Ivan Hernandez Dalas - Mechatronics

The Robot Report Podcast · Robot development from Actuators to AI In Episode 230 of The Robot Report Podcast, hosts Mike Oitzman and Eugene Demaitre recap the major robotics news of the week and speak with two robotics experts. Mario Mauerer, global robotics business manager at Maxon. Our first guest this week is Mario Mauerer. He studied electrical engineering at ETH Zürich , completing a Ph.D. in power electronics. In 2018, Mauerer joined ANYbotics in 2018, where he helped scale the company’s quadruped inspection robot fleet, as well as the enterprise itself from 20 to more than 120 employees. In 2024, Maurer left his role as chief technology officer of hardware to join maxon motor , where he now works as global business development manager for robotics with the aim of bringing advanced drive systems to modern robotics applications.   David Koelle, principal software engineer and director of engineering, Charles River Analytics. Our featured interview this week is...

The Explora robot can autonomously conduct mining inspections and monitoring activities. | Source: ADR As mining operations go deeper underground, the environment becomes increasingly dangerous for humans. However, deep underground, it’s also difficult to establish Wi-Fi or cloud connections, creating barriers for robotics, according to Australian Droid + Robot, or ADR. The developer of rugged robotics recently announced a strategic collaboration with Intel Corp. The companies plan to deploy autonomous inspection robots using edge AI to help keep workers while capturing critical data in hostile environments. The system integrates Intel Xeon processors and Intel Core Ultra processors directly into ADR’s Explora robots. This onboard computing power allows the robots to process massive amounts of data from 3D lidar, thermal cameras , and gas sensors in real-time. Mat Allan, co-founder and chief technology officer of Taringa, Australia-based ADR, gave The Robot Report more insi...

Robotics legislation was proposed on Capitol Hill this week. Credit: Sheik, via Adobe Stock Robotics has not been a top legislative priority in Washington, D.C., but that could be changing. Two bills introduced in Congress focus on different ways of promoting U.S. competitiveness in robotics. The National Commission on Robotics Act ( H.R. 7334 ) proposes to establish a national commission to evaluate U.S. competitiveness in robotics and provide policy recommendations. Representatives Jay Obernolte (R-CA), Jennifer McClellan (D-VA), and Bob Latta (R-OH), who are members of the recently revived Congressional Robotics Caucus, introduced the bill this week. The Humanoid Robotics Oversight and Blocking of Obtainment from Totalitarians Act of 2025 or “Humanoid ROBOT Act of 2025” ( S. 3275 ) would prohibit the federal government from acquiring humanoid robots with integrated artificial intelligence from foreign entities, including military suppliers to China, Iran, North Korea, and Russ...

Claire chatted to Elmira Yadollahi from Lancaster University about how children interact with and relate to robots. Elmira Yadollahi is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Lancaster University. She has a joint PhD in robotics and computer science from EPFL in Switzerland and Instituto Superior Técnico in Portugal. Her research tackles explainability in robotics, as well as multimodal perception and explanation methods. Her core expertise is in child–robot interaction, with a focus on expectation management, trust, and AI literacy. She has organised workshops on Explainability in Human-Robot Interaction and the Design and Development of Robots and AI with Children. View Source

Machina Labs’ RoboCraftsman is an AI-driven manufacturing cell that can turn digital designs into production-grade metal parts. | Source: Machina Labs Machina Labs Inc. this week said it has closed a $124 million Series C round and deployed its first large-scale intelligent factory. The company said the funding will help it scale from innovation to deployment of software-defined production infrastructure. Its goal is to support manufacturing of mission-critical metal structures. “The world’s most advanced designs are being held back by 20th-century factories,” said Edward Mehr, co-founder and CEO of Machina Labs. “This round allows us to scale manufacturing infrastructure that moves at the speed of software. We’re not just making parts; we’re reprogramming the factory itself to serve aerospace ,  defense , and  automotive  customers who can’t afford to wait.” Woven Capital, Toyota’s growth-stage venture arm, Lockheed Martin Ventures , Balerion Space Ventures, and St...

AMD’s Kintex UltraScale+ Gen 2 FPGA family. | Source: AMD Advanced Micro Devices Inc. yesterday introduced the Kintex UltraScale+ Gen 2 FPGA family. This latest family of midrange field-programmable gate arrays, or FPGAs, modernizes memory, I/O, and security to meet the growing demands of industrial automation, AMD claimed.  AMD said it engineered the Kintex UltraScale+ Gen 2 FPGAs to meet increasingly complex system requirements across industrial and medical markets. It features scalable sensor connectivity that improves diagnostic clarity and responsiveness in machine vision , industrial automation , medical imaging, and robotic systems. Additionally, high-speed transceivers and PCIe Gen4 support 4K AV-over-IP, multi-stream capture, and frame-accurate transport for professional broadcast and remote audiovisual production. Increased memory bandwidth helps accelerate pattern generation, fail capture, and timing-critical workloads, said AMD. The new system also features int...