I’m not sure if it’s IROS (it probably is), but I’m finding so many exciting projects this week that it will take me at least three weeks to cover them. Exciting times! As usual, the publication of the week section is manned by Rodrigo.
Sponsored
Weekly Robotics is being developed thanks to the Patreon supporters and the following business sponsors:
Xometry: Manufacturing on Demand
Need custom parts for robotics & automation? Xometry is your one-stop shop for manufacturing on demand. Get instant online quotes on CNC machining, laser cutting, 3D printing, urethane casting, and more.
Open Source Rover Gets An Update For Easier Building
This news is a bit special to me because I featured this project in the first issue of the newsletter. The open-source NASA-JPL rover went through a significant redesign, using more off-the-shelf parts that you can actually get and, at the same time, cutting the BOM price by half to around $1600.
Rust at Bitcraze
In this blog post, our friends at Bitcraze share how they started using Rust at work on all kinds of systems. Does anyone else have a Rust FOMO now?
Robot Dance Generation based on Music Analysis Driven Trajectory Optimization
The German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence researchers created a robot that dances to music and has better moves than I will ever have.
Teaching Robots New Behaviors - YouTube
“The Toyota Research Institute is unveiling a new approach that allows a robot to acquire new dexterous behaviors from demonstration. We’re going to walk through why this is a critical new capability, what advancements have made this possible, and where we are going next”.
The Saddest Robot on Earth (Can’t Help Myself)
Remember the robot art piece “Can’t Help Myself” about a robot trying to contain its hydraulic fluids using a sweeper? This video provides many background details on the installation and the artists that created it.
First AUTONOMOUS BattleBot!?!
Folks from Hacksmith Industries were helping a team of students who wanted to create an autonomous BattleBot with some interesting results. I’m looking forward to watching the video of the match!
Publication of the Week - NanoSLAM: Enabling Fully Onboard SLAM for Tiny Robots (2023)
Simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) is a computational hungry task. This paper presents a method of SLAM for a nano-drone that weighs only 44 grams. The authors created an array with four time-of-flight (ToF) sensors and used a co-processor to compute all the graph-based SLAM computations. A loop closure is used to correct the drifts from the drone odometry. The supplementary video is very didactic and shows the mapping progress by the nano-drone in the end.
Business
Agility’s New Factory Can Crank Out 10,000 Humanoid Robots a Year
Agility Robotics completed a 70,000-square-foot (6500 m2) factory.
Ascento launches nimble Guard robot with wheel-leg design - The Robot Report
“Robotics startup Ascento recently announced a $4.3 million funding round and the launch of its latest autonomous outdoor security patrolling robot: Ascento Guard”. Back in a day, when we were doing WR meetups we had one with Victor Klemm, where he talked about the first version of Ascento. I’m happy to hear that the team is doing very well with this project.