Ivan Hernandez Dalas - Mechatronics

Crewline has developed an autonomy solution for soil compactors that can be installed in an hour, providing a self-driving capability. | Source: Crewline Addressing a structural labor crisis that forces contractors to cancel nearly two-thirds of their jobs, San Francisco startup Crewline has secured a $7.1 million seed round to deploy an autonomous retrofit kit for construction rollers. By transforming the jobsite’s most repetitive and least-desired task into a self-driving operation, the company is leveraging a “wedge” strategy to tackle a workforce shortage of nearly 500,000 workers. It has already amassed a $26 million waitlist of contractors eager to scale productivity without adding headcount. CEO and co-founder Frederik Filz-Reiterdank leads a lean four-person team that is developing the new construction automation solution. Already on version six, the company is shipping a new kit revision roughly every 3 weeks. Filz-Reiterdank told The Robot Report that “labor availabilit...

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. In an article published today in Nature , Sony AI introduce Ace, the first robot to beat elite human players in competitive physical sport. Although AI systems have shown advanced performance in digital domains and board games (such as complex video games, chess and Go), translating this to physical performance has remained a significant challenge. Such a feat requires perception, planning, and control to work in a high-speed domain on the scale of milliseconds. Table tennis is a demanding and complex real-world test for robotics, requiring rapid decision-making, precise physical execution, and continuous adaptation to an unpredictable opponent. The ball’s high speed, spin, and complex trajectories are central to competitive play. Director of Sony AI in Zürich, and project lead for Ace, Peter Dürr said “this research has shown that a...

Path Robotics’ latest release is the Rove mobile robotic welding system. | Source: Path Robotics HII, Path Robotics, and GrayMatter Robotics this week introduced the High-Yield Production Robotics, or  HYPR, program. It seeks to use a network of emerging physical AI technologies from Path Robotics and GrayMatter Robotics to rapidly accelerate advanced, adaptive automation in the fabrication process of both crewed and uncrewed naval platforms. “Integrating our partnerships into one HYPR team will enable us to leverage each other’s best-in-class capabilities to accelerate shipbuilding throughput, strengthen the maritime industrial base, and augment our shipbuilding work,” said Eric Chewning, executive vice president of maritime systems and corporate strategy at HII. “This HYPR initiative will allow us to apply next-generation robotics to complex, variable shipbuilding tasks that have been difficult to fully automate.” HYPR, developed with support from Huntington Ingalls Industri...

From left to right: Andy Lonsberry, Path Robotics, Anders Beck, Universal Robots, Dave Coleman, PickNik Robotics. Artificial intelligence is now a key component of every robotic solution. AI changes the way robots process sensor data, make decisions, and react to the world around them. With AI, robotic systems no longer require manual programming to define the robot’s motions and task sequencing in the workcell. But is AI ready for real deployments into real-world production applications? What does it take to deliver an AI-driven robotic system for the end customer? At the 2026 Robotics Summit and Expo , a panel from leading AI-driven robotics companies will share their views and best practices learned from the field and real-world deployments. The panel will seek to answer the following questions: Is AI making robots easier to program, use, and deploy? How does AI change the world of production automation? How quickly can robots learn new tasks? How much effort and handholdi...

Teradyne unit Universal Robots recently displayed its mobile manipulator with a UR cobot arm at MODEX. Source: Teradyne As the Hannover Messe trade show began in Germany this week, the Regional Court of Hamburg has issued a preliminary injunction against Elite Robots Deutschland GmbH as Teradyne Robotics A/S sues it for copyright infringement. Teradyne Robotics , a subsidiary of Teradyne Inc., had begun legal proceedings against Elite Robots’ Germany subsidiary last month. It had already sent a cease-and-desist letter accusing the Chinese force- and power-limited robot maker of infringing on the proprietary software of Universal Robots A/S , a Teradyne unit and cobot market leader. “At Teradyne Robotics, we have chosen to take a stand against any competitors copying our proprietary hardware or software design, and we are of course pleased with this ruling,” stated Jean-Pierre Hathout, president of the Teradyne Robotics Group. “We believe we have irrefutable evidence of copyright...

The Rovex robotic transport system navigates a hospital corridor at BayCare’s Morton Plant Hospital. Source: Rovex BayCare Health System and Rovex today said they have entered a strategic partnership to explore how robotics could support hospital operations and patient-transport workflows. The pilot began this month at BayCare’s Morton Plant Hospital in Clearwater, Fla. “We are excited to join forces with Rovex to shape the future of hospital robotics and introduce this cutting‑edge innovation to BayCare, the health care industry, and the communities we serve,” stated Craig Anderson, BayCare’s vice president of innovation. BayCare’s healthcare system includes 16 hospitals, including a children’s hospital, and hundreds of other locations throughout the Tampa Bay and central Florida regions. It said it is West Central Florida’s largest provider of behavioral health and pediatric services. The BayCare Medical Group is one of the largest provider groups in the region. The company sa...