Ivan Hernandez Dalas - Mechatronics

Kodama initially focused on wildfire risk reduction in the western U.S., but it is now focusing on the timber industry in the southeastern U.S. | Source: Kodama Kodama Systems today said it has raised $7 million to bring physical AI to forestry. The company said it will use the latest funding to support commercial deployments, deepen OEM partnerships, and continue development of supervised autonomy capabilities for complex off-road environments. “Right now, we’re working with different forestry companies across the southeastern U.S,” Ben Pinfield, a go-to-market associate at Kodama, told The Robot Report . “Our system is really at a point where we’re able to sell it as a product, and we’re at a point where we’re scaling, trying to delve into new machines, and really focusing on the autonomy piece of forestry .” Kodama’s technology is already deployed in commercial logging operations across the southeastern U.S. Over the past six months, machines equipped with the company’s technolog...

RoboBusiness 2026 kicks off tomorrow at the Santa Clara Convention Center. Over the next two days, the show will bring together over 1,600 attendees for discussions on cutting-edge research, industry trends, and innovative applications in sectors such as manufacturing, healthcare, agriculture, logistics, and more. This year, we’ll be marking 20 years of RoboBusiness . We’ll be celebrating the community that made this milestone possible and looking ahead to the next 20 years of collaboration and growth. The event will include more than 40 sessions across five tracks: AI, Business & Development, Field Robotics, Humanoids, and Enabling Technologies. The Engineering Theater on the show floor will also feature presentations by industry experts. Speakers at the conference will include experts from Robust AI, Agility Robotics, Amazon Robotics, Teradyne Robotics, Locus Robotics, Tesla, Boston Dynamics, ABB Robotics, MassRobotics, and more. To help you keep track of everythi...

MIT engineers developed a soft robot that can flap through water in response to flashes of light. Photo credit: Melanie Gonick, MIT . By Jennifer Chu Swimming can take a lot of muscle. But as MIT engineers have found, even a single layer of muscle cells can power through water if designed right.  In a paper appearing today in the journal Advanced Functional Materials , the team presents a design for a thin, muscle-powered swimming robot. The “skeleton” of the aquabot is made from a film of gel that is about the length and width of a stick of gum. The two halves of the gel form the “fins” of the bot. Each fin is covered with a layer of live muscle cells that is much thinner than a single strand of hair. The cells are genetically engineered to twitch in response to light.  When the researchers shine light on one fin, the muscles on its surface twitch in response, causing the whole fin to flap with enough force to pull the robot through water. By flashing light on one fin or ...

There are several factors to choosing brushless DC or BLDC motors for robots. Source: Faisal Mahmood Selecting a brushless DC, or BLDC, motor for robotic arms or mobile robots starts with the mechanical system, not the controller catalog. A motor rated for a particular voltage and wattage does not tell an engineer whether it can deliver the required torque at low speed, regulate position accurately, absorb regenerative energy, or survive the thermal duty cycle. The actuator is a system. The motor, inverter, current sensors, rotor position feedback, gearbox, brake, output encoder, thermal path, communications interface, and higher level robot software all influence the result. An industrial or collaborative robotic arm joint generally prioritizes controllable torque, low-speed smoothness, position accuracy, collision response, backdrivability, and thermal performance. A mobile robot drive motor generally puts more emphasis on efficiency, starting torque, braking, traction, battery...

The Report Report presents a whitepaper on the race to physical AI. AI has become remarkably good at understanding language, images, and code. The next challenge is harder — understanding reality, according to Analog Devices Inc. or ADI. Physical AI moves intelligence out of digital environments and into machines that must sense, decide, and act in the world. Unlike software, those systems face imperfect measurements, timing constraints, changing conditions, and the consequences of action, said the company in a new report. Success will depend on more than model performance. It will require advances across sensing, simulation, computing, connectivity, and control. In many cases, the technologies that determine whether a system succeeds sit beneath the application layer itself. A machine that shuts down when vibration crosses a preset limit is following a rule. A machine that reads vibration, temperature, current, and motor behavior; recognizes the signature of bearing wear; an...

Boston Dynamics’ Atlas humanoid, shown here, is an example of a robot ready for AI. For decades, engineers have been trying to create robots that look and act like humans. Now, rapid advances in artificial intelligence are bringing humanoid robots out of the lab and onto the factory floor. As fears grow that AI will displace workers, a global race is underway to develop humanoid robots capable of performing human work. Competitors include Tesla , startups backed by Amazon and NVIDIA , and state-owned Chinese companies. Waltham, Mass.-based Boston Dynamics, valued at over $1 billion, is among the humanoid leaders with its Atlas robot. South Korean automaker Hyundai owns an 88% stake in the company . Hyundai ‘s massive auto plant is arguably the most advanced in the world. More than 1,000 robots work alongside nearly 1,500 humans, lifting, stamping, and welding parts in robotic unison. Atlas, at 175 cm (68.8 in.) tall and 90 kg (198.4 lb.) in weight, has left the lab and...