Vision-Language-Action (VLA) models generalize semantically well but often lack fine-grained modeling of world dynamics. We present Motubrain, a unified World Action Model that jointly models video and action under a UniDiffuser formulation with a three-stream Mixture-of-Transformers architecture. A single model supports policy learning, world modeling, video generation, inverse dynamics, and joint video-action prediction, while scaling to heterogeneous multimodal data such as video-only, task-agnostic, and cross-embodiment robot data. Building on Motus, Motubrain further introduces unified multiview modeling, an independent text stream for stronger language-action coupling, a shared cross-embodiment action representation, and an efficient post-training and deployment recipe for long-horizon real-world control. Our inference stack combines step reduction, compilation, FP8 quantization, DiT caching, V2A-style action-only inference, and real-time chunked closed-loop execution, achieving over 50x speedup over a naive baseline and up to 11 Hz inference. Experimentally, Motubrain achieves 95.8% and 96.1% average success on RoboTwin 2.0 under clean and randomized settings, respectively, attains the strongest reported EWMScore in our WorldArena comparison, and adapts to new humanoid embodiments with only 50--100 trajectories. These results show that unified world action models can scale in generality, predictive accuracy, and real-world deployability.
The term embodied intelligence (EI) conveys the notion that body morphology, material properties, interaction with the environment, and control strategies can be purposefully integrated into the process of robotic design to generate intelligent behavior; in particular, locomotion and navigation. In this paper, we discuss EI as a design principle for advanced microrobotics, with a particular focus on co-design -- the simultaneous and interdependent development of physical structure and behavioral function. To illustrate the contrast between EI-inspired systems and traditional architectures that…
Graduate School of Biomedical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, UNSW（新南威尔士大学工程学院生物医学工程研究生院）；Prince of Wales Hospital（威尔士亲王医院）；Faculty of Medicine, UNSW（新南威尔士大学医学院）
Surgical robots have had clinical use since the mid 1990s. Robot-assisted surgeries offer many benefits over the conventional approach including lower risk of infection and blood loss, shorter recovery, and an overall safer procedure for patients. The past few decades have shown many emerging surgical robotic platforms that can work in complex and confined channels of the internal human organs and improve the cognitive and physical skills of the surgeons during the operation. Advanced technologies for sensing, actuation, and intelligent control have enabled multiple surgical devices to simulta…
Dublin City University（都柏林城市大学）；Insight SFI Research Centre for Data Analytics（Insight SFI数据分析研究中心）；University College Dublin（都柏林大学学院）
Robotic manipulation and control has increased in importance in recent years. However, state of the art techniques still have limitations when required to operate in real world applications. This paper explores Hindsight Experience Replay both in simulated and real environments, highlighting its weaknesses and proposing reinforcement-learning based alternatives based on reward and goal shaping. Additionally, several research questions are identified along with potential research directions that could be explored to tackle those questions.
Ecole des Mines de Nantes（南特矿业学校）；University of Nantes（南特大学）
The paper focuses on the calibration of serial industrial robots using partial pose measurements. In contrast to other works, the developed advanced robot calibration technique is suitable for geometrical and elastostatic calibration. The main attention is paid to the model parameters identification accuracy. To reduce the impact of measurement errors, it is proposed to use directly position measurements of several points instead of computing orientation of the end-effector. The proposed approach allows us to avoid the problem of non-homogeneity of the least-square objective, which arises in t…
School of Information Science and Technology, ShanghaiTech University（上海科技大学信息科学与技术学院）
This paper presents a fully hardware synchronized mapping robot with support for a hardware synchronized external tracking system, for super-precise timing and localization. Nine high-resolution cameras and two 32-beam 3D Lidars were used along with a professional, static 3D scanner for ground truth map collection. With all the sensors calibrated on the mapping robot, three datasets are collected to evaluate the performance of mapping algorithms within a room and between rooms. Based on these datasets we generate maps and trajectory data, which is then fed into evaluation algorithms. We provid…
ESI Group（ESI集团）；VITIROVER（VITIROVER公司）；Universidad Cardenal Herrera-CEU（CEU红衣主教埃雷拉大学）
The present paper aims at analyzing the topological content of the complex trajectories that weeder-autonomous robots follow in operation. We will prove that the topological descriptors of these trajectories are affected by the robot environment as well as by the robot state, with respect to maintenance operations. Topological Data Analysis will be used for extracting the trajectory descriptors, based on homology persistence. Then, appropriate metrics will be applied in order to compare that topological representation of the trajectories, for classifying them or for making efficient pattern re…
Kyoto University（京都大学）；Dokkyo Medical University（独协医科大学）
Legged robots have excellent terrestrial mobility for traversing diverse environments and thus have the potential to be deployed in a wide variety of scenarios. However, they are susceptible to falling and leg malfunction during locomotion. Although the use of a large number of legs can overcome these problems, it makes the body long and leads to many legs being constrained to contact with the ground to support the long body, which impedes maneuverability. To improve the locomotion maneuverability of such robots, the present study focuses on dynamic instability, which induces rapid and large m…
The Cloud-based Advanced Robotics Laboratory (CARL) integrates a whole body controller and web-based teleoperation to enable any device with a web browser to access and control a humanoid robot. By integrating humanoid robots with the cloud, they are accessible from any Internet-connected device. Increased accessibility is important because few people have access to state-of-the-art humanoid robots limiting their rate of development. CARL's implementation is based on modern software libraries, frameworks, and middleware including Node.js, Socket.IO, ZMQ, ROS, Robot Web Tools, and ControlIt! Fe…
University of Turkish Aeronautical Association（土耳其航空协会大学）
In this paper, we present a full design of a flying robot to investigate the state of power grid components and to perform the appropriate maintenance procedures according to each fail or defect that could be recognized. To realize this purpose; different types of sensors including thermal and aerial vision-based systems are employed in this design. The main features and technical specifications of this robot are presented and discussed here in detail. Some essential and advanced computer vision techniques are exploited in this work to take some readings and measurements from the robot's surro…
SKATER: Synthesized Kinematics for Advanced Traversing Efficiency on a Humanoid Robot via Roller Skate Swizzles
Institute of Humanoid Robots, Department of Precision Machinery and Precision Instrumentation, University of Science and Technology of China（人形机器人研究所，精密机械与精密仪器系，中国科学技术大学）
The use of robotics in Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) is growing steadily from their initial inception during the 2001 World Trade Centre incident. Despite years of progress, the core design of robots currently in use for USAR purposes has deviated little, favoring software and control development and optimization of the basic robot template to improve performance instead. Presented here is a novel design description of the Cricket, an advanced robot with a broader range of physical capabilities than traditional USAR robots. By incorporating the tracked structure of earlier robots, appreciated…
New Jersey Institute of Technology（新泽西理工学院）；Hunan University（湖南大学）
Advanced motor skills are essential for robots to physically coexist with humans. Much research on robot dynamics and control has achieved success on hyper robot motor capabilities, but mostly through heavily case-specific engineering. Meanwhile, in terms of robot acquiring skills in a ubiquitous manner, robot learning from human demonstration (LfD) has achieved great progress, but still has limitations handling dynamic skills and compound actions. In this paper, we present a composite learning scheme which goes beyond LfD and integrates robot learning from human definition, demonstration, and…
University of Luxembourg（卢森堡大学）；Universidad de Zaragoza（萨拉戈萨大学）
Mobile robots extract information from its environment to understand their current situation to enable intelligent decision making and autonomous task execution. In our previous work, we introduced the concept of Situation Graphs (S-Graphs) which combines in a single optimizable graph, the robot keyframes and the representation of the environment with geometric, semantic and topological abstractions. Although S-Graphs were built and optimized in real-time and demonstrated state-of-the-art results, they are limited to specific structured environments with specific hand-tuned dimensions of rooms…
Humans and animals developed a sophisticated motor control apparatus and there is much evidence that it has a modular structure. The modularity offers a range of benefits, e.g. ability to learn dissociable motion styles without interference and forgetting, fast adaptation and de-adaptation to changes conditions. However in robotics, building a controller that can efficiently incrementally learn new motion styles and provide switching between them is a formidable challenge. In this paper we address the problem by proposing a novel biologically inspired compositional neuro-controller. We have sh…
Towards a Robust Soft Baby Robot With Rich Interaction Ability for Advanced Machine Learning Algorithms
King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST)（阿卜杜拉国王科技大学）；Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (SABIC)（沙特基础工业公司）；optoXense, Inc.（optoXense公司）；NNAISENSE（NNAISENSE公司）；Center of Excellence in Generative AI, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST)（阿卜杜拉国王科技大学生成式AI卓越中心）；Dalle Molle Institute for Artificial Intelligence Research (IDSIA)（达勒·莫勒人工智能研究所）；Università della Svizzera italiana (USI)（意大利语瑞士大学）；Scuola universitaria professionale della Svizzera italiana (SUPSI)（意大利语瑞士应用科学大学）
Empowering Multi-Robot Cooperation via Sequential World Models
School of Artificial Intelligence, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院大学人工智能学院）；SKL-MAIS, Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院自动化研究所复杂系统管理与控制国家重点实验室）
ES-Parkour: Advanced Robot Parkour with Bio-inspired Event Camera and Spiking Neural Network
The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Guangzhou)（香港科技大学（广州））；Beijing Innovation Center of Humanoid Robotics Co., Ltd.（北京人形机器人创新中心有限公司）；Zhejiang University（浙江大学）
Unveiling the Potential of iMarkers: Invisible Fiducial Markers for Advanced Robotics
Automation and Robotics Research Group, Interdisciplinary Centre for Security, Reliability, and Trust (SnT), University of Luxembourg（自动化与机器人研究组，安全、可靠性与信任跨学科中心（SnT），卢森堡大学）；Faculty of Science, Technology, and Medicine, University of Luxembourg（科学、技术与医学学院，卢森堡大学）；Department of Physics & Materials Science, University of Luxembourg（物理与材料科学系，卢森堡大学）；Institute for Advanced Studies, University of Luxembourg（先进研究学院，卢森堡大学）
PiDrone is a quadrotor platform created to accompany an introductory robotics course. Students build an autonomous flying robot from scratch and learn to program it through assignments and projects. Existing educational robots do not have significant autonomous capabilities, such as high-level planning and mapping. We present a hardware and software framework for an autonomous aerial robot, in which all software for autonomy can run onboard the drone, implemented in Python. We present an Unscented Kalman Filter (UKF) for accurate state estimation. Next, we present an implementation of Monte Ca…
RoboCup SSL is an excellent platform for researching artificial intelligence and robotics. The dribbling system is an essential issue, which is the main part for completing advanced soccer skills such as trapping and dribbling. In this paper, we designed a new dribbling system for SSL robots, including mechatronics design and control algorithms. For the mechatronics design, we analysed and exposed the 3-touch-point model with the simulation in ADAMS. In the motor controller algorithm, we use reinforcement learning to control the torque output. Finally we verified the results on the robot.
The common approach for local navigation on challenging environments with legged robots requires path planning, path following and locomotion, which usually requires a locomotion control policy that accurately tracks a commanded velocity. However, by breaking down the navigation problem into these sub-tasks, we limit the robot's capabilities since the individual tasks do not consider the full solution space. In this work, we propose to solve the complete problem by training an end-to-end policy with deep reinforcement learning. Instead of continuously tracking a precomputed path, the robot nee…
University of Massachusetts Lowell（马萨诸塞大学洛厄尔分校）；University of Massachusetts Amherst（马萨诸塞大学阿默斯特分校）
Enabling mobile robots for solving challenging and diverse shape, texture, and motion related tasks with high fidelity vision requires the integration of novel multimodal imaging sensors and advanced fusion techniques. However, it is associated with high cost, power, hardware modification, and computing requirements which limit its scalability. In this paper, we propose a novel Simultaneously Learned Auto Encoder Domain Adaptation (SAEDA)-based transfer learning technique to empower noisy sensing with advanced sensor suite capabilities. In this regard, SAEDA trains both source and target auto-…
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, conducting Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) studies in person is not permissible due to social distancing practices to limit the spread of the virus. Therefore, a virtual reality (VR) simulation with a virtual robot may offer an alternative to real-life HRI studies. Like a real intelligent robot, a virtual robot can utilize the same advanced algorithms to behave autonomously. This paper introduces HAVEN (HRI-based Augmentation in a Virtual robot Environment using uNity), a VR simulation that enables users to interact with a virtual robot. The goal of this system desi…
In recent years, reinforcement learning (RL) has shown outstanding performance for locomotion control of highly articulated robotic systems. Such approaches typically involve tedious reward function tuning to achieve the desired motion style. Imitation learning approaches such as adversarial motion priors aim to reduce this problem by encouraging a pre-defined motion style. In this work, we present an approach to augment the concept of adversarial motion prior-based RL to allow for multiple, discretely switchable styles. We show that multiple styles and skills can be learned simultaneously wit…
Robots operating in populated environments encounter many different types of people, some of whom might have an advanced need for cautious interaction, because of physical impairments or their advanced age. Robots therefore need to recognize such advanced demands to provide appropriate assistance, guidance or other forms of support. In this paper, we propose a depth-based perception pipeline that estimates the position and velocity of people in the environment and categorizes them according to the mobility aids they use: pedestrian, person in wheelchair, person in a wheelchair with a person pu…
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), commonly known as drones, have many potential uses in real world applications. Drones require advanced planning and navigation algorithms to enable them to safely move through and interact with the world around them. This paper presents an extended potential field controller (ePFC) which enables an aerial robot, or drone, to safely track a dynamic target location while simultaneously avoiding any obstacles in its path. The ePFC outperforms a traditional potential field controller (PFC) with smoother tracking paths and shorter settling times. The proposed ePFC's …
Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee（印度理工学院鲁尔基分校）
Most of the quadrupeds developed are highly actuated, and their control is hence quite cumbersome. They need advanced electronics equipment to solve convoluted inverse kinematic equations continuously. In addition, they demand special and costly sensors to autonomously navigate through the environment as traditional distance sensors usually fail because of the continuous perturbation due to the motion of the robot. Another challenge is maintaining the continuous dynamic stability of the robot while walking, which requires complicated and state-of-the-art control algorithms. This paper presents…
Deep learning methods have revolutionized mobile robotics, from advanced perception models for an enhanced situational awareness to novel control approaches through reinforcement learning. This paper explores the potential of federated learning for distributed systems of mobile robots enabling collaboration on the Internet of Robotic Things. To demonstrate the effectiveness of such an approach, we deploy wheeled robots in different indoor environments. We analyze the performance of a federated learning approach and compare it to a traditional centralized training process with a priori aggregat…
Virtual Vehicle Research Center GmbH（虚拟车辆研究中心有限公司）；Automotive Proving Ground Zala Ltd.（扎拉汽车试验场有限公司）
Since an automotive driving vehicle is controlled by Advanced Driver-Assistance Systems (ADAS) / Automated Driving (AD) functions, the selected sensors for the perception process become a key component of the system. Therefore, the necessity of ensuring precise data is crucial. But the correctness of the data is not the only part that has to be ensured, the limitations of the different technologies to accurately sense the reality must be checked for an error-free decision making according to the current scenario. In this context, this publication presents a comparison between two different aut…
In this context, a major focus of this thesis is on unintentional collisions, where a straight goal is to eliminate injury from users and passerby's via realtime sensing and control systems. A less obvious focus is to combine collision response with tools from motion planning in order to produce intelligent safety behaviors that ensure the safety of multiple people or objects. Yet, an even more challenging problem is to anticipate future collisions between objects external to the robot and have the robot intervene to prevent imminent accidents. In this dissertation, we study all of these sophi…
Control of Marine Robots in the Era of Data-Driven Intelligence
Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology（香港科技大学电子与计算机工程系）；Cheng-Kar Shun Robotics Institute, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology（香港科技大学晨光机器人研究所）；School of Marine Electrical Engineering, Dalian Maritime University（大连海事大学海洋电气工程学院）
Pose estimation commonly refers to computer vision methods that recognize people's body postures in images or videos. With recent advancements in deep learning, we now have compelling models to tackle the problem in real-time. Since these models are usually designed for human images, one needs to adapt existing models to work on other creatures, including robots. This paper examines different state-of-the-art pose estimation models and proposes a lightweight model that can work in real-time on humanoid robots in the RoboCup Humanoid League environment. Additionally, we present a novel dataset …
