Contact is the heart of robotic manipulation. To understand manipulation, you must understand contact.

YouTube video by AIREC Waseda

Recently in Tokyo an AI-driven robot leaned over a man lying on his back and gently put a hand on his knee and another on a shoulder and rolled him onto his side -- a manoeuvre used to change diapers or prevent bedsores in the elderly.

Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your friends at IEEE Spectrum robotics. We also post a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next few months. Please send us your events for inclusion. RoboCup German Open : 12–16 March 2025, NUREMBERG, GERMANY German Robotics Conference : 13–15 March 2025, NUREMBERG, GERMANY European Robotics Forum : 25–27 March 2025, STUTTGART, GERMANY RoboSoft 2025 : 23–26 April 2025, LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND ICUAS 2025 : 14–17 May 2025, CHARLOTTE, NC ICRA 2025 : 19–23 May 2025, ATLANTA, GA London Humanoids Summit : 29–30 May 2025, LONDON IEEE RCAR 2025 : 1–6 June 2025, TOYAMA, JAPAN 2025 Energy Drone & Robotics Summit : 16–18 June 2025, HOUSTON, TX RSS 2025 : 21–25 June 2025, LOS ANGELES ETH Robotics Summer School : 21–27 June 2025, GENEVA IAS 2025 : 30 June–4 July 2025, GENOA, ITALY ICRES 2025 : 3–4 July 2025, PORTO, PORTUGAL IEEE World Haptics : 8–11 July 2025, SUWON, KOREA IFAC Symposium on Robotics : 15–18 July 2025, PARIS RoboCup 2025 : 15–21 July 2025, BAHIA, BRAZIL Enjoy today’s videos! We’re introducing Helix, a generalist Vision-Language-Action (VLA) model that unifies perception, language understanding, and learned control to overcome multiple longstanding challenges in robotics. This is moderately impressive; my favorite part is probably the hand-offs and that extra little bit of HRI with what we’d call eye contact if these robots had faces. But keep in mind that you’re looking at close to best case for robotic manipulation, and that if the robots had been given the bag instead of well-spaced objects on a single color background, or if the fridge had a normal human amount of stuff in it, they might be having a much different time of it. Also, is it just me, or is the sound on this video very weird? Like, some things make noise, some things don’t, and the robots themselves occasionally sound more like someone just added in some ‘soft actuator sound’ or something. Also also, I’m of a suspicious nature, and when there is an abrupt cut between ‘robot grasps door’ and ‘robot opens door,’ I assume the worst. [ Figure ] Researchers at EPFL have developed a highly agile flat swimming robot. This robot is smaller than a credit card, and propels on the water surface using a pair of undulating soft fins. The fins are driven at resonance by artificial muscles, allowing the robot to perform complex maneuvers. In the future, this robot can be used for monitoring water quality or help with measuring fertilizer concentrations in rice fields [ Paper ] via [ Science Robotics ] I don’t know about you, but I always dance better when getting beaten with a stick. [ Unitree Robotics ] This is big news, people: Sweet Bite Ham Ham , one of the greatest and most useless robots of all time, has a new treat. All yours for about $100, overseas shipping included. [ Ham Ham ] via [ Robotstart ] MagicLab has announced the launch of its first generation self-developed dexterous hand product, the MagicHand S01. The MagicHand S01 has 11 degrees of freedom in a single hand. The MagicHand S01 has a hand load capacity of up to 5 kilograms, and in work environments, can carry loads of over 20 kilograms. [ MagicLab ] Thanks, Ni Tao! No, I’m not creeped out at all, why? [ Clone Robotics ] Happy 40th Birthday to the MIT Media Lab! Since 1985, the MIT Media Lab has provided a home for interdisciplinary research, transformative technologies, and innovative approaches to solving some of humanity’s greatest challenges. As we celebrate our 40th anniversary year, we’re looking ahead to decades more of imagining, designing, and inventing a future in which everyone has the opportunity to flourish. [ MIT Media Lab ] While most soft pneumatic grippers that operate with a single control parameter (such as pressure or airflow) are limited to a single grasping modality, this article introduces a new method for incorporating multiple grasping modalities into vacuum-driven soft grippers. This is achieved by combining stiffness manipulation with a bistable mechanism. Adjusting the airflow tunes the energy barrier of the bistable mechanism, enabling changes in triggering sensitivity and allowing swift transitions between grasping modes. This results in an exceptional versatile gripper, capable of handling a diverse range of objects with varying sizes, shapes, stiffness, and roughness, controlled by a single parameter, airflow, and its interaction with objects. [ Paper ] via [ BruBotics ] Thanks, Bram! In this article, we present a design concept, in which a monolithic soft body is incorporated with a vibration-driven mechanism, called Leafbot. This proposed investigation aims to build a foundation for further terradynamics study of vibration-driven soft robots in a more complicated and confined environment, with potential applications in inspection tasks. [ Paper ] via [ IEEE Transactions on Robots ] We present a hybrid aerial-ground robot that combines the versatility of a quadcopter with enhanced terrestrial mobility. The vehicle features a passive, reconfigurable single wheeled leg, enabling seamless transitions between flight and two ground modes: a stable stance and a dynamic cruising configuration. [ Robotics and Intelligent Systems Laboratory ] I’m not sure I’ve ever seen this trick performed by a robot with soft fingers before. [ Paper ] There are a lot of robots involved in car manufacturing. Like, a lot. [ Kawasaki Robotics ] Steve Willits shows us some recent autonomous drone work being done at the AirLab at CMU’s Robotics Institute. [ Carnegie Mellon University Robotics Institute ] Somebody’s got to test all those luxury handbags and purses. And by somebody, I mean somerobot. [ Qb Robotics ] Do not trust people named Evan. [ Tufts University Human-Robot Interaction Lab ] Meet the Mind: MIT Professor Andreea Bobu. [ MIT ]

YouTube video by CNET

このところ、大いに注目されている人型ロボットの開発では、より人に近いロボットを実現するうえで触覚センサーが鍵を握ってい…

一人に一台一生寄り添う――。早稲田大学の次世代ロボット研究機構（東京）では、そんなコンセプトのＡＩ搭載ロボットの開発が進む。ロボットの名はＡＩＲＥＣ（アイレック）。今年の大阪・関西万博で披露される予定だ。チームを率いる同大の菅野重樹教授に、人とロボットが共存する近未来の展望を聞いた=東京本社ストリーム班　村山博樹撮影　2025年1月2日公開

YouTube video by 太文

【読売新聞】　人工知能（ＡＩ）研究の第一人者として知られ、２０２４年のノーベル物理学賞受賞が決まったカナダ・トロント大のジェフリー・ヒントン名誉教授が読売新聞のインタビューに答えた。主なやり取りは次の通り。 ――ノーベル賞を受賞して

YouTube video by AIREC Waseda

YouTube video by 太文

人間の代わりに仕事や作業をこなすヒューマノイド（人型ロボット）の開発機運が世界的に盛り上がる中で、人工知能（AI）によるスマートなロボット制御への期待が高まっている。早稲田大学理工学術院教授の尾形哲也はこの分野で独創的な研究成果を次々にあげてきた。目標は1台で様々なタスクに対応する頼れるヒューマノイド。「簡単に見える作業こそ難しい」というロボット開発の積年の課題に正面から取り組んでいる。（文中敬