Ivan Hernandez Dalas - Mechatronics

2026 Form & Function Challenge teams at the Robotics Summit & Expo. Source: MassRobotics BOSTON — At the Robotics Summit & Expo last week, MassRobotics announced the winners of its fourth Form & Function Robotics Challenge. Fifteen teams from colleges and universities from around the globe showcased their robotics and automation projects, competing for cash prizes. Competing teams for this event included MIT , Purdue University Indiana , Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), Laval University Quebec , University of Pennsylvania , Manipal Academy Dubai , University of Waterloo, Ontario , UMass Boston , University of British Columbia , Boston University , Northeastern University , and Tufts University . The goal of this challenge was for higher ed teams to create a robot that both looks good (form) and works (function). The Form & Function Challenge required university teams to create a robotics or automation project that delivers a compelling form factor sp...

Deborah Lupton / Pop Chips / Licenced by CC-BY 4.0 . Henrik I Christensen , Professor of Computer Science & Engineering at University of California San Diego, has recently released a global robotics technology roadmap . This position paper focuses on Asia, Europe, and America and outlines the current state-of-the-art in robotics, and highlights the main opportunities. The roadmap draws on robotics research and industry data to identify a global technology trajectory for the decade 2025–2035. It integrates findings from leading robotics conferences (such as ICRA, IROS, RSS, CoRL), machine-learning venues (including NeurIPS, ICML), and journal publications, combined with market intelligence from trade organizations and regional government strategies. The document is structured for use by policymakers, technology strategists, research agencies, and industrial research and development leaders. It is based on a review of present research, industry statistics and numerous visits by H...

In this episode, The Robot Report editorial team recaps the major highlights, central themes, and networking events from the Robotics Summit and Expo in Boston. We break down key presentations, including Brian Gerkey’s insights on the role of open source technology in this era of AI. We also discussed Mikell Taylor’s practical framework for deploying reliable, “worthy” robots. Finally, we share highlights from the closing keynote interview with Noland Arbaugh, the world’s first Neuralink user, who discussed his groundbreaking journey with brain-computer interface technology and play chess live on stage with Chris Matthieu from RealSense. Show timeline 1:40 – Recap and takeaways from the 2026 Robotics Summit and Expo with Steve Crowe, Eugene Demaitre, Brianna Wessling and Mike Oitzman 22:55 – Keynote recap: Brian Gerkey 28:42 – Keynote recap: Mikell Taylor 36:11 – Keynote recap: Noland Arbaugh Sponsors Thanks t...

FORT said acquiring Mapless AI will enable it to expand into complex real-world environments, including construction, logistics, defense, and more. | Source: FORT Robotics FORT Robotics recently acquired Mapless AI, a Boston- and Pittsburgh-based developer of teleoperation and onboard active safety technology. FORT plans to add both of these capabilities to its Trust Platform .  By integrating these technologies, FORT said it will expand its technology from safety-certified machine control to a comprehensive architecture for supervised autonomy. While FORT has traditionally worked with technology in industrial environments, Mapless AI brings experience in more unstructured settings, such as airports.  “The Physical AI market is a multi-billion-dollar economic engine, but its full potential can only be unlocked if machines are trustworthy enough to operate in real-world human environments,” said Samuel Reeves, CEO of FORT Robotics. “The robotics industry ...

Image credit: HIMS / Nature Synthesis . In a paper published in Nature Synthesis, researchers led by Professor Timothy Noël of the University of Amsterdam’s Van ’t Hoff Institute for Molecular Sciences present an advance in autonomous laboratory systems for synthesis optimisation. A versatile, modular design and the option for “human-in-the-loop” analytics, RoboChem Flex caters to all synthesis laboratories, large or small. The paper provides all the information to build their own system. According to Professor Noël, this new version of the RoboChem concept developed by his group will democratise the use of autonomous, sophisticated AI-powered synthesis systems. Such systems are often very expensive, so that only well-funded institutions can afford them. “We find such an exclusive privilege counterproductive to science. Scientific progress requires scalable, cost-effective tools that empower researchers across all resource levels. So we have now developed our system to be...

NVIDIA is offering AI agent tools to robotics and autonomous vehicle developers. At GTC Taipei and Computex today, NVIDIA Corp. revealed several open-source physical AI skills and tools to help developers of robotics, autonomous vehicles, visual AI, and industrial digital twins. The company claimed that they can help reduce the costs, time, and complexity of building physical AI workflows at scale. Available as part of the  NVIDIA Agent Toolkit , the new skills will let AI agents speed the data generation, simulation, training, evaluation, and deployment pipelines behind robots, autonomous vehicles ( AVs ), factories, and laboratories, said the company . “AI agents are revolutionizing software development, and that shift is now coming to physical AI, extending into the systems that will transform transportation, manufacturing, healthcare, and robotics,” said Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA, at GTC Taipei . “When agents can directly use NVIDIA libraries, models and framework...