Robotics news and developer summaries

CARA 2.0 is an upgraded, low-cost quadrupedal robot project designed as a senior capstone. By utilizing re-wound, budget-friendly BLDC motors and custom firmware for affordable FOC controllers, the team achieved high dynamic performance while reducing costs by half compared to the 1.0 version. The project demonstrates advanced mechanical balancing, gait optimization, and effective 3D-printed structural design.

Waymo has paused robotaxi services in Atlanta and San Antonio due to vehicles struggling with heavy rain and flooding. Despite a recent software recall intended to mitigate these risks, the autonomous systems failed to navigate flooded conditions effectively, prompting further scrutiny from the NHTSA and NTSB regarding safety and incident reporting.

A San Francisco homeowner is suing The Bot Company, alleging employees rented his home via Airbnb under false pretenses to conduct clandestine robot testing. The unauthorized commercial use resulted in significant property damage. Similar reports from other hosts suggest a pattern of deceptive practices by company personnel while testing household robotics prototypes in residential spaces.

Georgia Tech researchers developed battery-free, low-cost metal tags that emit unique ultrasonic signatures when manipulated. These tags facilitate privacy-preserving, energy-efficient activity tracking for smart home applications. By using hardcoded frequency rules rather than complex machine learning, the system enables simple, scalable monitoring of household objects and health-related tasks via wearable sensors.

AI startup Shift offers free residential cleaning services in exchange for recording cleaners wearing camera-equipped gear. This footage of everyday tasks is used to train robotics models. While the company promises to anonymize sensitive personal information, the model highlights a growing industry trend of capturing human activity data to accelerate progress in household robotics and automation.

Humanoid robots face extreme physical demands, requiring 5,000+ steps per hour with high-impact loads. Successful designs use a split architecture: rotary actuators for joints requiring precision and linear actuators for high-shock leg joints. Key challenges include thermal management, reflected inertia, and the necessity to balance agility with durability through compliance and advanced torque-based control systems.