Ivan Hernandez Dalas - Mechatronics

Rovex is conducting the first pilot of its hospital transportation system in Florida. Source: Rovex Last month, I attended eMerge Americas hosted by  Melissa Medina in Miami. The conference showcased South Florida’s burgeoning innovation engine, with startups promoting groundbreaking tech in healthcare, defense, AI, and hardware. An equally impressive plenum of speakers included household name-brand CEOs, generals, influencers, and even the president’s son. Clearly, the nexus of innovation is beginning to shift away from the Northern coasts down to the (tax-free) Sun Belt. Walking the floor, I sought out robot companies in the eMerge  alligator alley. Amid the mix of drone and autonomous vehicles, Rovex Technologies stood out with its autonomous hospital bed. The startup was the brainchild of emergency room doctor David Crabb. He had been charged with overseeing his department, tackling bottlenecks in moving patients through the hospital system. One of the most glaring examples ...

The recently launched Robotics Café is a weekly online seminar series to bring together researchers, students and industry practitioners working in the field of autonomous robotics. One of the key aims of the initiative is to provide a dedicated platform for students to present and disseminate their work, enabling broader visibility and impact across academia and industry. Organised by P.B. Sujit (IISER Bhopal), Sandeep Manjanna (Plaksha University) and Aditya Paranjape (Monash University), the talks take place every Thursday from 17:00-18:00 Indian Standard Time. The link to watch the presentations live via Google Meet is here . Alternatively, you can catch the recordings on the Robotics Café YouTube channel . The series kicked off with a talk from Professor Debasish Ghose (Indian Institute of Science) entitled: AERObotics: The Art of Catching Objects in the Air. The presentation explored the fascinating intersection of guidance theory and aerial robotics. In the second lecture...

Ace rotates its paddle as it prepares to return the ball back to its human opponent, Yamato Kawamata, during a match in December 2025. Credit: Sony AI. By Kartikeya Walia , Nottingham Trent University A table tennis robot has outperformed elite players in recent evaluations. The robot, called Ace, marks a significant step toward artificial intelligence (AI) systems that can operate in fast, uncertain, real-world environments. In the tests, the autonomous robot won three out of five matches against elite players – competitive athletes with over ten years’ experience and an average of 20 hours weekly training. The robot , developed by Sony AI, lost both matches against players in professional Japanese leagues, but did win a game against one of them. The system is described in detail in a recent paper published in Nature . AI has spent decades mastering games. It has repeatedly outperformed the best humans in everything from complex video games like StarCraft II to chess – where mod...

Claire chatted to Gavin Kenneally from Ghost Robotics about robot dogs for defence, security, and public safety. Gavin Kenneally is the Co-Founder and CEO of Ghost Robotics , a company that has gained a reputation for pushing the boundaries of legged robotics technology. In his current role, Gavin spearheads a team of highly skilled engineers and researchers who share his passion for creating advanced robotics systems. Previously, he was Head of Product at Ghost Robotics, responsible for the mechanical design of the company’s flagship product: the Vision 60 Q-UGV. Gavin has a PhD in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania and has authored six academic papers. View Source

Anthro and EnPower are combining forces to deliver high-power battery cells. | Source: Anthro Energy, EnPower Anthro Energy and EnPower Inc. this week signed a memorandum of understanding to establish a long-term, multi-phase partnership. The companies plan to jointly develop, manufacture, and scale high-performance lithium-ion cells, which are used in a range of robotics applications. EnPower will combine its U.S.-based electrode and pouch cell manufacturing capabilities with Anthro Energy ‘s Proteus electrolyte platform. The companies said they will support longer mission times, safer system designs, and operation in more demanding environments. “This partnership is about reindustrializing American manufacturing and rebuilding a domestic battery supply chain for the next generation of energy storage,” stated David Mackanic, co-founder and CEO of Anthro Energy. “Through this partnership, we are integrating a paradigm-shifting battery platform with U.S. manuf...

Image courtesy of ADI Robots are no longer confined to factory cells or fencedoff environments. Autonomous mobile robots now operate continuously in warehouses and hospitals. Drones are flying longer, farther, and with greater autonomy. Humanoid robots are beginning to work in close proximity to people, navigating shared spaces and responding to unstructured behavior in real time. This new generation of machines shares a common shift: mobility systems are becoming perceptiondriven, computeintensive, and safetycritical. This means the “hard part” is no longer designing a single sensor or a single model in isolation. The real challenge is system-level: ensuring sensing, connectivity, compute, power, and safety operate together reliably under realworld conditions. To address this, the automotive industry shifted toward treating vehicles as distributed nervous systems integrated networks of sensors, edge processors, communications links, and control elements built to behave predictably u...