Video Friday: Arms on Vacuums

Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your friends at IEEE Spectrum robotics. We also post a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next few months. Please send us your events for inclusion.

RoboCup German Open: 12–16 March 2025, NUREMBERG, GERMANY

German Robotics Conference: 13–15 March 2025, NUREMBERG, GERMANY

RoboSoft 2025: 23–26 April 2025, LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND

ICUAS 2025: 14–17 May 2025, CHARLOTTE, NC

ICRA 2025: 19–23 May 2025, ATLANTA, GA

IEEE RCAR 2025: 1–6 June 2025, TOYAMA, JAPAN

RSS 2025: 21–25 June 2025, LOS ANGELES

IAS 2025: 30 June–4 July 2025, GENOA, ITALY

ICRES 2025: 3–4 July 2025, PORTO, PORTUGAL

IEEE World Haptics: 8–11 July 2025, SUWON, KOREA

IFAC Symposium on Robotics: 15–18 July 2025, PARIS

RoboCup 2025: 15–21 July 2025, BAHIA, BRAZIL

Enjoy today’s videos!

I’m not totally sure yet about the utility of having a small arm on a robot vacuum, but I love that this is a real thing. At least, it is at CES this year.

[ Roborock ]

We posted about SwitchBot’s new modular home robot system earlier this week, but here’s a new video showing some potentially useful hardware combinations.

[ SwitchBot ]

[ Unitree ]

With ongoing advancements in system engineering, ‪LimX Dynamics‬’ full-size humanoid robot features a hollow actuator design and high torque-density actuators, enabling full-body balance for a wide range of motion. Now it achieves complex full-body movements in a ultra stable and dynamic manner.

[ LimX Dynamics ]

What’s a Jacana bird, you ask? It’s these things, which surely must have the most extreme foot to body ratio of any bird:

Also, much respect to the researchers for confidently titling this supplementary video “An Extremely Elegant Jump.”

[ SSRN Paper preprint ]

Twelve minutes flat from suitcase to mobile manipulator. Not bad!

[ Pollen Robotics ]

Happy New Year from Dusty Robotics!

[ Dusty Robotics ]