Video Friday is a weekly selection of amazing robotics videos collected by your friends on 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.

ICRA 2023: May 29 – June 2, 2023, LONDON
Energy Drone & Robotics Summit: June 10-12, 2023, HOUSTON
RoboCup 2023: July 4-10, 2023, BORDEAUX, FRANCE
RSS 2023: July 10-14, 2023 DAEGU, SOUTH KOREA
IEEE RO-MAN 2023: August 28-31, 2023 BUSAN, SOUTH KOREA
IROS 2023: October 1-5, 2023, DETROIT
CLAWAR 2023: October 2-4, 2023, FLORIANOPOLIS, BRAZIL
Humanoids 2023: December 12-14, 2023, AUSTIN, TX.

Enjoy today’s videos!

LATTICE is a Caltech student project that is developing a modular robotic transportation system for the lunar surface that uses autonomous rovers to build a kind of cable car system to get things like ice from deep craters to more useful places. The prototype is fully functional and pretty cool to watch in action.

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

[ Caltech ]

Thanks Lucas!

Happy World Flexiv Cocktail Day!

[ Flexiv ]

That’s what Optimus has been up to lately.

As usual, the robot is moderately entertaining, but it’s probably best to just ignore Musk.

[ Tesla ]

The robotic gripper with soft adhesive pads (INSECTER), inspired by INSECT tarsus, uses only one electric drive with a cable mechanism. It can be easily controlled to perform captivating movements like an insect’s paw (i.e., wrap around an object) to manipulate various objects.

[ Paper ]

Thank you Poram!

Congratulations to ANYbotics on winning the $50 million Series B!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTTTt65d1v_w

And 10 years ago (!) at ICRA 2013, I made a video about StarlETH, one of the ancestors of ANYmal.

[ ANYbotics ]

In this video, we present the results of a recent DigiForest project field trial campaign 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 goal of building a complete data pipeline for digitized forestry.

[ DigiForest ]

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

[ Paper ]

Robots that climb 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 end users to use in their daily lives.

[ Cybathlon ]