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Iván Hernández Dalas: BMW Group deploys Figure 03 humanoid after tests with previous version

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Figure 03 adds tactile-sensor hands, palm cameras, wireless charging, and speech-to-speech audio over its predecessor. | Source: BMW Group BMW Group is doubling down on its deployment of Figure.AI’s humanoid robots. The automaker last week announced that, following its successful deployment with Figure 02 at its plant in Spartanburg, S.C., it will deploy the company’s latest Figure 03 robot. “Plant Spartanburg is the birthplace of humanoid robotics in BMW Manufacturing’s operational day-to-day activities,” said Ulrich Wieland, vice president of production control and logistics at BMW Manufacturing. “Having already successfully completed a pilot with Figure 02 in our body shop, we are now looking forward to deploying Figure 03 for a sequencing use case in logistics.” The BMW Group said it gained important experience with humanoid robots at Plant Spartanburg in 2025. Figure 02 supported the production of more than 30,000 BMW X3 vehicles. In the body shop, the ...

Iván Hernández Dalas: MBody AI expands service robotics operations to eleven states and Canada

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Deployments of service robots using MBody AI Orchestrator are spreading. Source: MBody AI MBody AI Corp., which is developing an operating system for enterprise service robots, is expanding its North American operations, said Check-Cap Ltd., which is planning to merge with the company. “Reaching eleven states and entering Canada shows how the Orchestrator platform scales across new markets,” stated John Fowler, CEO of MBody AI. “The value of Orchestrator compounds with each deployment. As the fleet grows, we generate and assess more data each day.” Founded in 2024, MBody AI said it is “building the autonomous workforce of the future” with embodied AI . The company ‘s proprietary, hardware-agnostic Orchestrator platform delivers real-time data intelligence and AI-driven performance insights for robotic fleets. MBody AI added that its capabilities include deployment optimization, predictive maintenance, and full- fleet  coordination. The Las V...

Iván Hernández Dalas: Advantages of hypoid gearing over worm, bevel and bevel-planetary

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Sponsored by GAM . Right-angle gearing has a way of making engineers decide where to compromise. Much of that stems from the position of the input pinion relative to the output gear, which affects available ratios, load-carrying capability and efficiency. The tradeoff usually comes down to ratio density or torque capacity on one side, and mechanical efficiency on the other. The three most common types of right-angle gearing are spiral bevel, worm and hypoid. Of these, hypoid offers a balance of mechanical efficiency, load-carrying capability and single-stage ratio range. In this article, we’ll explore how hypoid compares to worm, bevel and bevel-planetary gearing. Common types of gearing used in right angle gearboxes include bevel, hypoid and worm. (Image: GAM.) What is hypoid gearing? Hypoid gearing is a type of spiral gearing in which the axes are offset from each other. Its meshing action is mostly rolling with a small component of sliding. This combination gives hypoid gearing...

Iván Hernández Dalas: What’s coming up at #RoboCup2026?

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This year, RoboCup will be held in Incheon, South Korea , from 2-6 July. The event will see teams take part in competitions, training sessions, and a symposium. It’s an exciting time for RoboCup, as there have been some updates to the leagues and competition format . Most prominently, the soccer leagues will have a primary focus on humanoid robots. The leagues and their competitions You can find out more about the different leagues and the competition schedules and details at these links: RoboCupSoccer Humanoid Middle size Small size Simulation RoboCupRescue Robot Simulation RoboCup@Home Industrial RoboCupJunior Soccer Onstage Rescue WEROB A workshop focused on sharing projects, experiences, and innovations in educational robotics. This session is geared towards students, mentors, and educators. Find out more here . Symposium The RoboCup symposium will take place on 6 July. More information can be found here . There will be two keynote talks: Hyun ...

Iván Hernández Dalas: AGIBOT produces 15,000th robot, marking a milestone in embodied AI deployment

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AGIBOT G2 robots work on Longcheer’s tablet production lines. Source: AGIBOT AGIBOT Innovation Technology Co. today said that the 15,000th robot has rolled off its production line. The company said this reflects its progress in moving embodied AI systems from product validation and batch production toward larger-scale deployment. “The rollout of our 15,000th robot is not only an important milestone in AGIBOT’s mass production and engineering delivery capabilities, but also a reflection of the broader industry’s move toward scaled deployment in real-world settings,” stated Dr. Yao Maoqing, partner, senior vice president, and president of the embodied AI business unit at AGIBOT. “As the industry moves from proof of concept toward real-world application, AGIBOT will continue to bring robots into more real-world scenarios and advance the industrialization of embodied AI through scaled delivery and deployment,” he said. Founded in 2023, AGIBOT said it is developing the founda...

Iván Hernández Dalas: We know how to build smarter robots. Now, we need to learn smarter ways to test them

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Right now, today, you can spend $14,000 and buy a humanoid robot. There is no safety certification reviewed, no standardized test protocol verified. You get a machine capable of physical force and real-time autonomous decision-making. And the frameworks for validating its behavior are still catching up to what it can do. That’s not a criticism of the engineers building these systems. The intelligence side of robotics is advancing at a pace that genuinely deserves the excitement it gets: better perception, more robust locomotion, faster inference, and tighter control loops. But here’s the question I keep coming back to: As the control architecture of these systems evolves from simple teleoperation all the way to fully autonomous reinforcement learning, are our testing methodologies and safety validation processes evolving with them? I don’t think they are. Not yet. And I think that gap is worth talking about, not to slow the industry down, but to help it scale res...

Iván Hernández Dalas: How compact cobot integration enhances autonomous mobile robot applications

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Kassow said its cobots can reach difficult-to-access areas, handle heavier objects, and perform demanding tasks with accuracy. | Source: Kassow Robots The increasing automation of warehouse pick-and-place, palletizing, and machine-tending tasks has introduced new technologies. Robotics and automation have drastically changed operations as productivity needs and labor shortages impact the industry. Workers are interacting with autonomous mobile robots and collaborative robots, or cobots, integrated into mobile manipulators. Cobots are quickly shaping the future of warehousing , with  their use  rising tenfold from 2018 to 2025. Some seven-axis models of force- and power-limited arms are gaining popularity because they can be mounted on AMRs , enabling a greater range of motion and access into harder-to-reach areas. Cobots offer numerous precision-enhancing capabilities across industrial environments, improving repetitive tasks such as picking , assembly , screwing, labeling, and we...