Ivan Hernandez Dalas - Mechatronics

One of only four teams remaining from more than 130 competitors worldwide, our team AURA Foresight is developing autonomous technology to stop wildfires before they grow out of control. AURA Foresight has been selected as a finalist in the prestigious XPRIZE Wildfire Autonomous Wildfire Response competition , emerging as one of just four teams remaining from more than 130 teams from around the world. XPRIZE Wildfire is a four-year, US$11 million global competition designed to accelerate breakthrough technologies capable of ending destructive wildfires. The Autonomous Wildfire Response track, worth US$5 million, challenges teams to autonomously detect, verify and respond to wildfire ignitions across a 1,000 km² landscape within just ten minutes. The finals will take place in Nenana, Alaska, where teams will demonstrate their technologies in realistic wildfire response scenarios. Being selected as a finalist places AURA Foresight among a small group of innovators developing the next...

A chart showing annual installations of industrial robots in the U.S. | Source: IFR The number of industrial robot installations in the United States rose by 11% year over year, according to the International Federation of Robotics, or IFR. U.S. robotics installations reached 38,000 units in 2025. Robust growth in the food industry and other non-manufacturing sectors drove this recovery, said the Frankfurt, Germany-based organization . However, the automotive industry still remains the largest adopter, reaching 13,500 units, just 1% below last year’s result. “The United States is back on the growth track,” said Takayuki Ito, the president of the IFR. “While automotive achieved its third-best result in seven years, the data highlights a growing demand for flexible automation in the food industry: Adoption in this sector surged by 30%, now ranking alongside metal and machinery and electrical-electronics, all with approximately 3,000 installations in 2025.” The degree of automa...

Claire chatted to Allison Okamura from Stanford University about developing advanced robotic systems for haptic (touch) interaction. Allison Okamura is the Richard W. Weiland Professor of Engineering at Stanford University. Her academic interests include haptics, teleoperation, virtual reality, medical robotics, soft robotics, rehabilitation, and education. Allison is Director of Graduate Studies for Mechanical Engineering at Stanford University, a deputy director of the Wu Tsai Stanford Neurosciences Institute, a Science Fellow of the Hoover Institution and a founding faculty member and executive committee member of the Stanford Robotics Center. View Source

Elmo’s motion control portfolio includes servo drives, network-based multi-axis motion controllers, and integrated servo motors. | Source: Elmo Motion Control Elmo Motion Control Ltd. yesterday launched new servo drives and a new motion controller drives for a wide range of applications in industrial, harsh, and extreme environments. The new products can work across temperature, altitude, sea depth, humidity, vibration, and more. “Our customers need more than just compact size and power density,” stated Elizabeth Victor, the director of sales at Elmo U.S. “Functional safety is critical for many automation systems and can reduce or even eliminate the need for safety cages. By integrating functional safety into our controllers and servo drives, we enable OEMs to implement safety features at the foundation of their motion subsystem.” “With our certified offerings, we also help simplify the design and certification of systems that must meet strict functional safety stan...

RealSense is unveiling the new D585 Pro AI-native depth camera at Automate 2026 in booth 12036. The RealSense D585 Pro combines depth sensing, edge AI acceleration and a software-defined platform that the company said is designed to improve over time through SDK-delivered capabilities. The RealSense D585 Pro is expected to begin shipping in Q1 2027. Designed for humanoids , autonomous mobile robots (AMRs), collaborative robot arms , industrial robotics and inspection systems, the D585 combines a sub-15cm minimum range at full resolution, a 120×100° field of view (FOV) at 60 FPS, IP65 protection as standard and an AI inference engine that runs directly on the camera at the edge. RealSense said the D585 Pro is powered by a proprietary Gen 5 system-on-chip (SoC) and delivers more than 2x better depth quality than the previous generation of RealSense cameras, enabling more precise navigation, manipulation, inspection and human-robot interaction. With on-device AI processing, the camera...

The ADAM robot will interact with people via livestream in addition to service locations. Source: Richtech Robotics One aspect of humanoid robotics development is building public trust. Richtech Robotics Inc. today launched a round-the-clock interactive streaming platform featuring its ADAM robot. “Richtech Robotics has always focused on creating robots that seamlessly integrate into human environments and improve the way businesses operate,” said Wayne Huang, CEO of Richtech Robotics. “With the launch of the ADAM livestream initiative, we are opening a new chapter in human-robot interaction by introducing an unprecedented global opportunity to communicate with embodied AI in a live, highly-interactive setting.” Founded in 2016, Richtech Robotics develops advanced robotics and the data infrastructure to makes its systems more intelligent. Guided by three strategic pillars — industrial, commercial, and data services — the company said it aims to deliver dependable automation, c...