Results for "Manipulation"

40 articles found

Developing active and flexible microrobots

Researchers at Leiden University have developed microscopic flexible robots that move autonomously without sensors, software, or external control, instead relying on shape-environment interactions inspired by biological microswimmers. These 3D-printed chain-like microrobots demonstrate emergent intelligent behaviors including obstacle avoidance and object manipulation, with potential applications in targeted drug delivery and minimally invasive medical procedures.

Robohub5d ago

Hello Robot's latest Stretch 4 is bigger, faster, and stronger than previous versions

Hello Robot announced Stretch 4, an upgraded version of its mobile manipulation platform now priced at $29,950, featuring twice the speed of Stretch 3, extended reach, and a comprehensive sensor array with dual 3D lidars and multiple cameras for improved safety and autonomy. The robot is designed for general-purpose physical AI applications in dynamic environments like homes, with enhanced sensing capabilities to detect obstacles and people while performing manipulation tasks.

The Robot Report6d ago

RLWRLD releases RLDX-1, a dexterity-first foundation model for robot hands

RLWRLD unveiled RLDX-1, a dexterity-first foundation model designed specifically for high-degree-of-freedom robotic hands in industrial applications. The model integrates vision, force sensing, temporal reasoning, and memory to handle complex manipulation tasks like pouring, object tracking, and precise contact control across single-arm, dual-arm, and humanoid embodiments.

The Robot Report5/11/2026

Khosla-backed robotics startup Genesis AI has gone full-stack, demo shows

Genesis AI, a Khosla-backed startup that raised $105M for foundational AI in robotics, unveiled its GENE-26.5 model along with a human-hand-shaped robotic hand it designed in-house. The startup developed a sensor-loaded data collection glove and uses simulation to accelerate model training, aiming to bridge the embodiment gap in robotics by collecting human manipulation data to train robots for complex tasks like cooking, lab work, and other real-world applications.

TechCrunch Robotics5/6/2026

Genesis AI introduces GENE-26.5 model for more dexterous robot manipulation

Genesis AI unveiled GENE-26.5, an AI foundation model designed for dexterous robotic manipulation that enables robots to perform complex, human-level tasks like cooking, lab work, and piano playing. The company also introduced a proprietary robotic hand that mirrors human anatomy and a data-collection system with tactile sensing to enable direct skill transfer from humans to robots, addressing a fundamental bottleneck in training robotics foundation models.

The Robot Report5/6/2026

Look back on 10 years of legged robots with Ghost Robotics at the Robotics Summit

Ghost Robotics, which has shipped over 1,000 legged robots since 2015, will present at the Robotics Summit & Expo in May 2026, with CEO Gavin Kenneally discussing 10 years of deploying quadruped robots in defense, security, and industrial applications. The company recently released a manipulator arm for its Vision 60 robots to expand their manipulation capabilities, and its systems are widely used throughout the Department of Defense.

The Robot Report4/26/2026

Warehouse Robots Just Stopped Being Optional

Two major announcements this week signal a fundamental shift in logistics automation: Locus Robotics unveiled fully autonomous mobile manipulation, while Pickle Robot prepares to share hard-won lessons from real-world deployment. The message is clear — warehouses that don't automate soon won't be competitive.

Creative Robotics4/14/2026Original

Chef Robotics completes 100M meal servings milestone

Chef Robotics announced it has completed 100 million meal servings across customer facilities, claiming this represents more production volume than all other food robotics companies combined. The milestone reflects deployments across a dozen facilities in the U.S., Canada, and Europe, and demonstrates the company's physical AI approach using real-world production data to train models for deformable material manipulation in food manufacturing.

The Robot Report4/17/2026

Ouster releases Stereolabs ZED X Nano wrist-mounted camera

Ouster released the Stereolabs ZED X Nano, a compact wrist-mounted stereo camera designed for robotic manipulation and imitation learning with high-resolution 1920×1200 RGB and depth capture at up to 120fps. The camera features sub-millimeter depth accuracy, ultra-low-latency processing with direct GPU integration, and ruggedized industrial connectivity, addressing key bottlenecks in robotic vision for physical AI applications. Pre-orders are available now with shipping beginning May 2026.

Robotics Business Review4/14/2026

Locus Robotics launches Locus Array for fully autonomous fulfillment

Locus Robotics launched Locus Array, a mobile manipulation system combining an omnidirectional mobile robot, integrated picking arm, and AI-powered perception for autonomous warehouse fulfillment. The system represents the company's evolution toward fully autonomous warehouse operations, capable of handling multiple workflows including picking, putaway, and replenishment while working alongside existing Locus AMRs across 350+ facilities globally.

Robotics Business Review4/13/2026

National Robotics Week - Latest Physical AI Research, Breakthroughs and Resources

NVIDIA highlights Physical AI breakthroughs during National Robotics Week, announcing new technologies including Isaac GR00T language models for robot control, Cosmos world models for synthetic data generation, and Newton 1.0 physics engine for manipulation tasks. The company showcases expanded simulation capabilities and real-world applications like surgical robotics with PeritasAI and natural language control via NemoClaw integration with Isaac Sim.

NVIDIA Blog AI4/10/2026

Sanctuary AI's robotic hand demonstrates zero-shot in-hand manipulation

Sanctuary AI demonstrated zero-shot in-hand manipulation using its hydraulic robotic hand, which successfully reoriented a lettered cube 10 consecutive times without dropping it. The system, trained entirely in simulation, transferred seamlessly to real-world performance, showcasing the company's advances in dexterous manipulation policies and embodied AI for its Phoenix humanoid robot.

Robotics Business Review4/2/2026

Top 10 robotics developments of March 2026

This roundup highlights the top 10 robotics developments from March 2026, featuring major announcements including humanoid robot debuts at industry conferences, acquisitions by Amazon (Fauna Robotics and RIVR), new humanoid startups like Noble Machines and Rhoda AI, and industrial applications such as BMW's deployment of Hexagon's wheeled humanoids in manufacturing. The month was marked by significant activity at Smart Factory & Automation World and NVIDIA GTC, showcasing advances in humanoid robots, perception systems, robotic manipulation, and physical AI for production-scale applications.

Robotics Business Review4/1/2026

We're Running Out of Ways to Spot Deepfakes

Recent demonstrations of AI-generated medical imaging that fools trained radiologists mark a critical inflection point in the deepfake arms race. Unlike social media manipulation or entertainment content, deepfakes that can deceive domain experts in high-stakes professional contexts represent a fundamentally different category of threat—one that our verification systems are unprepared to handle.

Creative Robotics3/29/2026Original

AsgardBench: A benchmark for visually grounded interactive planning

AsgardBench introduces a benchmark for visually grounded interactive planning, likely advancing robot perception and spatial reasoning capabilities. The work addresses long-horizon task planning for robot manipulation through grounded spatial understanding, relevant to embodied AI and robotics research.

Microsoft Research3/26/2026

GroundedPlanBench: Spatially grounded long-horizon task planning for robot manipulation

GroundedPlanBench is a research benchmark for spatially grounded long-horizon task planning in robot manipulation, enabling robots to understand and execute complex multi-step tasks in physical environments. The work combines computer vision and AI planning to improve robots' ability to interpret spatial relationships and execute manipulation tasks.

Microsoft Research3/26/2026

Protecting people from harmful manipulation

Researchers have released new findings and a validated toolkit for measuring AI's potential for harmful manipulation—specifically its ability to alter human thought and behavior deceptively. The study involved over 10,000 participants across multiple countries and found that AI's manipulative effectiveness varies significantly by domain, with health topics showing the least susceptibility to harmful influence.

DeepMind Blog3/25/2026

Graphene-based sensor to improve robot touch

Researchers at the University of Cambridge have developed a graphene-based miniature tactile sensor that enables robots to detect pressure, force direction, surface texture, and object slipping with spatial resolution comparable to human fingertips. The flexible composite material, inspired by human skin microstructures, significantly improves upon existing tactile sensors in size and sensitivity, enabling applications in robotic manipulation, minimally invasive surgery, and prosthetics.

Robohub3/16/2026

The Haptic Renaissance: Why Touch Is Becoming Robotics' Most Critical Sense

While the industry obsesses over vision systems and language models, a quiet revolution in tactile sensing is addressing robotics' most fundamental limitation. From surgical fingertips to robotic manipulation, the race to restore the sense of touch may determine which robots actually work in the real world.

Creative Robotics3/10/2026Original

The Robotic Hand's Existential Crisis: Why Grasping Is Still the Industry's Hardest Problem

While autonomous vehicles expand to ten cities and AI chatbots debate military ethics, researchers are still celebrating the ability to pick up objects with inflatable tubes. The robotics industry's persistent struggle with manipulation reveals a fundamental truth: the problems that seem simplest to humans remain devastatingly complex for machines.

Creative Robotics2/26/2026Original

The Download: Microsoft's online reality check, and the worrying rise in measles cases

Microsoft has proposed technical standards and a blueprint for detecting AI-generated content and digital manipulation online, evaluated by the company's AI safety research team against threats like deepfakes and hyperrealistic models. The initiative aims to help AI companies and social media platforms authenticate digital content and combat AI-enabled deception.

MIT Technology Review AI2/20/2026

Reversible, detachable robotic hand redefines dexterity

Researchers at EPFL have developed a reversible, detachable robotic hand with up to six identical fingers that can form any combination of opposing pairs, overcoming limitations of human hand design. The hand can perform 'loco manipulation'—simultaneous grasping and autonomous mobility—by detaching from its arm to crawl spider-like and retrieve objects beyond normal reach, with potential applications in industrial, service, and exploratory robotics.

Robohub2/19/2026

Amazon halts Blue Jay robotics project after less than six months

Amazon has halted its Blue Jay warehouse robotics project less than six months after unveiling it in October, with the multi-armed robot designed to sort and move packages in same-day delivery facilities. The company stated it will repurpose Blue Jay's underlying technology for other robotics manipulation programs, crediting AI advancements for the robot's rapid one-year development timeline.

TechCrunch Robotics2/18/2026

Dozens of nudify apps found on Google and Apple's app stores

The Tech Transparency Project identified 55 apps on Google Play Store and 48 on Apple's App Store capable of creating nonconsensual sexualized deepfakes, which have been downloaded over 705 million times and generated $117 million in revenue. The report highlights the broader issue of AI image manipulation tools evading app store moderation, following similar findings in 2024 and amid ongoing scrutiny of xAI's Grok for generating millions of non-consensual sexualized images.

The Verge AI1/27/2026

Robotiq brings sense of touch to physical AI with fingertips for 2F grippers

Robotiq launched the TSF-85 tactile sensor fingertips for its 2F-85 Adaptive Gripper, enabling robots to sense and manipulate objects through touch using capacitor-based sensing technology. The product combines adaptive gripping with high-frequency tactile sensing (1000 Hz micro-slip detection) and is based on academic research from École de technologie supérieure, aiming to give industrial robots better perception and manipulation capabilities at scale.

Robotics Business Review1/27/2026

Thomas Pilz on innovation and safety in robotics

This Robot Report Podcast episode features Thomas Pilz from Pilz GmbH discussing innovation and safety in robotics, alongside coverage of major industry news including iRobot's emergence from bankruptcy under new ownership, Serve Robotics' acquisition of hospital logistics provider Diligent Robotics, and Microsoft Research's announcement of Rho-alpha, a vision-language-action model for robotic manipulation tasks. The episode explores current challenges in the rapidly evolving robotics landscape and emerging technologies shaping the industry.

The Robot Report1/23/2026

Microsoft Research reveals Rho-alpha vision-language-action model for robots

Microsoft Research announced Rho-alpha (ρα), a vision-language-action model derived from its Phi series that enables robots to perceive, reason, and act autonomously by integrating tactile sensing and learning from human feedback. The model translates natural language commands into control signals for bimanual manipulation tasks and is being evaluated on dual-arm cobots and humanoid robots, with training enhanced through simulation, physical demonstrations, and reinforcement learning.

The Robot Report1/21/2026

Soft robotic hand 'sees' around corners to achieve human-like touch

Researchers at Zhejiang University developed FlexiRay, a soft robotic hand that combines a flexible bio-inspired structure with deep learning algorithms to achieve human-like tactile sensing capabilities. The key innovation is an internal multi-mirror optical system that maintains camera vision even when the soft finger is significantly deformed, allowing the robot to reliably manipulate fragile and irregularly shaped objects by analyzing deformation patterns.

Phys.org Robotics1/17/2026

Serve Robotics to acquire hospital logistics provider Diligent Robotics

Serve Robotics is acquiring hospital logistics provider Diligent Robotics for $29 million, gaining access to Moxi, a mobile manipulation robot currently operating in over 25 hospitals. The acquisition marks Serve's entry into indoor environments and healthcare, while combining Serve's outdoor autonomous fleet expertise with Diligent's mobile manipulation capabilities and real-world deployment experience.

The Robot Report1/20/2026

ChatGPT falls to new data-pilfering attack as a vicious cycle in AI continues

Researchers at Radware discovered ZombieAgent, a new data-exfiltration vulnerability in ChatGPT that bypasses previous security mitigations for the ShadowLeak attack by using character-by-character exfiltration and indirect link manipulation. The attack highlights a fundamental challenge in AI security: LLMs cannot reliably distinguish between legitimate user instructions and malicious directives embedded in external content, forcing vendors to deploy reactive guardrails rather than addressing the underlying class of prompt injection vulnerabilities.

Ars Technica1/8/2026

Robotic arm successfully learns 1,000 manipulation tasks in one day

Researchers at Imperial College London developed a new imitation learning approach that enabled a robotic arm to successfully learn 1,000 different manipulation tasks in a single day. The method, published in Science Robotics, uses trajectory decomposition and retrieval-based generalization to allow robots to learn multiple tasks efficiently with minimal training data, challenging the assumption that capable robotic systems require massive datasets and complex models.

Phys.org Robotics12/17/2025

Ghost Robotics' Arm Brings Manipulation to Military Quadrupeds

Ghost Robotics has added a manipulator arm to its Vision 60 quadruped robot, enabling it to lift up to 3.75 kilograms while maintaining the platform's waterproof capabilities up to 1 meter depth. The development reflects growing competition in legged robotics, particularly from Chinese manufacturers, driving innovation in military and industrial applications.

IEEE Spectrum Robotics12/11/2025

The science of human touch, and why it's so hard to replicate in robots

This article explores the scientific challenges of replicating human tactile sensation in robots, examining why touch perception remains far more difficult to implement than vision despite advances in robotic sight and manipulation. The piece discusses the complexity of translating human sensory feedback into robotic systems capable of handling delicate tasks.

Phys.org Robotics12/10/2025

Generations in Dialogue: Embodied AI, robotics, perception, and action with Professor Roberto Martín-Martín

This podcast episode features Professor Roberto Martín-Martín from the University of Texas at Austin discussing his research in embodied AI, robotics, computer vision, and machine learning for autonomous agents. The conversation explores how robots can perceive, learn, and act in the real world, covering topics from manipulation tasks to mobile robotics and human-robot interaction.

Robohub12/8/2025

Teaching robot policies without new demonstrations: interview with Jiahui Zhang and Jesse Zhang

Researchers introduce ReWiND, a framework that enables robot manipulation policies to learn new language-conditioned tasks without requiring per-task demonstrations. The method uses a three-stage approach: learning a reward function from minimal demonstrations, pre-training a policy with offline RL, and fine-tuning on new tasks using the learned reward function as feedback, with a novel video rewind augmentation to simulate failed behaviors.

Robohub12/4/2025

Video Friday: Watch Robots Throw, Catch, and Hit a Baseball

A compilation of robot demonstration videos showcasing various athletic capabilities, including robots that can throw, catch, and hit a baseball. The video collection highlights recent robotics research and development in dynamic motion control and object manipulation tasks.

IEEE Spectrum Robotics11/21/2025

Why Is Everyone's Robot Folding Clothes?

The article explores why multiple robotics companies are focusing on cloth folding as a benchmark task for humanoid robots, examining what this reveals about advances in robot learning and manipulation. Chris Paxton from Agility Robotics discusses the technical significance of clothing manipulation as a test case for modern AI-driven robotic systems, including Figure's humanoid robot.

IEEE Spectrum Robotics11/19/2025