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Iván Hernández Dalas: Robotics roadmaps from around the world spotlight of the month: Japan

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Robots have been a prolific theme in Japanese pop culture and media since the 1950s, which includes global icons like the Transformers, Astro Boy , and Doraemon ( 1 ). Perhaps not coincidentally, Japanese citizens have a positive outlook on robotic technologies and their use in the labor sector compared to many other nations ( 2 ); much to their advantage, as robotics continues to be a vital pillar for ensuring Japan’s economic resilience and future growth. Here, we discuss priorities and long-term agendas as presented in Japan’s national robotics strategies. Natural disasters, aging, and economic competition The combination of its geographic location, geologically active landmass, and topography renders Japan prone to frequent natural disasters. Although weather control is among Japan’s lofty research goals for the next 25 years ( 3 ), geological disturbances remain inevitable. As such, disaster mitigation and response are high priorities that serve as motivation for robotics deve...
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Iván Hernández Dalas: How to achieve high voltage in industrial systems without high complexity

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Industrial facilities requiring high voltage infrastructure can include manufacturing plants, automotive production lines, logistics hubs, and high-throughput packaging facilities. | Source: Kollmorgen In industrial facilities where 400–480V three-phase power is standard, machine builders don’t have to ask themselves if they need to use high voltage; that’s a given. Instead, they need to figure out how to design motion systems to work effectively within that environment without introducing unnecessary complexity. Oftentimes, people assume that operating in high-voltage environments requires stepping up to a more complex, higher-spec motion system . It’s true that larger machines and higher throughput do place greater demands on certain parts of the system. However, according to Kollmorgen, this doesn’t mean every axis within a machine needs to be designed to the same high specification. So, this means the challenge isn’t in adopting high voltage, but in ...
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Iván Hernández Dalas: FORT Robotics to take safety stack public via SPAC merger

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FORT Robotics said it is building the trust layer for physical AI. Source: FORT Robotics As robots become more autonomous and enter more spaces with people, the need for a trustworthy safety technology stack has grown. FORT Robotics Inc. today said it is merging with Newbury Street II Acquisition Corp., a special-purpose acquisition company, or SPAC. “FORT’s mission is to ‘ensure robots cause no harm,’ and we are dedicated to pioneering and building a shared framework for trust that robot manufacturers, integrators, end users, regulators, insurers, governments, and any other interested party can rely on,” stated Samuel Reeves, founder and CEO of FORT Robotics. “How we trust physical AI will be one of the defining questions of our time, and answering it will be a key enabler that will move these next-generation machines from isolated pilot programs to real, scalable adoption,” he asserted. Trust Layer provides for interoperability and safety “Safety is often ...
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Iván Hernández Dalas: Unichem acquires Loomia to accelerate entry into the humanoid ‘skin’ market

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Loomia’s Smart Skin Tactile Sensing Dev Kit includes both capacitive and force-sensitive resistor sensors. Source: Loomia Sensing “skin” is among the technologies in development around physical AI including humanoid robots. Materials company Uni-Chem Co. this month acquired Loomia Technologies Inc. to enter the market for “electronic skin” for humanoids, as well as the market for interior materials for smart mobility. Flexible electronics maker Loomia previously partnered with R&Y Corp. to jointly develop and mass-produce next-generation tactile sensors for robots. “Loomia’s core technology will become the core hardware of the tactile revolution, going beyond just vision to drive innovation in robotics,” stated an executive in charge of strategy at Unichem. “Based on our strong manufacturing foundry partnership with R&Y, we aim to establish a foothold for targeting the North American market and concentrate our company-wid...
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Iván Hernández Dalas: Surgeons use da Vinci surgical robot to perform common cardiac surgery

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Surgeons at El Camino Health Heart and Vascular Institute prepare for surgery. | Source: El Camino Health Heart and Vascular Institute Coronary artery bypass grafting, or CABG, is the most common type of cardiac surgery in the world. Despite this, and the heavily invasive nature of the surgery, only 1% of these procedures are performed with the help of robots. At the El Camino Health Heart and Vascular Institute (HVI), surgeons are now performing CABG with Intuitive Surgical ‘s da Vinci robotic system. The first procedure was performed by Dr. Nels Carroll, who has extensive experience in robotic cardiac techniques and one of only a few surgeons in the Bay Area offering this robotic-assisted bypass capability. “Think of the heart as the engine that’s pumping the blood and delivering energy and oxygen to the body. Basically, that engine has its own fuel lines, those are the arteries on the surface of the heart,” Carroll told  The Robot Report . “They’re providing the fuel ...
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Iván Hernández Dalas: How Generalist uses human demonstration data for robot learning

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Generalist is built on research in training robots on real-world data. Source: Generalist Summer is about creating memories. And for robots, that translates into generating lots of data. It’s also a time to catch up on reading. My beach material last June was the research paper on “ Universal Manipulation Interface: In-the-Wild Robot Teaching Without in-the-Wild Robots “ (a.k.a. UMI). The academic findings quickly became the foundation for a $2 billion unicorn robotics startup, Generalist. Essentially, teams at Toyota Research Institute ( TRI ), Columbia University , and Stanford University created a data-collection platform that uses puppet-like end effectors operated by people, with GoPro cameras capturing real-world tasks such as washing dishes and picking up objects. The resulting demonstrations become training data for robot foundation models, enabling collaborative robots to learn and take over these tasks much more quickly. UMI’s paper demonstration image, il...
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Iván Hernández Dalas: Intermittent swimming promotes the energy efficiency of fish-like robot movements

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Image credits: Xiangxiao Liu, Francois A. Longchamp, and Louis GeverBiorobotics Laboratory, EPFL Improving energy performance can effectively extend the time a robot can operate and reduce battery load, enabling lighter, more flexible, and more durable robotic systems. Nature has evolved optimal energy-saving locomotion strategies through billions of years of natural selection, providing unparalleled blueprints for robotic optimization. Among diverse modes of aquatic locomotion, intermittent swimming, also called bout-and-glide swimming, is a widespread adaptive behavior in aquatic organisms of a wide range of sizes, including larval zebrafish, red-nose tetra, koi carp, and even whales. This natural bout-and-glide gait features alternating motion phases: short periods of active body and tail undulation for propulsion, followed by passive gliding with a streamlined, straight body posture. It is widely recognized that this intermittent swimming gait is closely associated with optimizi...
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