Ivan Hernandez Dalas - Mechatronics

Oxa’s systems tow and carry goods in ports, airports, or manufacturing facilities, as well as monitor assets and perimeters in solar farms or industrial plants. Source: Oxa Oxa Autonomy Ltd., a developer of autonomous vehicle technology, this month closed a $103 million Series D round. The company said the investment will enable it to intensify its focus on commercializing the automation of repetitive industrial driving tasks. “These investments validate our intensified focus on industrial mobility automation (IMA), where the path to commercial deployment at scale is clearest and most immediate,” said Paul Newman, founder and chief technology officer of Oxa. “The capital will supercharge the development of our technology, enabling our industrial customers to benefit from significant productivity gains, lower operational costs, and increased workplace safety sooner,” he added. “We are proud to be developing world-leading technology here in the U.K., fundamentally changing the way i...

The Robot Report recognized Hypergram, Epson, and Polaris3D at AW 2026. Credit: Sewong Chloe Park SEOUL — Among the highlights at last week’s Smart Manufacturing and Automation World, or AW 2026, were the 500 exhibitors. The event’s organizers asked me and other international reporters to select three of the most promising candidates for its Global Media Awards. The criteria included their strength in marketing, potential for market growth, opportunity for investment, and competitiveness. In addition, the finalists had a significant presence in South Korea as the country intends to parlay its expertise in service and industrial automation to be a bigger player in the global robotics ecosystem. AW 2026 showcased cutting-edge technologies in smart factories, robotics, and innovations in AI-driven manufacturing . The event ‘s organizers included Coex, the Korea Industry Intelligentization Association, the Korea Smart Manufacturing Office, the Korea Machine Vision Industrial Associa...

Nine startups are part of Cohort 2 in the Physical AI Fellowship program. Source: MassRobotics Physical AI developers need help to satisfy growing industrial demand for intelligent machines in real-world environments. MassRobotics today announced the second cohort of the Physical AI Fellowship, a virtual program to help robotics startups build, refine, and scale physical AI systems. The organization offers the fellowship with Amazon Web Services (AWS) Startups and NVIDIA Inception . By providing startups with deep technical guidance, cloud and compute resources, and access to a global robotics ecosystem, the fellowship is intended to enable teams to move from promising prototypes to enterprise-grade deployments. “We’re excited to launch our second Physical AI Fellowship cohort and continue working alongside industry leaders like AWS and NVIDIA to help startups scale real-world physical AI solutions,” said Tom Ryden, executive director at MassRobotics. “We look forward to showcas...

Rhoda AI offers a Direct Video-Action Model that reformulates robot policies as video generation. | Source: Rhoda AI Rhoda AI has emerged from stealth with $450 million in Series A funding. The company also unveiled FutureVision, an approach to robotic intelligence that is based on video-predictive control. “We believe the next era of robotics requires models that understand how the world moves — not just what it looks like or how it’s described in language,” said Jagdeep Singh, cofounder and CEO of Rhoda. “By learning from internet-scale video and operating in closed loop, our systems are designed to adapt to real-world variability in ways conventional approaches struggle to achieve. The goal is simple: robots that work in the real world, not just controlled lab settings.” Traditional industrial robots perform well in structured environments but remain largely limited to pre-programmed trajectories. More recent AI approaches, particularly vision-language-action (VLA) models, allo...

Screenshot from video showing underwater robotic vehicle. Credit: Tim Briggs/MIT Lincoln Laboratory. During a summer internship at MIT Lincoln Laboratory, Ivy Mahncke, an undergraduate student of robotics engineering at Olin College of Engineering, took a hands-on approach to testing algorithms for underwater navigation. She first discovered her love for working with underwater robotics as an intern at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in 2024. Drawn by the chance to tackle new problems and cutting-edge algorithm development, Mahncke began an internship with Lincoln Laboratory’s Advanced Undersea Systems and Technology Group in 2025.  Mahncke spent the summer developing and troubleshooting an algorithm that would help a human diver and robotic vehicle collaboratively navigate underwater. The lack of traditional localization aids — such as the Global Positioning System, or GPS — in an underwater environment posed challenges for navigation that Mahncke and her mentors sough...

The new Roomba Mini is half the size of iRobot’s Roomba 105 robot vacuum. | Source: iRobot iRobot Corp. today said it is bringing its Roomba Mini, the company’s smallest robotic vacuum cleaner, to Europe and the U.K. Already launched in Japan, the Roomba Mini Robot Vacuum & Mop + AutoEmpty Dock can fit into hard-to-reach spots that stick vacuum cleaners and standard-size robots can’t reach, said the company. This is iRobot’s first product rollout since the Bedford, Mass.-based company emerged from a pre-packaged Chapter 11 bankruptcy process in January. It was acquired by its longtime contract manufacturer and contract lender, Picea , which has research and development and manufacturing facilities in China and Vietnam. “The Roomba Mini was developed well before iRobot was acquired by Picea,” said iRobot. “Picea’s acquisition had no impact on Roomba Mini’s rollout. Going forward, we expect that under Picea’s ownership, iRobot can take advantage of Picea’s sales and distributi...