DARPA
What changed, and what is the evidence.
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🗞️ Pulse first · 3 news posts
Coverage
- 🗓️ 2026-10-22 · ✍️ RoboterminalEka's Robot Picks 1,500 Things an Hour. Its Gripper Is Rated for About 139 Days of That.
- 🗓️ 2026-10-21 · ✍️ RoboterminalSchaeffler Will Buy Thousands of Humanoids From Its Actuator Customers. Its €400 Million Order Book Doesn't Count Those Deals.
- 🗓️ 2026-10-19 · ✍️ RoboterminalFifteen Humanoids Are Loading Car Parts at 98%. The Number That Decides Their Future Is 15 Seconds.
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Timeline
What changed, and what is the evidence.
Oct 13, 2026 · Post · posted
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The U.S. Army is field-testing humanoids. Alex even comes with ballistic protection. At September’s xTechHumanoid trials in Quantico, IHMC’s Alex walked over uneven ground, moved through woodland and crouched to use a small shovel. Alex… |
“Learning the model is really only a tiny part of an overall robotic system. It’s an important part, but not the only part, and not the part that really makes the system work.” Dr. Sebastian Scherer, also known as “Basti,” is Director of… |
At @ieeeiros 2026, FieldAI’s Dr. Sebastian Scherer (@smash0190) presented “Resilience in the Field,” exploring what it takes to build robots that reliably operate outside controlled environments. "Basti" has worked in field robotics since… |
Boston Dynamics Atlas, 12 years evolving ✶ 2013 | First Steps ✶ 2015 | DARPA Challenge ✶ 2016 | Next Generation ✶ 2017 | First Backflip ✶ 2025 | Fully electric Atlas From a DARPA research robot to a humanoid built to move, manipulate and… |
11 years of humanoid robotics in one video. 🤖 In 2015, humanoid robots were still struggling with basic tasks like walking, climbing stairs and recovering from falls during the DARPA Robotics Challenge. Fast-forward to 2026, and humanoids… |
Self-driving took nearly 20 years to go from DARPA challenge to real commercialization. Humanoids may be on a similar clock. Nic Radford on why robotics progress and market readiness rarely move at the same speed. https://t.co/05MK0YvCES |
If your Monday coffee didn’t taste the same as usual due to me not sending out an issue - apologies. I hope today’s issue makes up for it! I’m in SF all week starting today; if you would like to meet up, please feel free to get in touch.… |
The DARPA challenges offer a useful playbook for physical AI. They show how an impressive technical demonstration can help create an industry. But they are not a timeline. The first DARPA Grand Challenge for autonomous vehicles took place… |
Today in the Weekly Robotics newsletter: Gemini Robotics 2, a place to find your next robot dataset, how it is to build large construction robots, the legacy of the DARPA Robotics Challenge, and more! |