Weekly Robotics #324

Issue 324

I keep delaying updating the website to permanently feature Weekly Robotics Matrix Channel. Feel free to join if you are interested in chatting with like-minded roboticsists. The other day, we had a lively discussion about a mobile robot driving around an airport and displaying ads, with some people (yours truly) suggesting e-stopping the thing.

Actuate 2025 by Foxglove [Sponsored]

Actuate 2025 is next month, and the speaker lineup + schedule is out now! See the full agenda at actuate.foxglove.dev. Use the code WRCOMMUNITY10 for a 10% discount.

Foxglove

Viser

Viser cover

We present Viser, a 3D visualization library for computer vision and robotics. Viser aims to bring easy and extensible 3D visualization to Python: we provide a comprehensive set of 3D scene and 2D GUI primitives, which can be used independently with minimal setup or composed to build specialized interfaces. This technical report describes Viser’s features, interface, and implementation. Key design choices include an imperative-style API and a web-based viewer, which improve compatibility with modern programming patterns and workflows

To learn more about this work, check out this paper.

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PyCuVSLAM

PyCuVSLAM is the official Python wrapper for the NVIDIA cuVSLAM library, providing various Visual Tracking Camera modes and Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) capabilities. Leveraging CUDA acceleration and a rich set of features, PyCuVSLAM delivers highly accurate, computationally efficient, real-time performance.

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We Built an Auto-aiming Trash Can

We Built an Auto-aiming Trash Can cover

Sequoyah, one of our readers, sent over this video, and wow, what a great example of a fun overengineering project (I think the LED guiding lights in the floor were it). Absolutely loved it.

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Walker S2 - The World’s First Humanoid Robot Capable of Autonomous Battery Swapping

This feature almost got lost in my review pile, but I found the method the UBTECH humanoid uses to change batteries quite elegant.

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Strong, Accurate, and Low-Cost Robot Manipulator

Strong, Accurate, and Low-Cost Robot Manipulator cover

This paper introduces Forte, a 3D-printable 6DoF manipulator based on NEMA stepper motors with a total BOM of < $215. The paper promises a repeatability of 0.5mm, which I think is unmatched in this category. I have not seen any references for build instructions or mentions of open-source at this time, but if the authors release any updates in that direction, I’ll surely post about it.

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Are AI Humanoid Robots a Bubble? What K-Scale Knows that Elon Doesn’t

In this video, Leon Ex Machina interviews Benjamin Bolte, the founder of K-Scale Labs, a company behind K-Bot, an open-source humanoid robot. I found it interesting that the company rents a $28,000 house and is using it to host employees and develop robots. Other than that, the interview contains many interesting discussions around the humanoid robot market.

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Hatching Tertill

Joe Jones created another write-up covering his robotics adventures. This time, Joe is discussing Tertill, a weed-whacking robot that had a successful Kickstarter back in 2017.

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3D metal printing: free-forms without supporting structures

3D metal printing: free-forms without supporting structures cover

I loved watching the demo video contained within this article that showed a 3D-printing Kuka manipulator.

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Events

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