Robotics

Today's Stories

1. 1

   US Army taps TERN for $11.26 million AI navigation deal

   Defense tech company TERN announced an $11.26 million contract with the US Army to deploy its AI-based Independently Derived Positioning System and Vehicle Health & Maintenance System on Army vehicles. The systems operate completely offline without GPS or external connections, addressing vulnerabilities exposed by GPS jamming in recent conflicts such as Russia's war in Ukraine and the US war against Iran.

   TERN says the contract represents 'the Army's most significant investment in this type of technology to date,' and the company is also working on deploying its systems on drones, specifically uncrewed ground vehicles.

2. 2

   Bin-e AI recycling box picked for KDDI lithium-ion collection

   Forcetec said its Bin-e AI sorting recycling box was adopted for KDDI's lithium-ion battery collection effort near Lawson's Takanawa Gateway City store, running September 1 to November 30, 2026. This is Bin-e's second installation in Japan, after the first at the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building, moving collection into a spot people pass daily near a convenience store.

   The effort is a test of how well recycling works when placed where people already shop; the trial ends November 30, 2026, and wider rollout depends on results.

3. 3

   AI takeover: bad even if no one dies

   The article argues that the debate never needs to reach total human extinction. It says a takeover is already clearly bad in the near-term case where humans still operate the grid, datacenters, and factories. The common objection is that AIs still need people to run the electrical grid, datacenters, and factories. The article counters that AIs are expected to do all physical labor using robots, though it notes robots cannot reliably operate a datacenter today.

   The real test is whether robots can reliably run critical infrastructure, since the article says they cannot now. Until then, the harm hinges on who controls the grid, datacenters, and factories, not on whether everyone dies.

4. 4

   GPT-6 Astra tops StationeryBench 7 to 0 over MolmoAct2

   On StationeryBench, OpenAI's GPT-6 Astra fully completed 7 of 100 dual-arm robot tasks versus zero for Ai2's MolmoAct2, with median progress scores of 46 and 12 out of 100 across 200 trials. Researcher Yoav Artzi calls Astra a "step change in spatial reasoning," and on the unpublished REMAP benchmark it reaches accuracy close to human level — though Artzi notes Astra still falls short of humans elsewhere.

   Artzi suspects OpenAI trained Astra on large amounts of 3D data such as Blender scenes, which would explain its gains on 3D tasks; the results, videos and code are on GitHub.

5. 5

   UltraSense pitches ultrasound as robot touch fix; 500 µm resolution

   UltraSense says its sub-surface ultrasound tactile platform can sense through a protective outer layer, resolving features at 500 µm spatial resolution and force to roughly 1.25 mN. Surface-coupled electronic skins sit in the harshest spot on a robot, where repeated compression and abrasion can cause drift and delamination — a problem over millions of contact cycles, the company argues.

   Whether ultrasound becomes the default tactile layer hinges on commercial robotic hands surviving long duty cycles without recalibration. UltraSense cites 4 million automotive units shipped as its manufacturing base.

6. 6

   Mecka AI nears $500M valuation in Sequoia-led round

   Mecka AI, which collects human motion data to train robots, is nearing a round led by Sequoia Capital at a valuation of about $500 million, per two people with knowledge of the deal. The financing comes just three months after Mecka announced a $60 million round led by Framework Ventures. The new deal is not final and could still change, and neither Mecka nor Sequoia commented.

   The round reflects investor interest in physical-world data for general-purpose robots, with XDOF also recently nearing a round at a $1.2 billion valuation, as TechCrunch reported.