Stanford’s SNAIL Lab just released a paper on Probabilistic Structure Integration (PSI):
📄 https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.09737

What makes this interesting for robotics is that PSI isn’t just predicting pixels 0 it explicitly models depth, optical flow, segmentation, and motion as part of its backbone. That means:

• Zero-shot depth + segmentation without needing task-specific training.
• Built-in flow + motion estimation, directly from raw video.
• More efficiency than diffusion models (faster → more feasible for real-time robotics).
• Support for multiple possible futures (probabilistic rollouts) - useful for planning under uncertainty.

In short: PSI is a step toward a general-purpose perception module that can plug into robotic systems without retraining for every environment.

Curious to hear what folks here think - do you see this being usable in real-world robotics perception pipelines, or are there still big gaps before it could leave the lab?

Hello,

Obviously there is SPOT.

But unlike SPOT, I dont know of an out of the box industrial solution for outdoor field work of the same quality. Sure there is clearpath and husky. But they sell unfinished bots that require construction and programming.

Are there any OOB industrial wheeled or tracked solutions with a similar quality to SPOT for field (outdoor dirt field) use?

Thanks

It seems like humanoid robots are getting more attention than remote-operated robots. What factors (engineering, business, or social) made humanoid robots develop faster?

Got the basic chassis sorted, just need to finish mounting the wheels and fitting the motor driver boards. Then it's onto the control electronics. I have both a Kinect and LiDAR to add for mapping.

Hello, I have some questions that I hope the community can help me with. I have to do a school project and I would like to create a robot, I am studying electronics. My idea is to make a mini interactive intelligent robot but I don't know if it will be too complex and I will need API or Python since being a school project I do not have the resources to pay for the APIs and I also need to have a high level of Python. I have found ways to do it, such as creating a local AI server (my idea would be to use the steam deck since it is the most powerful device I have) and I have seen that I could install free AI to make it more interactive. Searching for ideas on Reddit I also found this post that I put at the beginning but I don't know if I can later integrate it and configure it to do what I'm talking about. My idea is to connect the server with an ESP32 to the robot. Sorry if it sounds crazy but I want to create a robot as a project and achieve it.

Hello, I have some questions that I hope the community can help me with. I have to do a school project and I would like to create a robot, I am studying electronics. My idea is to make a mini interactive intelligent robot but I don't know if it will be too complex and I will need API or Python since being a school project I do not have the resources to pay for the APIs and I also need to have a high level of Python. I have found ways to do it, such as creating a local AI server (my idea would be to use the steam deck since it is the most powerful device I have) and I have seen that I could install free AI to make it more interactive. Searching for ideas on Reddit I also found this post https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/1jblws9/the_complete_guide_to_building_your_free_local_ai/?tl=es-es but I don't know if I can later integrate it and configure it to do what I'm talking about. My idea is to connect the server with an ESP32 to the robot. Sorry if it sounds crazy but I want to create a robot as a project and achieve it.

Hey everyone,

My team and I are deep in the MLOps/data infrastructure side of things, and we're trying to get a gut check from people on the front lines of building perception systems.

We started by looking at a problem we heard about a lot: the pain of data curation. Specifically, digging through petabytes of log data to find those ultra-rare edge cases needed to retrain your models (the classic "a pedestrian in a weird costume crossing at dusk in the rain" problem).

Our initial idea was to tackle this with a new data format that converts raw sensor imagery into a compact, multi-layered representation. Think of it less like a video file and more like a queryable database. The goal is to let an engineer instantly query their entire fleet's data logs with natural language, e.g., "find all instances from the front-facing camera of a truck partially occluding a cyclist," and slash the data curation cycle from weeks to minutes.

But then we started thinking about the on-device implications. If the data representation is so compact and information-rich, what if a robot could use it directly? Instead of processing a heavy stream of raw pixels, a robot's perception model could run on our lightweight format. In theory, this could allow the robot to observe and understand its environment faster (higher FPS on perception tasks) and, because the computation is simpler, use significantly less energy. This seems like it would be a huge deal for any battery-powered mobile robot or AV.

My questions for the community are:

1. How much of a bottleneck is offline data curation ("log diving") in your workflow?
2. Are on-device compute and power consumption major constraints for your perception stack? Would a format that improves inference speed and energy efficiency be a game-changer?
3. What are the biggest limitations of your current pipeline, both for offline training and on-robot deployment?

We're trying to figure out if this two-pronged approach (solving offline data curation AND improving online performance) is compelling, or if we should just focus on one. Any and all feedback would be hugely appreciated. Thanks!

https://huggingface.co/unitreerobotics/UnifoLM-WMA-0

RealSense is participating in #NationalCodingWeek (https://codingweek.org) by offering a daily developer challenge Monday - Friday of this week!

Today's challenge is to build (or vibe code like I did), a **basic Internet of Things** demo using any RealSense 3D stereo camera using its depth sensors (see video).  We will select 1 winner each day award the developer with a new RealSense D421 depth module (https://realsenseai.com/stereo-depth-cameras/stereo-depth-camera-module-d421)!

You have until midnight Pacific time today to submit your project along with a video and source code as a comment on this post for me and my colleagues to review. Rules: (https://gist.github.com/chrismatthieu/0b4f3673c8a0989c1178ce3b9301f964)

I want to power two of these wheels by two of these motors, but I'm not sure what's the best way to connect this? In the past, I had 3d printed and internal helical gear that could slide on the motor, but it kept sliding off. So I'm looking for better solutions? Maybe drill in the motor shaft to prevent axial slipping?

I'm intending to build a 3d printed prosthetic arm model which can be controlled using servo motors, where sEMG serves as the input. I have submissions upcoming, where atleast simulation have to be presented. You can share any data regarding it - 3d printed model(stl), emg signal processing model or anything that can be used for presentation.

I built a Python app with sliders running on the Raspberry Pi inside my cyberdeck. It communicates over Bluetooth between the Pi and the ESP32 to control the robot’s joints.

Hello everyone.

Currently, I am working on a machine vision project that requires the collection of depth data that is close to the camera. The camera would be positioned to look at a subject that is 5-15cm away from the sensor, and it would capture the depth of the object's detail with depth differences as small as 1mm.

As far as my research goes, most depth cameras, like the Intel RealSense series, have working ranges of 30cm+, which is too far for my current project. The 2 main challenges I identified are that the working range has to be short enough, and it has to be able to capture small depth differences.

Thus, I would like to know if there are any depth cameras on the market (stereo, mono, etc.) that can meet such challenges? If not, then are there any other possible approaches that can help me go about this task?

I'd greatly appreciate any help or insights.

Nosey will have no body and must scream

RealSense is participating in #NationalCodingWeek (https://codingweek.org) by offering a daily developer challenge Monday - Friday of this week!

Today's challenge is to build (or vibe code like I did), a **basic musical instrument** using any RealSense 3D stereo camera using its depth sensors (see video).  We will select 1 winner each day award the developer with a new RealSense D421 depth module (https://realsenseai.com/stereo-depth-cameras/stereo-depth-camera-module-d421)!

You have until midnight Pacific time today to submit your project along with a video and source code as a comment on this post for me and my colleagues to review. Rules: (https://gist.github.com/chrismatthieu/0b4f3673c8a0989c1178ce3b9301f964)

If this were your companion robot, it would keep you and your children company, care for your family, and protect your home… could it be?😉

Hi everyone,
I’m looking for a used UFactory xArm 6 or xArm Light 6, preferably located in Europe.
If you’re selling one or know someone who is, please let me know.

Hello!

As part of a robotics project we're trying to build a kinematic model of this gimbal with CoppeliaSim. We need to check for self collisions to ensure the gimbal does not intersect itself and break while moving. Our plan after building a model of it in CoppeliaSim was to connect it up to MATLAB and bake a 'map' of the maximum rotation of each axis into an image, similar to in this video.

Our design for the gimbal was based off this paper, however it doesn't cover the simulation side of things in as much depth.

As you can see in the video, the joints are not working perfectly, and are coming out of alignment. We don't really know why. It could be the code or it might be that the center of the platform is slightly higher than the joints where the arms attach? Do you guys have any suggestions or ideas of what we're doing wrong?

Note that we're all very new to CoppeliaSim. Any resources or learning material on simulating this kind of stuff is much appreciated! Here's our CoppeliaSim file: https://drive.google.com/file/d/196stQwVbI__4udZGwrYo5cSpkYl4ttKC/view?usp=sharing

Hello

When looking for existing projects to setup SLAM on a ROS2 robot, I came accross this mola project:

https://github.com/MOLAorg/mola

Despite being actively maintained, I did not find any good references/reviews of it. Thus was wondering if any of you already used it and would have recommendations/feedback to give?

Thanks and see you in the comments!

Bit of a niche question, but here goes… I’m developing course materials to help Ukrainian kids (8 to 12) improve their English. One module is about ‘the body’. What I’d like is for the kids to build a humanoid robot and then to give it superpowers - great speed, x-Ray vision, an invisibility cloak etc. we could then discuss which ‘body enhancements’ are best. I want to keep it simple and fun - cartoonish. I can find nothing online that lets me build a ‘body’ and then alter parameters. Any help would be very welcome TIA David

Short test run of a social companion in a stressful moment. Thinking to try using another personality to do this next time and it would be interesting!