Video Friday: Lunar Transport – IEEE Spectrum

Video Friday is your weekly selection of amazing robotics videos collected by your friends on IEEE spectrum robotics We also publish a weekly schedule of upcoming robotics events for the coming months. Please send us your events to include.

ICRA 2023: May 29–June 2, 2023, LONDON

Robotics and Energy Drones Summit: June 10-12, 2023, HOUSTON

RoboCup 2023: July 4–10, 2023, BORDEAUX, FRANCE

RSS 2023: July 10-14, 2023, DAEGU, SOUTH KOREA

IEEE ROMAN 2023: August 28–31, 2023, BUSAN, SOUTH KOREA

IRO 2023: October 1-5, 2023, DETROIT

CLAWAR 2023: October 2-4, 2023, FLORIANOPOLIS, BRAZIL

Humanoids 2023: December 12-14, 2023, AUSTIN, TEXAS

Enjoy today’s videos!

LATTICE is a Caltech undergraduate project developing a modular robotic transportation system for the lunar surface that uses autonomous rovers to set up a kind of cable car system to transport things like ice from deep craters to a more useful place. The prototype is fully functional and very cool to see it in action.

We’re told the team will be aiming for a demonstration of the full system that will be deployed through a “crater” on Earth around this time next year. As for what those quotes around “crater” mean, your guess is as good as mine.

[ Caltech ]

Thank you Lucas!

Happy World Cocktail Day from Flexiv!

[ Flexiv ]

This is what Optimus has been up to lately.

As usual, the robot is moderately interesting, but Musk is probably best ignored.

[ Tesla ]

The INSECT Tarsus-Inspired Compatible Robotic Grasp with Soft Adhesive Pads (INSECTER) uses a single electric actuator with a cable-actuated mechanism. It can be easily controlled to perform a grabbing motion similar to an insect’s tarsus (i.e. wrap around the object) to manipulate various objects.

[ Paper ]

Thank you Pomate!

Congratulations to ANYbotics on their $50 million Series B!

And for 10 years (!) in ICRA 2013here is a video I took of StarlETH, one of the ancestors of ANYmal.

[ ANYbotics ]

In this video we present the results of the recent field test campaign of the DigiForest project in Evo, Finland. The DigiForest project started in September 2022 and will run until February 2026. It brings together various partners working on aerial robots, walking robots, autonomous light harvesters, as well as forestry decision makers and commercial companies with the aim of create a complete data pipeline for digitized forestry.

[ DigiForest ]

The UZH Robotics and Perception Group will present new work on high-speed agile autonomous flight through cluttered environments at ICRA 2023.

[ Paper ]

Robots that lift together, stay together.

[ Sanctuary AI ]

The next CYBATHLON competition, which will take place again in 2024, breaks down barriers between the public, people with disabilities, researchers and technology developers. The initiative promotes the inclusion and participation of people with disabilities and improves assistance systems for use in the daily life of end users.

[ Cybathlon ]