It’s time to let the cat out of the bag. After the 4th of June issue, I’m taking a sabbatical from Weekly Robotics. As of today, I am still determining how long the break will be. I plan to get some space and think about the future of this project, focus on family, and finish Baldur’s Gate 3. This is the first time I’ll take a proper break from this project since I started in August 2018, and I’ll be sure to make it count! In other news, Rodrigo returned from well-deserved holidays and is back to leading the Publication of the Week section!
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Anatomy of a Robotaxi Crash: Lessons from the Cruise Pedestrian Dragging Mishap
Philip Koopman, who was sometimes featured in this newsletter through his excellent blog Better Embedded System SW, authored this pre-print analyzing and reconstructing the unfortunate incident involving a Cruise autonomous taxi. This write-up is an eye-opener for considering your system’s edge-cases and the good and bad things a company can do when responding to safety issues.
507 Mechanical Movements
The other day, it took me a good half an hour to remember and find this website, so I thought it was a good idea to repost it. You can find here information about 507 different mechanisms from the book “Five Hundred and Seven Mechanical Movements” by Henry T. Brown, some of them animated. It’s mind-blowing that the original was first released in 1868!
I Tried a Disney Secret Project!
In this video, Marques Brownlee visits Disney Imagineering to test the 360 treadmill, but before the author shows us the treadmill, he shows the now famous(?) droids that are apparently controlled by a Steamdeck(!). As for the treadmill itself? It’s pure magic! Is it correct that at around 4:30, we can see some LiDARs that estimate the box position? Looks like a very interesting setup!
Video: Iron-shelled robo-snails swarm together for off-road tasks
This is an interesting concept of swarm-tracked mobile robots that look like something straight out of Mario Bros. The shells of these robots are metallic, allowing other robots to climb on top and attach themselves using a magnet and a suction cup. Interesting!
sea-bass/pyroboplan: Educational Python library for manipulator motion planning
Sebastian Castro just released this exciting Python motion planning library.
We trained a robot dog to balance and walk on top of a yoga ball…
“I’m excited to announce DrEureka, an LLM agent that writes code to train robot skills in simulation, and writes more code to bridge the difficult simulation-reality gap. It fully automates the pipeline from new skill learning to real-world deployment”. For more information about this project, check out this website.
Publication of the Week - RI Seminar: Dieter Fox: Where’s RobotGPT?
I couldn’t be happier to return from vacation with another robotics institute seminar. Presented by Dieter Fox, professor and senior director of Nvidia, he showcases RobotGPT, and with any LLM, he shows methods for generating large datasets for training robot manipulation capabilities. His presentation is packed with examples. You can see the whole training pipeline at this minute. As exciting as it sounds, there is still a long path ahead to reach a full RobotGPT.
Business
Hyundai is spending close to $1 billion to keep self-driving startup Motional alive
“Hyundai has agreed to spend nearly $1 billion on Motional, an investment that will give the automaker a majority stake while providing the self-driving startup with the necessary capital to keep operating”.
Luminar, maker of lidar for autonomous driving, lays off 20 percent of its workforce
“Luminar, which makes lidar sensors for autonomous driving systems, announced today plans to lay off 20 percent of its workforce amid a broader restructuring of its production process. […] it will transition to an “asset light” business model that will see more of its production outsourced to its partners. As part of the restructuring, at least 147 people will lose their jobs”.
Events
- Automate: May 06 - May 09, 2024. Chicago, United States of America
- Eurobot Open 2024: May 08 - May 11, 2024. La Roche-sur-Yon, France
- ICCRE 2024: May 10 - May 12, 2024. Osaka, Japan
- ICRA 2024: May 13 - May 17, 2024. Yokohama, Japan
- ISMR (Medical Robotics) 2024: Jun 03 - Jun 05, 2024. Atlanta, Georgia, United States
- ICUAS (UAVs) 2024: Jun 04 - Jun 07, 2024. Chania, Crete, Greece
- AIRA Challenge 2024: Jun 10 - Jun 14, 2024 (ddl: Jan 07, 2024). Frankfurt am Main, Germany
- Energy Drone & Robotics Coalition 2024: Jun 10 - Jun 12, 2024. Houston, United States
- ROSCON France 2024: Jun 19 - Jun 20, 2024. Nantes, France
- Robotics: Science and Systems 2024: Jul 15 - Jul 19, 2024. Delft, The Netherlands
For more robotic events, check out our event page.