Robotics Special: Waymo eyes the Big Apple

Welcome back, Superhuman. Researchers in Italy dropped the world’s first flying humanoid robot this week. And robotaxis are looking to gradually expand their footprint across the US, with Alphabet-owned Waymo now eying a move to the Big Apple.

P.S. The Robotics Special is designed to help you stay on the cutting edge of the latest breakthroughs and products in the industry. Our regular AI and Tech updates will resume as usual on Monday.

WHAT’S NEXT

The most important news and breakthroughs in robotics this week

1. Waymo’s self-driving cars might make their way to NYC: The company has put in an application to test its driverless cars in New York City — one of the first autonomous vehicle (AV) companies to request approval for testing in the notoriously chaotic streets of Manhattan. The robotaxi company would initially operate with trained specialists behind the wheel since state law doesn't allow fully autonomous drives yet. The move comes as Tesla prepares to kick off its limited robotaxi operations in Austin.

2. Hexagon taps Nvidia Robotics to deploy its humanoid robot: The company has unveiled AEON, a humanoid robot built with Nvidia’s simulation platform for manufacturing and logistics tasks. The industrial bot hopes to tackle critical labor shortages by performing reality capture — automatically scanning assets and environments to generate precise 3D models. Using Nvidia’s Omniverse platform, AEON mastered core locomotion skills in just 2-3 weeks instead of the typical 5-6 months.

3. Researchers claim they’ve built the ‘first flying humanoid robot’ : Italian researchers have unveiled the iRonCub3, a jet-powered humanoid robot that they claim successfully hovered to about 50cm off the ground during its first test flight. Not exactly breaking altitude records, but still a significant leap. Unlike traditional drones, the robot must balance an entire humanoid body with movable limbs while adapting to complex, ever-changing aerodynamics. See it in action here.

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ROBOTS IN ACTION

How robots are transforming the world around us

🫀 Heart Hack: Houston surgeons have performed the first fully robotic heart transplant in the US without cracking open the patient's chest. Instead of the traditional method of breaking the breastbone, doctors made small incisions in the abdomen, using robotic tools to remove the diseased heart and implant a donor organ.

🛡️ Gas Guardian: A single undetected gas leak can cost facilities over $57,000 per year and pose a major safety risk in petrochemical plants. Now, Swiss robotics company ANYbotics has equipped its ANYmal robot with gas leak detection capabilities, enabling the quadruped to pinpoint invisible leaks that manual inspections often miss.

🪚 Blade Runner: KUKA has unveiled the Catonator, a remote-controlled robotic saw armed with 2,000mm blades that can slice through steel, concrete, and aerospace composites with 0.1mm precision. It could potentially automate precision cutting tasks while eliminating emissions and improving worker safety in heavy industry applications.

INDUSTRY SNAPSHOT

Everything else you need to know this week

Here are the biggest developments in the robotics space that you should know about:

• Tesla has been asked by Democratic lawmakers to put off its robotaxi launch until September, when new regulations with stricter state oversight take effect.

• Anduril is joining hands with German giant Rheinmetall to build military drones for European markets — a shift toward faster innovation in European defense.

• A recent Gallup poll shows that 15% of US workers believe that AI or robots may likely replace their jobs.

• Amazon's Zoox just opened its first production facility in Hayward, California, where it eventually expects to build over 10,000 electric AVs annually.

• EngineAI has open-sourced a dev suite designed to accelerate humanoid robot creation by removing technical barriers for startups and researchers.

• US startup Skydweller Aero has partnered up with French defense company Thales to deploy a solar-powered drone that can stay in flight for a whole month.

• PrismaX has launched with $11M to solve one of the biggest bottlenecks in robotics — a lack of high-quality training data for AI models.

ROBOT OF THE WEEK

A robot that caught our eye this week

Beatbot’s AquaSense 2 is making waves as a Roomba for your swimming pool.

The robotic pool cleaner uses HybridSense AI mapping, 27 sensors, and 11 motors to clean floors, walls, waterlines, and the water surface automatically while also offering water clarification. It can take on pools up to 3,875 square feet and runs for up to 10 hours on a single charge for surface cleaning.

You can check it out here.

ROBO REEL

Watch: Inventor builds real-life Transformer that shape-shifts into a ride

It was only a matter of time.

In what was every 90s kid’s childhood dream, British inventor James Bruton has built a rideable Transformer robot that actually shape-shifts from humanoid to vehicle. Unlike other transformer projects that leave no room for passengers, Bruton's creation can carry a human rider at functional speeds.

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Zain and the Superhuman AI team