Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your friends at IEEE Spectrum robotics. We also post a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next few months. Please send us your events for inclusion.
ACTUATE 2025: 23–24 September 2025, SAN FRANCISCO
CoRL 2025: 27–30 September 2025, SEOUL
IEEE Humanoids: 30 September–2 October 2025, SEOUL
World Robot Summit: 10–12 October 2025, OSAKA, JAPAN
IROS 2025: 19–25 October 2025, HANGZHOU, CHINA
Enjoy today’s videos!
This is ridiculous and I love it.
[ Eufy ]
At ICRA 2024, We met Paul Nadan to learn about how his LORIS robot climbs up walls by sticking itself to rocks.
[ CMU ]
If a humanoid robot is going to load my dishwasher, I expect it to do so optimally, not all haphazardly like a puny human.
[ Figure ]
Humanoid robots have recently achieved impressive progress in locomotion and whole-body control, yet they remain constrained in tasks that demand rapid interaction with dynamic environments through manipulation. Table tennis exemplifies such a challenge: with ball speeds exceeding 5 m/s, players must perceive, predict, and act within sub-second reaction times, requiring both agility and precision. To address this, we present a hierarchical framework for humanoid table tennis that integrates a model-based planner for ball trajectory prediction and racket target planning with a reinforcement learning–based whole-body controller.
[ Hybrid Robotics ]
Despite their promise, today’s biohybrid robots typically underperform their fully synthetic counterparts and their potential as predicted from a reductionist assessment of constituents. Many systems represent enticing proofs of concept with limited practical applicability. Most remain confined to controlled laboratory settings and lack feasibility in complex real-world environments. Developing biohybrid robots is currently a painstaking, bespoke process, and the resulting systems are routinely inadequately characterized. Complex, intertwined relationships between component, interface, and system performance are poorly understood, and methodologies to guide informed design of biohybrid systems are lacking. The HyBRIDS ARC opportunity seeks ideas to address the question: How can synthetic and biological components be integrated to enable biohybrid platforms that outperform traditional robotic systems?
[ DARPA ]
Robotic systems will play a key role in future lunar missions, and a great deal of research is currently being conducted in this area. One such project is SAMLER-KI (Semi-Autonomous Micro Rover for Lunar Exploration Using Artificial Intelligence), a collaboration between the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) and the University of Applied Sciences Aachen (FH Aachen), Germany. The project focuses on the conceptual design of a semi-autonomous micro rover that is capable of surviving lunar nights while remaining within the size class of a micro rover. During development, conditions on the Moon such as dust exposure, radiation, and the vacuum of space are taken into account, along with the 14-Earth-day duration of a lunar night.
[ DFKI ]
ARMstrong Dex is a human-scale dual-arm hydraulic robot developed by the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI) for disaster response applications. It is capable of lifting its own body through vertical pull-ups and manipulating objects over 50 kg, demonstrating strength beyond human capabilities. In this test, ARMstrong Dex used a handheld saw to cut through a thick 40×90 mm wood beam. Sawing is a physically demanding task involving repetitive force application, fine trajectory control, and real-time coordination.
[ KAERI ]
This robot stole my “OMG I HAVE JUICE” face.
[ Pudu Robotics ]
The best way of doging a punch to the face is to just have a big hole where your face should be.
I do wish they wouldn’t call it a combat robot, though.
[ Unitree ]
It really might be fun to have a DRC-style event for quadrupeds.
[ DEEP Robotics ]
CMU researchers are developing new technology to enable robots to physically interact with people who are not able to care for themselves. These breakthroughs are being deployed in the real world, making it possible for individuals with neurological diseases, stroke, multiple sclerosis, ALS and dementia to be able to eat, clean and get dressed fully on their own.
[ CMU ]
Caracol’s additive manufacturing platforms use KUKA robotic arms to produce large-scale industrial parts with precision and flexibility. This video outlines how Caracol integrates multi-axis robotics, modular extruders, and proprietary software to support production in sectors like aerospace, marine, automotive, and architecture.
[ KUKA ]
There were a couple of robots at ICRA 2025, as you might expect.
[ ICRA ]
On June 6, 1990, following the conclusion of Voyager’s planetary explorations, mission representatives held a news conference at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California to summarize key findings and answer questions from the media. In the briefing, Voyager’s longtime project scientist Ed Stone, along with renowned science communicator Carl Sagan, also revealed the mission’s “Solar System Family Portrait,” a mosaic comprising images of six of the solar system’s eight planets. Carl Sagan was a member of the Voyager imaging team and instrumental in capturing these images and bringing them to the public.
Carl Sagan, man. Carl Sagan. Blue Dot unveil was right around 57:00, if you missed it.
[ JPL ]
The post “Video Friday: Robot Vacuum Climbs Stairs” by Evan Ackerman was published on 09/05/2025 by spectrum.ieee.org