Research conducted by the Singapore University of Technology and Design, published in the journal Science Robotics, presents ALBATROSS (Airborne Lander with Buoyant AuToROtating Sailing Sensor), a hybrid robot capable of flying and then navigating on water. Dropped from the air, it descends in autorotation to the surface, without a parachute, and then rights itself after water landing.
Autorotation refers to a descent where the wings spin under the airflow, without a motor to drive them. Once on the water, the robot reuses the same rigid wings as sails to move using the wind, autonomously. According to the authors, the central idea is to have the physical structure itself carry as much work as possible, with a minimum of actuators. They question the ability of such devices to combine rapid aerial deployment with sustainable, energy‑efficient marine monitoring.
Tactile hands and humanoids
At the IROS (IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems), the company Sharpa unveiled three proprietary products. The D01 is, according to the firm, the first robot with integrated tactile sensors designed for deft manipulation. The W02 is a fully tactile, ultra‑compact, lightweight dexterous hand, while the AE01 is a high‑fidelity haptic‑feedback exoskeletal data glove.
For its part, Boston Dynamics highlights its humanoid robot Atlas. The company notes that it has already commercialized autonomous mobile robots, Spot and Stretch, and says it wants to replicate this approach with Atlas, relying on learning in real‑world environments and a design intended for large‑scale manufacturing. It also speaks of “a new era of physical intelligence”.
A fly brain controlling a robot
The team at Imperial College London, identified in the source as “IT Imperial”, linked MaleCNS, the published connectome of a male vinegar fly (Drosophila melanogaster), to a humanoid Unitree G1. A connectome is the complete mapping of connections between neurons. The device forms a closed loop: the robot’s camera captures images, which are transformed into a representation suited to the fly’s visual system, processed by the reconstructed nervous‑system computational model, and then converted into motor commands. The robot receives its images via a stereo camera.
Finally, humanitarian news occupies a separate place in this selection. Following the floods that swept away roads and bridges in Nepal, local drone pilots helped map the damage, support search teams, and deliver supplies to communities cut off from any aid. These accounts are reported in an episode of Ground Truth with Flying Labs, with Uttam Pudasaini, advisor of Nepal Flying Labs, and Raj Bikram Maharjan, co‑founder of Airlift Technology, about the floods that occurred on 26 August 2026.
