Robotics & Automation News

Where Innovation Meets Imagination

robotics development

Simulation tools in the ROS ecosystem: Testing and validating robots virtually

by

Robots may operate in the physical world, but increasingly they are born, trained, tested, and refined in virtual ones.

Before a warehouse robot navigates its first aisle, before an autonomous vehicle drives its first mile, and before a humanoid robot takes its first step, there is a good chance it has already spent hundreds or even thousands of hours inside a simulator.

For robotics developers, simulation has become one of the most important tools in the development process. It allows engineers to test software, validate designs, train AI models, and identify failures before expensive hardware is ever powered on. [Read more…] about Simulation tools in the ROS ecosystem: Testing and validating robots virtually

Why robotics can’t advance without physical AI

by

The next leap in robotics won’t come from faster processors or more sophisticated mechanical design. It will come from better data, specifically, from training environments that replicate how the physical world actually behaves.  [Read more…] about Why robotics can’t advance without physical AI

Software is ‘the biggest bottleneck to robotics innovation’, says BlackBerry QNX report

by

QNX, a division of BlackBerry, has released a new research study, the Inside the Robot: Architecture Benchmark Report, examining how robotics development is changing as systems become more software‑driven, AI‑enabled, and increasingly deployed alongside humans at work and in daily life.

Based on a survey of 1,000 developers from around the world, the research reveals the most significant inhibitors to progress, the gap between system ambitions and current capabilities, and developers’ views on the industry’s future.

A new episode of QNX’s Code the Future podcast featuring Omdia chief analyst Lian Jye Su explores the themes and results in more detail. [Read more…] about Software is ‘the biggest bottleneck to robotics innovation’, says BlackBerry QNX report

Open source hardware for robotics: Democratizing robot building

by

Most discussions about open-source robotics focus on software. The Robot Operating System (ROS) has become the best-known example, providing developers with a common framework for building and operating robots.

Yet software is only part of the story.

Over the past two decades, a growing ecosystem of open-source hardware platforms has dramatically lowered the barriers to robotics development. [Read more…] about Open source hardware for robotics: Democratizing robot building

Lightwheel reports $100 million in Q1 orders for physical AI robotics infrastructure

by

Lightwheel says it secured approximately $100 million in orders during the first quarter of 2026, reflecting what the company describes as a broader industry shift from robotics experimentation toward real-world deployment infrastructure.

Lightwheel is a robotics infrastructure company that develops simulation, synthetic data, evaluation, and deployment systems for training and scaling physical AI robots in real-world environments.

The company says the orders span simulation, synthetic data generation, evaluation systems, and deployment-oriented robotics infrastructure designed to support physical AI applications at industrial scale.

According to Lightwheel, the demand is being driven not simply by interest in robotics hardware or AI models, but by the growing need for systems capable of training, validating, and deploying robots reliably in real operating environments. [Read more…] about Lightwheel reports $100 million in Q1 orders for physical AI robotics infrastructure

Arrive AI using Nvidia Isaac Sim and Blackwell GPUs to develop autonomous drone delivery network

by

Arrive AI, an autonomous delivery infrastructure company, says it is accelerating its artificial intelligence and robotics development using Nvidia Isaac Sim and high-performance GPU workstations powered by Nvidia Blackwell architecture.

The company is leveraging simulation-driven AI training to rapidly improve computer vision systems used in real-world automation, robotics, and autonomous delivery environments. [Read more…] about Arrive AI using Nvidia Isaac Sim and Blackwell GPUs to develop autonomous drone delivery network

Foxglove launches unified data platform to accelerate physical AI development

by

Foxglove has launched “Data Search and Curation”, a new set of capabilities that helps robotics teams replace fragmented, manual data workflows with a unified platform to find and curate the mission-critical events, anomalies, and system behavior that matter most across growing volumes of operational data.

The company also expanded the Foxglove Data Platform with Bring Your Own Storage (BYOS), a new self-hosted data lake deployment model allowing customers to maintain full control over data at rest while still providing the benefits of a fully managed database, and a new free Basic Seat tier to expand access to visualization across teams.

As robotics companies scale from prototype to production, the critical path is shifting from generating more data to finding the most essential data quickly enough to debug issues, investigate failures, review safety-critical events, and improve system performance. [Read more…] about Foxglove launches unified data platform to accelerate physical AI development

Qualcomm joins MassRobotics to support startup ecosystem and robotics development

by

MassRobotics has announced that Qualcomm Technologies has joined its organization as a sponsor, expanding the network of companies supporting robotics startups within its ecosystem.

The addition of Qualcomm Technologies is expected to provide new technical resources and collaboration opportunities for startups working within the MassRobotics community, which focuses on accelerating the development and commercialization of robotics technologies.

The move comes as Qualcomm Technologies continues to expand its presence in robotics and edge AI. The company recently introduced the Qualcomm Dragonwing Robotics Hub, a developer-focused platform within the Arduino Project Hub that provides sample applications and a shared environment for building and scaling robotics systems. [Read more…] about Qualcomm joins MassRobotics to support startup ecosystem and robotics development

Techman Robot showcases humanoid system with motion capture training at GTC 2026

by

Techman Robot has presented its latest developments in the area of humanoid robotics at Nvidia GTC 2026, including a motion capture-based training approach for its TM Xplore I platform.

The company also announced a collaboration with j-mex, integrating wearable motion capture technology into its robotics development workflow. [Read more…] about Techman Robot showcases humanoid system with motion capture training at GTC 2026

Nebius teams with Nvidia to build cloud for robotics and physical AI

by

Nebius, the AI cloud company, has announced it is collaborating with Nvidia to accelerate physical AI development with an end-to-end platform purpose-built for the full robotics lifecycle, from simulation and training to real-world deployment at scale.

Combining Nebius’s global AI cloud infrastructure with the Nvidia Physical AI Data Factory Blueprint, an open reference architecture for massive data generation and evaluation, Nebius will provide robotics developers and enterprises an agent-driven environment that addresses the two fundamental barriers to physical AI at scale: infrastructure and tooling fragmentation, and the lack of high-quality training data for rare, unpredictable scenarios that determine real-world success.

“Physical AI is going to be one of the defining technology shifts of this decade, and the teams building it today are being held back by infrastructure and tooling that was never designed for those workloads, ” said Evan Helda, head of physical AI at Nebius. [Read more…] about Nebius teams with Nvidia to build cloud for robotics and physical AI