Weekly Robotics #328

Issue 328

Phew, that was a wonderful holiday, and skipping Weekly Robotics last week really made it even better. In the past, I’d always push the newsletter out no matter what, but lately I’ve been giving more space to the “life” part of the work-life-newsletter balance, and it’s been doing wonders for my energy levels. Enough rambling, let’s get to robots. This week’s issue is a strong one!

Industrial AI Nexus Connect [Sponsored]

We’re bringing the energy/industrial AI crowd together on Thursday, September 25, 5:30 - 7:30 PM! Come refuel at the Second Draught with cold drinks, tasty bites, and the best company in the energy & industrial AI/ML game, brought to you by Industrial AI Nexus. It’s your perfect pit stop to unwind, swap stories, and spark ideas on real industrial AI deployments.

Industrial AI Nexus

SLAM Handbook

The SLAM Handbook is a collaborative project created by researchers from around the world. It’s freely available in this repository and, in my view, stands out as one of the most significant contributions to robotics in recent years. Parts two and three, which focus on practical SLAM applications and spatial AI, will be especially valuable for practitioners. I’m really looking forward to getting my hands on a hard copy!

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Loka

Loka cover

LokaBot is an open source palm sized autonomous robot powered by ESP32 and programmed with the Arduino IDE. It brings advanced robotics concepts such as orientation sensing, multi zone distance mapping, and autonomous navigation into a very small and affordable platform.

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Ark Framework

Ark is a Python framework for robotics development. The authors aimed for a node-based lightweight architecture with seamless simulation integration. You can find more information about this work at this notion page. I’m looking forward to seeing how the team behind this work will keep growing it.

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Voice Controlled Swarms

Voice Controlled Swarms cover

Jason Fantl made this excellent write-up on how he developed voice-controlled swarms using voice-to-text, LLMs, and MCP. At the beginning of the article, you will find a nice presentation of the solution with a voice-over that will give you an overview of the final solution.

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Reality Is Ruining the Humanoid Robot Hype

Reality Is Ruining the Humanoid Robot Hype cover

Evan Ackerman wrote an excellent piece de-hyping humanoid robots quite a bit. In the article, the author quotes Melonee Wise (ex-Chief Product Officer at Agility Robotics) on issues such as market demand, scaling issues, and safety.

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DIY Robotic Boat Takes Relaxation to the Next Level

DIY Robotic Boat Takes Relaxation to the Next Level cover

Recently, Dave from Dave’s Armoury took it upon himself to create an automated kayak. And not by adding a boat propulsion but by employing two, relatively tiny for the task, robot arms. This is a lot of fun.

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Events

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