot golf vs holes that keep getting harder cover" /> </picture> <p>I find it incredible how good a result Stuff Made Here was able to achieve with a one-degree-of-freedom robot shown in this video. I highly recommend checking it out if you like seeing engineering applied to not-so-serious projects.</p> <div class="learn-more-container"> <a href="https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2OfjZ3ORJfc" class="pure-button">Source</a> </div> <hr /> <h2 id="all-the-mini-cheetah-fails">All the Mini Cheetah Fails</h2> <p>Ben Katz had published a compilation of the Mini Cheetah quadruped failing. Seeing this reminded me that robotics is actually properly difficult.</p> <div class="learn-more-container"> <a href="https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nmViQ1T03Rk" class="pure-button">Source</a> </div> <hr /> <h2 id="delivery-robots-having-a-hard-time">Delivery robots having a hard time</h2> <p>Speaking of fails, this Reddit compilation proves my point. I wonder how often the robots with a flag have close calls at intersections. Does anyone have any statistics they can share?</p> <div class="learn-more-container"> <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinfuriating/comments/1skq5jr/these_robots_are_drunk/" class="pure-button">Source</a> </div> <hr /> <h2 id="our-sponsors">Our Sponsors</h2> <ul> <li><a href="https://www.anyscale.com/?utm_source=newsletter&amp;utm_campaign=weeklyrobotics">Anyscale</a> gives you a platform to run and scale all your ML and AI workloads, from data processing to training and inference.</li> <li><a href="https://foxglove.dev/">Foxglove</a> is a purpose-built, modular platform for robotics teams to collect, organize, and learn from vast quantities of multimodal data, creating the data flywheel to safely scale from development to distributed fleets</li> <li><a href="https://www.hellorobo.co/">HelloRobo</a> distils robotics tech into simple, usable interfaces</li> <li><a href="https://www.jiga.io/?utm_source=Jiga&amp;utm_medium=communities&amp;utm_campaign=weekly-robotics">Jiga</a> connects hardware teams directly with vetted manufacturers for reliable capacity from prototype to production, combining the speed of digital manufacturing with the trust of a long-term supplier relationship</li> </ul> <h2 id="events">Events</h2> <ul> <li><a href="https://luma.com/9kzvfh2p">Cracow Robotics &amp; AI Meetup</a>: May 18, 2026. Krakow, Poland</li> <li><a href="https://luma.com/2xbmo7a9">Actuate Global — San Francisco: Industry Night</a>: Apr 23, 2026. San Francisco, United States of America</li> <li><a href="https://luma.com/event/evt-9z6SgMhzFxS3CNR">Actuate Global — London: Community Meetup</a>: Apr 30, 2026. London, United Kingdom</li> <li><a href="https://luma.com/pm6qcjc4">Hands on Workshop: Scaling Vision-Language-Action (VLA) Models with Ray</a>: Apr 30, 2026. Pittsburgh, United States of America</li> <li><a href="https://luma.com/event/evt-qb7xSpbfUvG16PT">Actuate Global — Paris: Community Meetup</a>: May 04, 2026. Paris, France</li> <li><a href="https://luma.com/event/evt-kgSiIwU20HSwBG4">Actuate Global — Zurich: Field Session</a>: May 06, 2026. Zurich, Switzerland</li> <li><a href="https://www.odenserobotics.dk/nextgen-robotics-live/">NextGen Robotics LIVE</a>: May 06, 2026. Odense, Denmark</li> <li><a href="https://luma.com/event/evt-9gohwQTr1jvRdgm">Actuate Global — Munich: Community Meetup</a>: May 07, 2026. Munich, Germany</li> <li><a href="https://2026.oshwa.org/">Open Hardware Summit</a>: May 22 - May 23, 2026. Berlin, Germany</li> <li><a href="https://www.roboticssummit.com/">Robotics Summit &amp; Expo 2026</a>: May 27 - May 28, 2026. Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America</li> </ul> <p>For more robotic events, check out our <a href="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/events">event page</a>.</p> <hr /> <p>Want to promote your product or service in Weekly Robotics? <a href="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/advertise">Check out our advertising options</a>.</p> https://weeklyrobotics.com/weekly-robotics-356 2026-04-13T00:00:00+01:00 Today in Weekly Robotics: Drones in GPS-denied environments, spline-based trajectory planning, fault-tolerant flight computer for Artemis II, a new sensor-fusion library for ROS, and more! https://weeklyrobotics.com/favicon.ico <blockquote> <p>Last week, I had the pleasure of traveling to Zurich and visiting the ETH <a href="https://rsl.ethz.ch/">Robotic Systems Lab</a> and the <a href="https://rai-inst.com/">RAI Institute</a>. Seeing state-of-the-art hardware and demonstrators and peeking behind the curtain is one thing, but talking to passionate robotic developers is always the highlight of visits like these.</p> <p>In other news, I'm very happy to present an article on GPS-denied navigation for drones (first feature today), contributed by <a href="https://alessandrosaviolo.github.io/">Alessandro Saviolo</a>. Thanks, Alessandro! </p> </blockquote> <div class="issue-sponsors-lineup"> <div class="issue-sponsors-divider"></div> <div class="issue-sponsors-content"> <span class="issue-sponsors-text">This issue is brought to you by our sponsors:</span> <div class="sponsor-lineup-container"> <a href="https://www.anyscale.com/?utm_source=newsletter&amp;utm_campaign=weeklyrobotics" target="_blank" rel="noopener" class="sponsor-logo-container"> <img src="https://weeklyrobotics.com/img/sponsors/anyscale.png" alt="anyscale logo" /> </a> <a href="https://foxglove.dev/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" class="sponsor-logo-container"> <img src="https://weeklyrobotics.com/img/sponsors/foxglove.png" alt="foxglove logo" /> </a> <a href="https://www.hellorobo.co/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" class="sponsor-logo-container"> <img src="https://weeklyrobotics.com/img/sponsors/hellorobo.png" alt="hellorobo logo" /> </a> <a href="https://www.jiga.io/?utm_source=Jiga&amp;utm_medium=communities&amp;utm_campaign=weekly-robotics" target="_blank" rel="noopener" class="sponsor-logo-container"> <img src="https://weeklyrobotics.com/img/sponsors/jiga.png" alt="jiga logo" /> </a> </div> </div> <div class="issue-sponsors-divider"></div> </div> <h2 id="late-parts-dont-have-to-be-a-surprise-sponsored">Late parts don’t have to be a surprise [Sponsored]</h2> <picture> <source srcset="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/356/Late_parts_don_t_have_to_be_a_surprise.webp" type="image/webp" /> <img src="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/356/Late_parts_don_t_have_to_be_a_surprise.jpg" alt="Late parts don't have to be a surprise cover" /> </picture> <p>The worst part about a missed deadline isn't the delay, it's finding out too late to adjust your build schedule. Most sourcing platforms give you a lead time estimate upfront and then go silent. On Jiga, you talk directly to the manufacturer making your parts. You get proactive updates on production status, so when timelines shift, you know before your integration timeline is at risk, not after your team is already waiting on hardware.</p> <div class="learn-more-container"> <a href="https://jiga.io/?utm_source=weekly-robotics&amp;utm_medium=communities&amp;utm_campaign=sponsorships&amp;utm_content=reliability-lead-times" class="pure-button">Jiga</a> </div> <hr /> <h2 id="rethinking-drone-autonomy-in-gps-denied-environments">Rethinking Drone Autonomy in GPS-Denied Environments</h2> <picture> <source srcset="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/356/Rethinking_Drone_Autonomy_in_GPS-Denied_Environments.webp" type="image/webp" /> <img src="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/356/Rethinking_Drone_Autonomy_in_GPS-Denied_Environments.jpg" alt="Rethinking Drone Autonomy in GPS-Denied Environments cover" /> </picture> <p>As promised in the intro, HUNT is a drone autonomy framework for GPS-denied, unstructured environments that replaces persistent global localization with instantaneous relative frames rebuilt from directly observable onboard signals such as inertial attitude, barometric altitude, visual motion cues, and target geometry. Make sure to check out the featured videos!</p> <div class="learn-more-container"> <a href="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/articles/2026_04_07_rethinking_drone_autonomy_gps_denied/" class="pure-button">Source</a> </div> <hr /> <h2 id="mighty-hermite-spline-based-efficient-trajectory-planning">MIGHTY: Hermite Spline-based Efficient Trajectory Planning</h2> <picture> <source srcset="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/356/MIGHTY__Hermite_Spline-based_Efficient_Trajectory_Planning.webp" type="image/webp" /> <img src="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/356/MIGHTY__Hermite_Spline-based_Efficient_Trajectory_Planning.jpg" alt="MIGHTY: Hermite Spline-based Efficient Trajectory Planning cover" /> </picture> <p>MIGHTY is a “Hermite spline-based planner that performs spatiotemporal optimization while fully leveraging the continuous search space of a spline”. The result: multirotors capable of highly agile flight with reduced travel time and computation requirements compared to the state-of-the-art solutions. To learn more about this project, check out <a href="https://github.com/mit-acl/mighty">the project repository</a> or <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.10822">the ArXiv preprint</a>.</p> <div class="learn-more-container"> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pvb-VPUdLvg&amp;feature=youtu.be" class="pure-button">Source</a> </div> <hr /> <h2 id="how-nasa-built-artemis-iis-fault-tolerant-computer">How NASA Built Artemis II’s Fault-Tolerant Computer</h2> <picture> <source srcset="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/356/How_NASA_Built_Artemis_II_s_Fault-Tolerant_Computer.webp" type="image/webp" /> <img src="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/356/How_NASA_Built_Artemis_II_s_Fault-Tolerant_Computer.jpg" alt="How NASA Built Artemis II’s Fault-Tolerant Computer cover" /> </picture> <p>If you enjoyed following the Artemis II story, you will likely enjoy this write-up on the design of a fault-tolerant computer for this spacecraft. It’s the first time I’ve come across a “fail silent” architecture, where if any of the redundant systems have an issue, they remain silent, and we always take the available output. Very interesting design decisions all around!</p> <div class="learn-more-container"> <a href="https://cacm.acm.org/news/how-nasa-built-artemis-iis-fault-tolerant-computer/" class="pure-button">Source</a> </div> <hr /> <h2 id="fusioncore">FusionCore</h2> <picture> <source srcset="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/356/FusionCore.webp" type="image/webp" /> <img src="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/356/FusionCore.jpg" alt="FusionCore cover" /> </picture> <p>FusionCore is an open-source ROS 2 UKF-based sensor-fusion SDK that natively supports 3D, GNSS, IMUs, wheel encoders, and more! I really like the feature list and am looking forward to testing it out!</p> <div class="learn-more-container"> <a href="https://github.com/manankharwar/fusioncore" class="pure-button">Source</a> </div> <hr /> <h2 id="what-i-learned-from-making-my-own-drone-part-i">What I learned from making my own drone (Part I)</h2> <picture> <source srcset="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/356/What_I_learned_from_making_my_own_drone__Part_I.webp" type="image/webp" /> <img src="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/356/What_I_learned_from_making_my_own_drone__Part_I.jpg" alt="What I learned from making my own drone (Part I) cover" /> </picture> <p>Nickolai Belakovski wrote a fantastic piece on lessons learned from building his first drone. If you are no stranger to drones, you will probably nod at some of the problems with IMUs, DShot, and rolling your own PID implementation. All in all, it’s a solid series of lessons learned!</p> <div class="learn-more-container"> <a href="https://nbelakovski.substack.com/p/what-i-learned-from-making-my-own" class="pure-button">Source</a> </div> <hr /> <h2 id="ls3-boston-dynamics-mini-resin-printing">LS3 Boston Dynamics Mini Resin Printing</h2> <picture> <source srcset="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/356/LS3_Boston_Dynamics_Mini_Resin_Printing___r_robotics.webp" type="image/webp" /> <img src="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/356/LS3_Boston_Dynamics_Mini_Resin_Printing___r_robotics.jpg" alt="LS3 Boston Dynamics Mini Resin Printing : r/robotics cover" /> </picture> <p>Remember the AlphaDog from Boston Dynamics? A Reddit user is building a tiny replica that will host moving parts. I have to say I really like how it’s coming together.</p> <div class="learn-more-container"> <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/robotics/comments/1sj8q52/ls3_boston_dynamics_mini_resin_printing/" class="pure-button">Source</a> </div> <hr /> <h2 id="our-sponsors">Our Sponsors</h2> <ul> <li><a href="https://www.anyscale.com/?utm_source=newsletter&amp;utm_campaign=weeklyrobotics">Anyscale</a> gives you a platform to run and scale all your ML and AI workloads, from data processing to training and inference.</li> <li><a href="https://foxglove.dev/">Foxglove</a> is a purpose-built, modular platform for robotics teams to collect, organize, and learn from vast quantities of multimodal data, creating the data flywheel to safely scale from development to distributed fleets</li> <li><a href="https://www.hellorobo.co/">HelloRobo</a> distils robotics tech into simple, usable interfaces</li> <li><a href="https://www.jiga.io/?utm_source=Jiga&amp;utm_medium=communities&amp;utm_campaign=weekly-robotics">Jiga</a> connects hardware teams directly with vetted manufacturers for reliable capacity from prototype to production, combining the speed of digital manufacturing with the trust of a long-term supplier relationship</li> </ul> <h2 id="events">Events</h2> <ul> <li><a href="https://luma.com/z7zrd853">Robotics &amp; Physical AI day (Mashup)</a>: Apr 15 - Apr 15, 2026. Malmö, Sweden</li> <li><a href="https://luma.com/2xbmo7a9">Actuate Global — San Francisco: Industry Night</a>: Apr 23, 2026. San Francisco, United States of America</li> <li><a href="https://luma.com/event/evt-9z6SgMhzFxS3CNR">Actuate Global — London: Community Meetup</a>: Apr 30, 2026. London, United Kingdom</li> <li><a href="https://luma.com/pm6qcjc4">Hands on Workshop: Scaling Vision-Language-Action (VLA) Models with Ray</a>: Apr 30, 2026. Pittsburgh, United States of America</li> <li><a href="https://luma.com/event/evt-qb7xSpbfUvG16PT">Actuate Global — Paris: Community Meetup</a>: May 04, 2026. Paris, France</li> <li><a href="https://luma.com/event/evt-kgSiIwU20HSwBG4">Actuate Global — Zurich: Field Session</a>: May 06, 2026. Zurich, Switzerland</li> <li><a href="https://www.odenserobotics.dk/nextgen-robotics-live/">NextGen Robotics LIVE</a>: May 06, 2026. Odense, Denmark</li> <li><a href="https://luma.com/event/evt-9gohwQTr1jvRdgm">Actuate Global — Munich: Community Meetup</a>: May 07, 2026. Munich, Germany</li> <li><a href="https://2026.oshwa.org/">Open Hardware Summit</a>: May 22 - May 23, 2026. Berlin, Germany</li> <li><a href="https://www.roboticssummit.com/">Robotics Summit &amp; Expo 2026</a>: May 27 - May 28, 2026. Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America</li> </ul> <p>For more robotic events, check out our <a href="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/events">event page</a>.</p> <hr /> <p>Want to promote your product or service in Weekly Robotics? <a href="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/advertise">Check out our advertising options</a>.</p> https://weeklyrobotics.com/weekly-robotics-355 2026-04-06T00:00:00+01:00 Weekly Robotics 355: humans operating quadrupeds, a 99% task success rate for an embodied model, comparing VLAs, software founders coming for robotics, and more! https://weeklyrobotics.com/favicon.ico <blockquote> <p>The other day, I sat down with Adar Hay, the CEO of Jiga, to talk about supply chains and moving projects from prototyping to production. The outcome of this chat is <a href="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/articles/2026_04_05_from_prototype_to_production_supply_chain_gap/">this article</a>, which also restarts our push for original robotics content. We have one more article lined up, and I'm excited to see where this journey takes us!</p> </blockquote> <div class="issue-sponsors-lineup"> <div class="issue-sponsors-divider"></div> <div class="issue-sponsors-content"> <span class="issue-sponsors-text">This issue is brought to you by our sponsors:</span> <div class="sponsor-lineup-container"> <a href="https://www.anyscale.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" class="sponsor-logo-container"> <img src="https://weeklyrobotics.com/img/sponsors/anyscale.png" alt="anyscale logo" /> </a> <a href="https://foxglove.dev/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" class="sponsor-logo-container"> <img src="https://weeklyrobotics.com/img/sponsors/foxglove.png" alt="foxglove logo" /> </a> <a href="https://www.hellorobo.co/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" class="sponsor-logo-container"> <img src="https://weeklyrobotics.com/img/sponsors/hellorobo.png" alt="hellorobo logo" /> </a> <a href="https://www.jiga.io/?utm_source=Jiga&amp;utm_medium=communities&amp;utm_campaign=weekly-robotics" target="_blank" rel="noopener" class="sponsor-logo-container"> <img src="https://weeklyrobotics.com/img/sponsors/jiga.png" alt="jiga logo" /> </a> </div> </div> <div class="issue-sponsors-divider"></div> </div> <h2 id="studying-human-attitudes-towards-robots-through-experience">Studying Human Attitudes Towards Robots Through Experience</h2> <picture> <source srcset="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/355/Studying_Human_Attitudes_Towards_Robots_Through_Experience.webp" type="image/webp" /> <img src="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/355/Studying_Human_Attitudes_Towards_Robots_Through_Experience.jpg" alt="Studying Human Attitudes Towards Robots Through Experience cover" /> </picture> <p>The team at the Robotics and AI Institute set up an experiment where they let the general public control a Spot quadruped. Even though the controller was quite simple, it’s quite interesting to see that even little kids could control it thanks to the platform design.</p> <div class="learn-more-container"> <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/boston-dynamics-spot-interaction" class="pure-button">Source</a> </div> <hr /> <h2 id="gen-1-scaling-embodied-foundation-models-to-mastery">GEN-1: Scaling Embodied Foundation Models to Mastery</h2> <picture> <source srcset="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/355/GEN-1__Scaling_Embodied_Foundation_Models_to_Mastery.webp" type="image/webp" /> <img src="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/355/GEN-1__Scaling_Embodied_Foundation_Models_to_Mastery.jpg" alt="GEN-1: Scaling Embodied Foundation Models to Mastery cover" /> </picture> <p>The Generalists AI team showcased this piece, claiming their new model GEN-1 can achieve 99% success rate on some simple tasks. I really wonder how these numbers would hold up in a real-world deployment, which brings us to the next feature…</p> <div class="learn-more-container"> <a href="https://generalistai.com/blog/apr-02-2026-GEN-1" class="pure-button">Source</a> </div> <hr /> <h2 id="phail--is-physical-ai-ready-for-real-work">PhAIL – Is physical AI ready for real work?</h2> <picture> <source srcset="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/355/PhAIL___Is_physical_AI_ready_for_real_work_.webp" type="image/webp" /> <img src="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/355/PhAIL___Is_physical_AI_ready_for_real_work_.jpg" alt="PhAIL – Is physical AI ready for real work? cover" /> </picture> <p>PhAIL by <a href="https://positronic.ro/">Positronic</a> is a leaderboard that showcases the performance of open VLA models on predefined tasks. The leaderboard should give you a good idea of what to expect from these models in terms of success rate and speed. I would love to see some commercial models there too and I’m hopping Positronic can make it happen!</p> <div class="learn-more-container"> <a href="https://phail.positronic.ro/" class="pure-button">Source</a> </div> <hr /> <h2 id="a-dot-a-day-keeps-the-clutter-away">A Dot a Day Keeps the Clutter Away</h2> <picture> <source srcset="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/355/A_Dot_a_Day_Keeps_the_Clutter_Away.webp" type="image/webp" /> <img src="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/355/A_Dot_a_Day_Keeps_the_Clutter_Away.jpg" alt="A Dot a Day Keeps the Clutter Away cover" /> </picture> <p>If you have a workshop, you might love this little hack to declutter (it can very well apply to other ways of life). All you need is some dot stickers and a workflow to put them up on some boxes.</p> <div class="learn-more-container"> <a href="https://scottlawsonbc.com/post/dot-system" class="pure-button">Source</a> </div> <hr /> <h2 id="robovac-building-a-home-robot-to-autonomously-clean-our-house">(RoboVac) Building a home robot to autonomously clean our house</h2> <picture> <source srcset="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/355/RoboVac__Building_a_home_robot_to_autonomously_clean_our_house.webp" type="image/webp" /> <img src="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/355/RoboVac__Building_a_home_robot_to_autonomously_clean_our_house.jpg" alt="(RoboVac) Building a home robot to autonomously clean our house cover" /> </picture> <p>Indraneel R. Patil made an interesting robot vacuum project. The idea was that the project cost should not exceed $500. The end result is the first robot vacuum I’ve seen with Ackerman steering. The approach of using a CNN with behavior cloning seems to have some way to go before it’s 100% ready, but it still looks like a lot of fun!</p> <div class="learn-more-container"> <a href="https://indraneelpatil.github.io/blog/2026/robot-vacuum/" class="pure-button">Source</a> </div> <hr /> <h2 id="the-software-first-robotics-founder">The Software-First Robotics Founder</h2> <picture> <source srcset="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/355/The_Software-First_Robotics_Founder.webp" type="image/webp" /> <img src="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/355/The_Software-First_Robotics_Founder.jpg" alt="The Software-First Robotics Founder cover" /> </picture> <p>I liked this article by Diego Prats, who discusses a new wave of founders in our industry with backgrounds in software might have a different way of thinking and start asking questions. This is an opportunity to build new sets of tools and welcome new ways of thinking to hardware-based projects.</p> <div class="learn-more-container"> <a href="https://www.hapticlabs.ai/blog/2026/04/02/the-software-first-robotics-founder" class="pure-button">Source</a> </div> <hr /> <h2 id="unifolm_wbt_dataset">UnifoLM_WBT_Dataset</h2> <picture> <source srcset="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/355/UnifoLM_WBT_Dataset.webp" type="image/webp" /> <img src="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/355/UnifoLM_WBT_Dataset.jpg" alt="UnifoLM_WBT_Dataset cover" /> </picture> <p>Unitree Robotics released a dataset of Unitree G1 performing some simple home tasks; from putting clothes in a washing machine to picking up pillows.</p> <div class="learn-more-container"> <a href="https://huggingface.co/collections/unitreerobotics/unifolm-wbt-dataset" class="pure-button">Source</a> </div> <hr /> <h2 id="shield-ai-raises-2b-for-defense-drone-development-to-acquire-aechelon">Shield AI raises $2B for defense drone development, to acquire Aechelon</h2> <picture> <source srcset="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/355/Shield_AI_raises__2B_for_defense_drone_development__to_acquire_Aechelon.webp" type="image/webp" /> <img src="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/355/Shield_AI_raises__2B_for_defense_drone_development__to_acquire_Aechelon.jpg" alt="Shield AI raises $2B for defense drone development, to acquire Aechelon cover" /> </picture> <blockquote> <p>Shield AI last week said it is raising $1.5 billion in Series G funding at a $12.7 billion post-money valuation and $500 million in fixed-return preferred equity financing. The autonomy systems and defense drone provider plans to use a portion of the proceeds to acquire Aechelon Technology Inc., a simulation software company.</p> </blockquote> <div class="learn-more-container"> <a href="https://www.therobotreport.com/shield-ai-raises-2b-defense-drones-acquire-aechelon/" class="pure-button">Source</a> </div> <hr /> <h2 id="our-sponsors">Our Sponsors</h2> <ul> <li><a href="https://www.anyscale.com/">Anyscale</a> gives you a platform to run and scale all your ML and AI workloads, from data processing to training and inference.</li> <li><a href="https://foxglove.dev/">Foxglove</a> is a purpose-built, modular platform for robotics teams to collect, organize, and learn from vast quantities of multimodal data, creating the data flywheel to safely scale from development to distributed fleets</li> <li><a href="https://www.hellorobo.co/">HelloRobo</a> distils robotics tech into simple, usable interfaces</li> <li><a href="https://www.jiga.io/?utm_source=Jiga&amp;utm_medium=communities&amp;utm_campaign=weekly-robotics">Jiga</a> connects hardware teams directly with vetted manufacturers for reliable capacity from prototype to production, combining the speed of digital manufacturing with the trust of a long-term supplier relationship</li> </ul> <h2 id="events">Events</h2> <ul> <li><a href="https://luma.com/z7zrd853">Robotics &amp; Physical AI day (Mashup)</a>: Apr 15 - Apr 15, 2026. Malmö, Sweden</li> <li><a href="https://2026.oshwa.org/">Open Hardware Summit</a>: May 22 - May 23, 2026. Berlin, Germany</li> <li><a href="https://2026.ieee-icra.org/">ICRA 2026</a>: Jun 01 - Jun 05, 2026. Vienna, Austria</li> <li><a href="https://www.edrcoalition.com/2026-energy-drone-robotics-summit">2026 Energy Drone &amp; Robotics Summit</a>: Jun 22 - Jun 24, 2026. Houston, Texas, United States of America</li> <li><a href="https://roboticsconference.org/">Robotics: Science and Systems</a>: Jul 13 - Jul 16, 2026. Sydney, Australia</li> <li><a href="https://actuate.foxglove.dev/">Actuate 26</a>: Aug 18 - Aug 19, 2026. San Francisco, California, United States of America</li> <li><a href="https://events.linuxfoundation.org/open-source-summit-europe/">Open Source Summit</a>: Oct 07 - Oct 09, 2026. Prague, Czechia</li> </ul> <p>For more robotic events, check out our <a href="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/events">event page</a>.</p> <hr /> <p>Want to promote your product or service in Weekly Robotics? <a href="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/advertise">Check out our advertising options</a>.</p> https://weeklyrobotics.com/weekly-robotics-354 2026-03-30T00:00:00+01:00 Today in the Weekly Robotics newsletter: an agile bipedal-wheeled humanoid, a very nice 3D-printed robot arm, a multimodal quadruped dataset, 30 years of humanoid robot walking, and more! https://weeklyrobotics.com/favicon.ico <blockquote> <p>As you will see in the sponsored feature, at Foxglove, we are organizing another Actuate conference in SF this year. I'm really looking forward to attending it. The lineup is already very good. If you can make it to the conference, let me know, and let's try to catch up!</p> </blockquote> <div class="issue-sponsors-lineup"> <div class="issue-sponsors-divider"></div> <div class="issue-sponsors-content"> <span class="issue-sponsors-text">This issue is brought to you by our sponsors:</span> <div class="sponsor-lineup-container"> <a href="https://www.anyscale.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" class="sponsor-logo-container"> <img src="https://weeklyrobotics.com/img/sponsors/anyscale.png" alt="anyscale logo" /> </a> <a href="https://foxglove.dev/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" class="sponsor-logo-container"> <img src="https://weeklyrobotics.com/img/sponsors/foxglove.png" alt="foxglove logo" /> </a> <a href="https://www.hellorobo.co/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" class="sponsor-logo-container"> <img src="https://weeklyrobotics.com/img/sponsors/hellorobo.png" alt="hellorobo logo" /> </a> <a href="https://www.jiga.io/?utm_source=Jiga&amp;utm_medium=communities&amp;utm_campaign=weekly-robotics" target="_blank" rel="noopener" class="sponsor-logo-container"> <img src="https://weeklyrobotics.com/img/sponsors/jiga.png" alt="jiga logo" /> </a> </div> </div> <div class="issue-sponsors-divider"></div> </div> <h2 id="actuate26-the-physical-ai-conference-for-robotics-developers-sponsored">Actuate26: The physical AI conference for robotics developers [Sponsored]</h2> <picture> <source srcset="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/354/Actuate26__The_physical_AI_conference_for_robotics_developers.webp" type="image/webp" /> <img src="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/354/Actuate26__The_physical_AI_conference_for_robotics_developers.jpg" alt="Actuate26: The physical AI conference for robotics developers cover" /> </picture> <p>This August, 1,000+ robotics developers will gather in San Francisco for Actuate 26. Join us to hear how industry leading teams are deploying autonomy and scaling real-world robotic systems. Grab your discounted early bird tickets before they’re gone! Find full details &amp; register on the Actuate website.</p> <div class="learn-more-container"> <a href="https://actuate.foxglove.dev/?utm_source=newsletter&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=weeklyrobotics" class="pure-button">Actuate</a> </div> <hr /> <h2 id="meet-roadrunner-a-bipedal-wheeled-robot-for-multi-modal-locomotion">Meet “Roadrunner”: a bipedal, wheeled robot for multi-modal locomotion</h2> <picture> <source srcset="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/354/Meet__Roadrunner___a_bipedal__wheeled_robot_for_multi-modal_locomotion.webp" type="image/webp" /> &lt;img src="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/354/Meet__Roadrunner___a_bipedal__wheeled_robot_for_multi-modal_locomotion.jpg" alt="Meet “Roadrunner": a bipedal, wheeled robot for multi-modal locomotion cover"&gt; </picture> <p>This is a very cool wheeled-bipedal robot by Researchers from the RAI Institute. Via YouTube description:</p> <blockquote> <p>“Roadrunner” is a new bipedal wheeled robot prototype designed for multi-modal locomotion. It weighs around 15kg (33 lb.) and can seamlessly switch between its side-by-side and in-line wheel modes and stepping configurations depending on what is required for navigating its environment. The robot’s legs are entirely symmetric, allowing it to point its knees forward or backward, which can be used to avoid obstacles or manage specific movements. A single control policy was trained to handle both side-by-side and in-line driving. Several behaviors, including standing up from various ground configurations and balancing on one wheel, were successfully deployed zero-shot on the hardware.</p> </blockquote> <div class="learn-more-container"> <a href="https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9kae-UAME1U" class="pure-button">Source</a> </div> <hr /> <h2 id="3d-printed-robot-arm-built-for-learning-purposes">3D Printed Robot Arm Built For Learning Purposes</h2> <picture> <source srcset="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/354/3D_Printed_Robot_Arm_Built_For_Learning_Purposes.webp" type="image/webp" /> <img src="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/354/3D_Printed_Robot_Arm_Built_For_Learning_Purposes.jpg" alt="3D Printed Robot Arm Built For Learning Purposes cover" /> </picture> <p>As robot arms go, this is one of the cleaner 3D-printed builds I’ve featured in the newsletter. The arm is 3D-printed (including the reducers) and runs on an STM32 microcontroller that communicates with the Raspberry Pi over the CAN bus.</p> <div class="learn-more-container"> <a href="https://hackaday.com/2026/03/24/3d-printed-robot-arm-built-for-learning-purposes/" class="pure-button">Source</a> </div> <hr /> <h2 id="anymal-grand-tour">ANYmal Grand Tour</h2> <picture> <source srcset="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/354/ANYmal_Grand_Tour.webp" type="image/webp" /> <img src="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/354/ANYmal_Grand_Tour.jpg" alt="ANYmal Grand Tour cover" /> </picture> <p>I’ve spent a lot of time working with an episode from this dataset over the last few days, and I really enjoyed it. If you like quadrupeds and robots with huge multimodal stacks, you will definitely enjoy this. The authors were also very kind in contributing a blog post to the <a href="https://foxglove.dev/blog/grandtour-taking-legged-robotics-into-the-wild">Foxglove blog</a>, where they described their work in detail and included a video showing the robot in action.</p> <div class="learn-more-container"> <a href="https://grand-tour.leggedrobotics.com/" class="pure-button">Source</a> </div> <hr /> <h2 id="30-years-ago-robots-learned-to-walk-without-falling">30 Years Ago, Robots Learned to Walk Without Falling</h2> <picture> <source srcset="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/354/30_Years_Ago__Robots_Learned_to_Walk_Without_Falling.webp" type="image/webp" /> <img src="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/354/30_Years_Ago__Robots_Learned_to_Walk_Without_Falling.jpg" alt="30 Years Ago, Robots Learned to Walk Without Falling cover" /> </picture> <p>This article is an interesting history lesson about Honda’s Prototype 2 robot and how it learned to walk. Watching the P2 demonstrator featured in the article, I’m a bit torn. On one hand, it feels like the robot’s behavior is not too far from what we are seeing these days. On the other hand, knowing a bit more about the ins and outs of how these things are made makes the progress feel huge!</p> <div class="learn-more-container"> <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/honda-p2-robot-ieee-milestone" class="pure-button">Source</a> </div> <hr /> <h2 id="i-built-the-worlds-smallest-robot-dog">I Built The World’s Smallest Robot Dog!</h2> <picture> <source srcset="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/354/I_Built_The_World_s_Smallest_Robot_Dog_.webp" type="image/webp" /> <img src="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/354/I_Built_The_World_s_Smallest_Robot_Dog_.jpg" alt="I Built The World's Smallest Robot Dog! cover" /> </picture> <p>Dorian Todd made another version of his 3D-printed quadruped robot; this time, it’s even smaller. It looks like a fun build!</p> <div class="learn-more-container"> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmmopQ1EEs0" class="pure-button">Source</a> </div> <hr /> <h2 id="amazon-acquires-approachable-humanoid-maker-fauna-robotics">Amazon acquires ‘approachable’ humanoid maker Fauna Robotics</h2> <picture> <source srcset="https://image.cnbcfm.com/api/v1/image/108282426-1774380496314-Rob_and_Sprout.webp?v=1774380637&amp;w=1920&amp;h=1080" type="image/webp" /> <img src="https://image.cnbcfm.com/api/v1/image/108282426-1774380496314-Rob_and_Sprout.jpg?v=1774380637&amp;w=1920&amp;h=1080" alt="Amazon acquires 'approachable' humanoid maker Fauna Robotics cover" /> </picture> <p>It feels like we’ve just learned that Fauna Robotics built their robots and started selling them, and they were already acquired by Amazon. Congrats to the team! Looking forward to seeing the future of these platforms.</p> <div class="learn-more-container"> <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2026/03/24/amazon-humanoid-maker-fauna-robotics-sprout.html" class="pure-button">Source</a> </div> <hr /> <h2 id="how-to-add-battery-monitoring-to-any-robot">How to add Battery Monitoring to any robot</h2> <picture> <source srcset="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/354/How_to_add_Battery_Monitoring_to_any_robot.webp" type="image/webp" /> <img src="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/354/How_to_add_Battery_Monitoring_to_any_robot.jpg" alt="How to add Battery Monitoring to any robot cover" /> </picture> <p>Josh from the Articulated Robotics channel is back, this time covering BMS and how to set up battery monitoring on your own robot. Very useful topic, especially if you are building your own robots!</p> <div class="learn-more-container"> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWyUaSFRExg" class="pure-button">Source</a> </div> <hr /> <h2 id="call-the-cops-patent-infringement-drama-at-logimat">Call the cops! Patent infringement drama at LogiMAT</h2> <picture> <source srcset="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/354/Call_the_cops__Patent_infringement_drama_at_LogiMAT.webp" type="image/webp" /> <img src="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/img/features/354/Call_the_cops__Patent_infringement_drama_at_LogiMAT.jpg" alt="Call the cops! Patent infringement drama at LogiMAT cover" /> </picture> <p>Some patent drama unfolded at LogiMAt, where Ocado called the cops on Brightpick, alleging patent infringement. I can’t help but notice that Brightpick got quite a publicity from this incident. I wonder what the future holds for this case.</p> <div class="learn-more-container"> <a href="https://www.logisticsmatters.co.uk/news/call-the-cops-patent-infringement-drama-at-logimat/" class="pure-button">Source</a> </div> <hr /> <h2 id="our-sponsors">Our Sponsors</h2> <ul> <li><a href="https://www.anyscale.com/">Anyscale</a> gives you a platform to run and scale all your ML and AI workloads, from data processing to training and inference.</li> <li><a href="https://foxglove.dev/">Foxglove</a> is a purpose-built, modular platform for robotics teams to collect, organize, and learn from vast quantities of multimodal data, creating the data flywheel to safely scale from development to distributed fleets</li> <li><a href="https://www.hellorobo.co/">HelloRobo</a> distils robotics tech into simple, usable interfaces</li> <li><a href="https://www.jiga.io/?utm_source=Jiga&amp;utm_medium=communities&amp;utm_campaign=weekly-robotics">Jiga</a> connects hardware teams directly with vetted manufacturers for reliable capacity from prototype to production, combining the speed of digital manufacturing with the trust of a long-term supplier relationship</li> </ul> <h2 id="events">Events</h2> <ul> <li><a href="https://www.meetup.com/cracow-robotics-ai-club/events/313630070/">Cracow Robotics &amp; AI Meetup</a>: Mar 30, 2026. Krakow, Poland</li> <li><a href="https://luma.com/z7zrd853">Robotics &amp; Physical AI day (Mashup)</a>: Apr 15 - Apr 15, 2026. Malmö, Sweden</li> <li><a href="https://2026.oshwa.org/">Open Hardware Summit</a>: May 22 - May 23, 2026. Berlin, Germany</li> <li><a href="https://2026.ieee-icra.org/">ICRA 2026</a>: Jun 01 - Jun 05, 2026. Vienna, Austria</li> <li><a href="https://www.edrcoalition.com/2026-energy-drone-robotics-summit">2026 Energy Drone &amp; Robotics Summit</a>: Jun 22 - Jun 24, 2026. Houston, Texas, United States of America</li> <li><a href="https://roboticsconference.org/">Robotics: Science and Systems</a>: Jul 13 - Jul 16, 2026. Sydney, Australia</li> <li><a href="https://actuate.foxglove.dev/">Actuate 26</a>: Aug 18 - Aug 19, 2026. San Francisco, California, United States of America</li> <li><a href="https://events.linuxfoundation.org/open-source-summit-europe/">Open Source Summit</a>: Oct 07 - Oct 09, 2026. Prague, Czechia</li> </ul> <p>For more robotic events, check out our <a href="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/events">event page</a>.</p> <hr /> <p>Want to promote your product or service in Weekly Robotics? <a href="https://www.weeklyrobotics.com/advertise">Check out our advertising options</a>.</p>