Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos collected from your friends at IEEE Spectrum Robotics. We also publish a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next few months. Please send us your events for inclusion.

Eurobot Open 2024: 8-11 May 2024, LA ROCHE-SUR-YON, FRANCE

ICRA 2024: 13-17 May 2024, YOKOHAMA, JAPAN

RoboCup 2024: 17-22 July 2024, EINDHOVEN, NETHERLANDS

Have fun with today's videos!

Experience NVIDIA's journey from pioneering advanced autonomous vehicle hardware and simulation tools to accelerated perception and manipulation for autonomous mobile robots and industrial weaponry, culminating in the next wave of cutting-edge AI for humanoid robots.

[ NVIDIA ]

In version 4.0, we've improved Spot's locomotion capabilities thanks to the power of reinforcement learning. Paul Domanico, robotics engineer at Boston Dynamics, talks about how Spot's hybrid approach of combining reinforcement learning with model predictive control creates an even more stable robot in the most antagonistic environments.

[ Boston Dynamics ]

We're excited to share our latest progress in teaching general EVE skills. Everything in the video is completely autonomous, everything at 1x speed, everything controlled with a single set of neural network weights.

[ 1X ]

The interesting thing about the Unitree H1 doing a standing flip is where it chooses to place its legs.

[ Unitree ]

At the MODEX exhibition in March 2024, Pickle Robot demonstrated picking cargo from a random pile, similar to what you see in a messy truck trailer after it has bounced along the highway for many miles. The stacks of boxes were never the same and the demonstration was held live in front of crowds of spectators 25 times over four days. No other robotic trailer/container unloading system has yet demonstrated this ability to pick from unstructured stacks.

[ Pickle ]

RunRu is a car-like robot, a robot-like car with autonomy, sociability and operability. This is a new type of private vehicle that aims to create a “Jinba-Ittai” relationship with its passengers, who are not only always confident but also sometimes whining.

[ ICD-LAB ]

Verdie went to GTC this year and won the hearts of people, but perhaps not those of the other robots.

[ Electric Sheep ]

“DEEPRobotics AI+” combines AI capabilities with robotic software systems to continuously increase embodied intelligence. The success presented is the result of training a new AI and software system.

[ DEEP Robotics ]

If you want to collect data for robotic grasping, using Stretch and pliers is the most affordable solution.

[ Hello Robot ]

The real reason Digit's legs look backwards is so he doesn't bump his shins taking GPUs out of the oven.

Now some of us can bake our GPUs without even needing an oven.

[ Agility ]

P1 is LimX Dynamics' innovative tipped biped robot, which serves as an important platform for the systematic development and modular testing of reinforcement learning. It is used to advance research and iteration on the basic locomotion capabilities of bipeds. P1's success in conquering forest areas is a testament to LimX Dynamics' systematic research and development in the field of reinforcement learning.

[ LimX ]

And now this.

[ Suzumori Endo Lab ]

Cooking in the kitchen is fun. BUT working together with two robots is even more fun! We introduce MOSAIC, a modular framework that coordinates multiple robots to work and cook closely with humans via natural language interaction and a collection of skills.

[ Cornell ]

neoDavid is a robust humanoid with skilled manipulation skills, developed at DLR. The main focus in the development of neoDavid is to come as close as possible to human capabilities – especially in terms of dynamics, dexterity and robustness.

[ DLR ]

Welcome to our Customer Spotlight video series, where we highlight some of the remarkable robots our customers have worked on. In this episode we introduce three UGVs from Clearpath Robotics that our customers use to develop robot assistants for three different applications.

[ Clearpath ]

This video introduces KIMLAB's new three-fingered robotic hand, which features soft tactile sensors for improved grasping capabilities. By using low-cost 3D printing materials, it ensures robustness and operational efficiency.

[ KIMLAB ]

Various perceptual-aware planning approaches have attempted to improve the accuracy of state estimation during maneuvers, while feature correspondence between frames, a crucial factor affecting estimation accuracy, has often been overlooked. In this paper, we present APACE, an agile and perceptual trajectory generation framework for aggressive quadcopter flight that considers feature matching in trajectory planning.

[ Paper ] above [ HKUST ]

In this video we see Samuel Kunz, the pilot of the RSL Assistance Robot Race team from ETH Zurich, taking part in the CYBATHLON Challenges 2024. Samuel completed all four intended tasks – getting a package from a mailbox, using a toothbrush, hanging it up a scarf on a clothesline and unloading a dishwasher – with the help of an assistant robot. He achieved a perfect score of 40 out of 40 points and secured first place in the race with a time of 6.34 minutes.

[ CYBATHLON ]

Florian Ledoux is a nature photographer with a deep love for the Arctic and its wildlife. With the Mavic 3 Pro, he steps onto the ice, ready to capture the raw beauty and stories of this cool, remote place.

[ DJI ]