RobotMe summary
IEEE Spectrum's latest Video Friday is a curated collection of robotics demonstrations rather than a report on one product or research result. The lead video shows the Robotics and AI Institute's Spot system rolling, uprighting, dragging, and recovering a 15-kilogram tire outdoors using coordinated motion from its legs, body, and arm.
RAI says the updated system moves the perception and control work onto the robot, replacing the motion-capture cameras, desktop computer, and scripted skill switching used in its earlier laboratory setup. Onboard depth cameras estimate the tire's position, while reinforcement-learning policies control locomotion and manipulation. The tire exceeds the arm's stated 11-kilogram peak lifting capacity, which is why whole-body coordination matters.
The roundup also includes videos of humanoid mobility, small social robots, machine vision, robotic hands, pipe inspection, drone racing, delivery robots, and amphibious systems. These are selected demonstrations from their respective creators; they do not establish comparative performance or routine reliability. The RAI result is the most technically documented item, with the institute describing its training and onboard-perception approach in a separate primary-source article.