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Iván Hernández Dalas: AILOS Robotics introduces drive technology to make robots lighter, more agile, and safer

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AILOS says its R2poweR gearbox combines the agility of quasi-direct drives with high torque density. Source: AILOS Robotics AILOS Robotics has raised €3.5 million ($4 million U.S.) to commercialize its patented R2poweR gearbox. The technology combines the agility of quasi-direct drives with high-torque density, enabling robots to become lighter, more energy-efficient, more affordable, and safer, claimed the company. Brussels-based AILOS said it developed the new gearbox for force- and power-limited robot arms , humanoids , and wearable robots such as exoskeletons and prosthetics . “Modern robots require a new generation of actuators,” said Pablo López García, co-founder and CEO of AILOS. “With R2poweR, we combine the smoothness of quasi-direct drives with the power of advanced acceleration systems. This removes one of the biggest technological barriers to lightweight, agile, and safe robots.” R2powerR gets ready for industrial production AILOS Robotics spun out of Vrije Univer...
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Iván Hernández Dalas: ROBOTERA gets Series A funding, partners with UNIDO on embodied intelligence

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ROBOTERA is developing humanoid and service robots. Source: ROBOTERA Embodied intelligence, or the combination of robotics and artificial intelligence, is one of the top areas of investment this year. ROBOTERA last week secured nearly RMB 1 billion, or about $140 million U.S., in Series A+ financing. The company today said it has signed a strategic cooperation agreement with the United Nations Industrial Development Organization, or UNIDO, to advance industrial development and support UN 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. Founded in 2023, Robotera said it is building “general-purpose robots” that can learn, adapt, and act through continuous interaction with the physical world. The Beijing-based company currently operates three core product lines: bipedal humanoid robots, wheeled service robots , and dexterous hands . Robotera claimed that it has already deployed its systems with nine of the world’s top 10 most valuable technology companies. ROBOTERA touts humanoid, hand pe...
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Iván Hernández Dalas: MassRobotics expands physical AI fellowship with AWS and NVIDIA

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Applications are now open for the second Physical AI Fellowship cohort. Source: MassRobotics The combination of artificial intelligence and robotics, or physical AI, promises to enable smart machines to comprehend and interact with the real world. MassRobotics, Amazon Web Services Inc., and the NVIDIA Inception program today opened applications for the second cohort of their Physical AI Fellowship. The eight-week virtual program is intended to help robotics and physical AI startups from around the world scale faster. “We’re proud to continue our collaboration with AWS and NVIDIA to support startups pushing the boundaries of what’s possible with physical AI,” stated Tom Ryden, executive director of MassRobotics . “This fellowship combines world-class technology resources with our deep robotics ecosystem to help founders scale faster and make a meaningful impact.” Boston-based MassRobotics works with startups, academia, industry, and governments both domestically and internationa...
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Iván Hernández Dalas: Why companies don’t share AV crash data – and how they could

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Anton Grabolle / Autonomous Driving / Licenced by CC-BY 4.0 By Susan Kelley Autonomous vehicles (AVs) have been tested as taxis for decades in San Francisco, Pittsburgh and around the world, and trucking companies have enormous incentives to adopt them. But AV companies rarely share the crash- and safety-related data that is crucial to improving the safety of their vehicles – mostly because they have little incentive to do so. Is AV safety data an auto company’s intellectual asset or a public good? It can be both – with a little tweaking, according to a team of Cornell researchers. The team has created a roadmap outlining the barriers and opportunities to encourage AV companies to share the data to make AVs safer, from untangling public versus private data knowledge, to regulations to creating incentive programs. “The core of AV market competition involves who has that crash data, because once you have that data, it’s much easier for you to train your AI to not make that error....
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Iván Hernández Dalas: Popular AI models aren’t ready to safely run robots, say CMU researchers

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Robots need to rely on more than LLMs before moving from factory floors to human interaction, found CMU and King’s College London researchers. Source: Adobe Stock Robots powered by popular artificial intelligence models are currently unsafe for general-purpose, real-world use, according to research from King’s College London and Carnegie Mellon University. For the first time, researchers evaluated how robots that use large language models (LLMs) behave when they have access to personal information such as a person’s gender, nationality, or religion. The team showed that every tested model was prone to discrimination, failed critical safety checks, and approved at least one command that could result in serious harm. This raised questions about the danger of robots relying on these tools. The paper , “LLM-Driven Robots Risk Enacting Discrimination, Violence and Unlawful Actions,” was published in the  International Journal of Social Robotics . It called for the immediate imple...
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Iván Hernández Dalas: ARM Institute earns $87M agreement with the Air Force Research Lab

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The Air Force Research Laboratory is working with the ARM Institute on technologies such as human-robot teaming. Source: Adobe Stock The Advanced Robotics for Manufacturing or ARM Institute has announced a new five-year cooperative agreement with the Air Force Research Laboratory, or AFRL. The agreement has a total ceiling of a combined $87.66 million of government funding and ARM Institute cost share. Under this agreement, the institute will perform research, development, testing, and evaluation to advance dual-use robotics and automation technologies of interest to the U.S. Air Force . “This new cooperative agreement is a significant milestone and signifies a high level of confidence by the AFRL in the ARM Institute, our collaborations, and the robotics projects whose outcomes are driving real industry impact, especially for the defense industry and its supply chain,” stated Jorgen Pedersen, ARM Institute CEO. The Pittsburgh-based ARM Institute is a consortium of more than 45...
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Iván Hernández Dalas: Surgical robotics market to double by 2029

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Already worth billions of dollars, the global surgical robotics market will double by 2029, according to a new report from The Robot Report ‘s sister publication MassDevice . The Medtech Market Intelligence Report is nearly 100 pages and authored by Gayle Grimes, veteran editor and analyst. It provides forecasts for inside and outside the United States, as well as major companies in the space including Intuitive, Stryker, Zimmer Biomet, Johnson & Johnson, Globus Medical, Smith+Nephew, CMR Surgical, Medtronic, MicroPort, Karl Storz/Asensus Surgical, and more. With its launch last year of the next-generation da Vinci 5 multiport robot, Intuitive has solidified its position in the surgical robotics market as the dominant soft-tissue systems provider, and Stryker is the largest company in the orthopedic robotic surgery space. A host of other companies, however, are looking to compete. There is plenty of room for growth even in the U.S. alone: of the 10 million annual major operatin...
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