Ivan Hernandez Dalas - Mechatronics

Shield AI claims that X-BAT is the world’s first AI-piloted VTOL jet. Source: Shield AI Shield AI last week said it is raising $1.5 billion in Series G funding at a $12.7 billion post-money valuation and $500 million in fixed-return preferred equity financing. The autonomy systems and defense drone provider plans to use a portion of the proceeds to acquire Aechelon Technology Inc., a simulation software company. “We’re thrilled to continue our work and serve our customers under Shield AI,” stated Ignacio (Nacho) Sanz-Pastor, co-founder and CEO of Aechelon. “Their vision of a future filled with autonomous systems protecting service members and civilians, and deterring conflict, is inspirational.”   Founded in 1998, Aechelon specializes in in geo-specific flight simulators and physics-based sensor AI training. The Sagewind Capital portfolio company said its Synthetic Reality (SR) platform realistically replicates real-world environments to enable both humans and machines to ...

Mind Robotics spun out of rivian to develop physical AI based on real production data. Source: Rivian Mind Robotics Inc. this month raised $500 million in Series A funding. The startup is building physical AI systems using data from existing automotive production. “Mind Robotics is building the world’s leading industrial robotics platform, capable of performing dexterous, variable, and reasoning-intensive tasks,” it stated. “The company was founded to address a structural gap with current industrial automation solutions.” “Existing industrial robotics can perform repeatable, dimensionally stable tasks, but a large share of factory value-add work requires human-like dexterity, adaptation, and physical reasoning that classical robotics cannot address,” the company said. “Mind Robotics is building the AI foundation—models, hardware, and deployment infrastructure—to close that gap.” Rivian supports robotics ‘data flywheel’ for general intelligence In November 2025, Mind Robotics spu...

IntBot is working at San José International Airport, answering questions and providing information to travelers. | Credit: IntBot Travelers at San José Mineta International Airport, or SJC, now have a new, multilingual concierge: a humanoid robot named José. Stationed at Terminal B, the robot from Silicon Valley startup IntBot Inc. uses real-world perception and contextual reasoning to provide real-time directions and flight info. IntBot’s robot was recently at GTC 2026 , where it greeted visitors and worked the help desk to answer attendee questions. The humanoid is mobile and can be equipped with legs. During its stint at NVIDIA GTC , however, the robot was stationary, secured in a standing position, and wired for continuous operations. For its role at SJC, IntBot will greet travelers, answer questions, and provide real-time information in 50+ languages. “San José continues to lead in applying emerging technologies in ways that improve everyday experiences for residents and v...

Sponsored by GAM. Imagine a small child trying to push a full-size adult in a shopping cart. It’s possible to get the cart moving (barely), but it would be very hard to start or stop. Steering could be disastrous—the child may not make it around a corner in time. A high inertia ratio between a load and a servo motor is like a small child pushing a heavy cart; it would be difficult to start and stop, and response can be sluggish. (Image courtesy of GAM.) “In servo tuning, this is when you don’t have enough of a ratio in your gearbox, and your inertia ratio between your motor and load is too high,” says Matt Ruggles, senior design engineer at GAM, a U.S.-based manufacturer of servo gear reducers and other motion control components. Now consider a large adult who doesn’t know their own strength, pushing a small child in a shopping cart. They could completely overpower the cart, making turns too fast and throwing the child around inside the basket, potentially hurting them. “This wo...

Claire chatted to Vikas Enti from Reframe Systems about using robotics and automation to build climate-resilient, high-performance homes. Vikas Enti is the co-founder and CEO of Reframe Systems , a physical AI company rethinking how homes are built through automation and localized fabrication. He previously spent more than a decade at Amazon Robotics, where he helped scale advanced robotics systems across global logistics networks. Today, he is applying those same principles of systems design and repeatable production to address the housing shortage. Vikas focuses on building climate-resilient, high-performance homes faster and more predictably than traditional methods. View Source

VDA 5050 is intended to enable communications among mobile robots from different vendors. Source: Shutterstock VDMA Materials Handling, one of the largest industry associations in Europe, recently released Version 3.0 of its VDA 5050 communication interface. The interface makes it possible to operate different mobile robots with a single control system in a mixed fleet. “Version 3.0 of VDA 5050 creates the conditions necessary to meet the growing demands for efficiency and flexibility in intralogistics material flow,” said Dr. Marcus Bollig, managing director of VDA. “The update provides exactly the tools we need for the next stage of automation in mobile robots – and thus becomes a strategic building block for the future viability of global production and logistics environments.” VDA 5050 is an open interface that structures communication between a master controller and various mobile robots according to standardized  parameters. It therefore enables heterogeneous  fleet...