Ivan Hernandez Dalas - Mechatronics

Innodata has opened a new lab to capture motion for accurate data to train AI for robotics. Source: Innodata While humanoid robots can be agile, the artificial intelligence driving them needs more data to be able to conduct useful tasks. Innodata Inc. today said it has opened a laboratory to generate the data for training the next generation of human-like robots. The facility will also independently validate the performance data that robots generate internally. “Physical AI is growing faster than any other segment in AI, but every robotics team hits the same wall: There isn’t enough real-world interaction data, and what exists is expensive and slow to produce,” stated Rahul Singhal, CEO of Innodata. “This facility removes that wall. We now offer physical AI companies a complete end-to-end capability — from data collection through model evaluation — that compresses development cycles and gets more capable, safer robots into the world sooner.” Founded in 1988, I...

Autonomous Solutions Inc., or ASI, and SoftBank Group Corp. last week announced a joint venture to commercialize brand-agnostic autonomous heavy equipment to address severe labor shortages and accelerate infrastructure projects worldwide. “Large infrastructure projects, from roadways and airports to railways and waste management, are being built at a pace and complexity that traditional labor-intensive methods struggle to match,” Mel Torrie , CEO of ASI, told The Robot Report . “Skilled equipment operators are hard to find, and coordinating mixed fleets across a big jobsite is a real bottleneck. That’s exactly the problem this joint venture is built to solve — bringing autonomous, OEM-agnostic fleet coordination to that kind of scale.” Founded in 2000, ASI has developed the Mobius industrial autonomous fleet orchestration system. The Mendon, Utah-based company said its systems work across mixed vehicle environments and offer long-term operational scal...

By Emmet Cole “Robotics and automation” is a pairing heard often around these parts. It puts the “RA” in IEEE RAS, after all. The familiar combination shows up in conference titles, funding calls, and program descriptions. But what is actually meant by the two words? Is robotics a subdomain of automation? Does the distinction matter? As a recent IEEE RAS Communications Board meeting drew to a close, IEEE experts informally reflected on these questions and their significance for the RAS community and beyond. The excerpts below have been lightly edited for clarity. Sabine Hauert: We often use the phrase “robotics and automation,” including in the name of IEEE RAS. But what do we actually mean by those two words? Why is there a distinction, and does it accurately capture our fields? Mariateresa Pedone: My feeling is that automation is almost invisible in everyday life. Its role is mainly to make processes repeatable, efficient, scalable and pre...

ForceN offers force torque sensors for robotic wrists and other joints. The company has supplied sensing systems to surgical, logistics, humanoid, and other robots. | Source: ForceN As humanoids move into more industrial roles, it’s crucial for them to be able to handle anything from heavy to delicate objects with precision. Force torque sensors give robots a sense of touch, and without them, robots are blind to how much pressure they’re applying while working. At RoboBusiness 2026, Robert Brooks, the founder and CEO of ForceN , will present “A Crash Course in Force & Torque Sensing for Humanoids.” The event will be on Oct. 20 and 21 in Santa Clara, Calif., and Brooks will give his talk at 2:15 p.m. PT on the first day of the show. Attendees will learn about the many ways they can use force and torque sensors in humanoids and how to avoid breaking them while doing it. Brooks will summarize learnings from working with many of world’s top humanoid ...

Flourish One is now available. The company is promising an easy-to-use training interface. | Credit: Flourish Flourish, a startup straddling San Francisco and Paris, is set to open sales for Flourish One, a $3,555 wheeled humanoid-style home robot that early adopters can teach new chores in under 30 minutes using only a smartphone. Aiming squarely at busy parents rather than factories, founder Antoine Marcel is betting that per-home, cloud-trained skills and phone-based teleoperation will make this first batch of 50 robots a proving ground for practical domestic robotics. Most humanoid and mobile-manipulator startups are chasing factory or warehouse work, where environments are structured, and data is plentiful. Flourish is deliberately taking on the messier challenge of the home. Marcel’s thesis is that every household’s routines, layouts, and standards of cleanliness are too idiosyncratic for a one-size-fits-all generalist model, so Flourish One fine-tunes its skills task ...

Report looks at advances in robots for manufacturing Robotics in manufacturing has evolved from the days of rigidly programmed robot arms on automotive production lines. Robot models are diversifying, widening applications for industrial automation are changing with improvements in perception, autonomy, and actuation. In addition, widespread shortages of skilled labor are driving demand in diverse sectors, ranging from electronics and metals to food and beverage and pharmaceuticals. According to the International Federation of Robotics, industrial robot installations doubled in the decade that ended in 2024. The organization has also recorded increasing robot density, or the number of robots per 10,000 workers. The global leaders are South Korea, Singapore, Germany, and Japan, where workforces are aging. At the same time, the rise of force- and power-limited or collaborative robots, autonomous mobile robots, and physical AI is enabling factories to automate more tasks. Cobots, mob...