The robots currently able to perform point-based tasks at accuracy demanded by Airbus processes have a bad weight/payload ratio in order to be able to resist the loads generated by the operation. These already heavy machines use end effectors capable of multiple operations which further increase their weight. Such solutions have limited application in aircraft assembly, as they cause a multitude of problems and constraints at the industrialization phase. They require dedicated plant infrastructure, generate vibrations and other disturbances, and cannot co-operate safely with workers. There are further limitations regarding aircraft accessibility and high costs.

CES has only officially been open for like 5 minutes, and already we've found something too awesome not to share immediately: a cooking robot from a startup called Sereneti that can handle everything for you, from cooking to stirring to adding ingredients at the right time. This robot is called Cooki, and here's a rendering of how it all works: This is from January of last year, but as you can see in the pics below, they have the (much smaller) real thing here at CES, and it's actually making a spinach omelette. You preload the ingredients, turn the thing on, and it'll cook everything for you perfectly using little motorized bins to dump in the ingredients one at a time and an adorable robot arm to do the stirring. Pretty much the only thing it can't do is bring you the finished meal in bed. The initial prototype was built using a traditional robot arm, but Sereneti quickly realized that it would be both dangerous (so close to a saucepan) and practically impossible to clean.

Toyota revealed more details about its ambitious AI and robotics effort yesterday at CES in Las Vegas. Dr. Gill Pratt, who leads the effort as CEO of the newly formed Toyota Research Institute (TRI), announced an impressive line-up of engineers and executives to head its technical leadership team and advisory board. Among the hires is James Kuffner, who until recently led Google's robotics program and will focus on cloud computing at TRI. The advisers include notable technologists like Rodney Brooks from Rethink Robotics and Marc Benioff from Salesforce. Late last year, Toyota unveiled a US 1 billion program to advance AI and robotics, hoping to make cars safer and smarter, and also develop useful, reliable home robots to assist people.

Today, Double Robotics is announcing the Double 2 telepresence robot, which is (sadly) not called the "Four." But it's still worth having a look at, because it includes a brand new TURBO button which will turn your mild-mannered telepresence robot into a mostly stoppable force of non-destruction. And there are other cool new things, too. And it's not called "TURBO MODE," but rather "Power Drive." Pushing Shift while driving your Double 2 will boost its top speed from 0.9 mph to a mind-blowing 1.6 mph, which is enough to mildly annoy anyone you run into.

This is a guest post. The views expressed here are solely those of the author and do not represent positions of IEEE Spectrum or the IEEE. Science fiction authors love the robot sidekick. R2-D2, Commander Data, and KITT--just to name a few--defined "Star Wars," "Star Trek," and "Knight Rider," respectively, just as much as their human actors. While science has brought us many of the inventions dreamed of in sci-fi shows, one major human activity has remained low tech and a huge source of frustration: household chores.

Yesterday at CES, Quanergy, an automotive startup based in Sunnyvale, Calif., held a press conference to announce the S3, a solid-state LIDAR system designed primarily to bring versatile, comprehensive, and affordable sensing to autonomous cars. The S3 is small, has no moving parts, and in production volume will be US 250 or less. According to Quanergy, the S3 is better than traditional LIDAR systems in every single way, and will make it easier and cheaper for robots of all kinds to sense what's going on in the world around them. LIDAR systems work by firing laser pulses out into the world and then watching to see if the light reflects off of something. By starting a timer when the pulse goes out and then stopping the timer when the sensor sees a reflection, the LIDAR can do some math to figure out how far away the source of the reflection is. And by keeping careful track of where it's pointing the laser, the LIDAR gets all of the data that it needs to place the point in 3D space.

Last week was a holiday, and we're at CES this week, but nothing can stop the robot videos. Things should be back to normal around here next week (we hope). Let us know if you have videos or events to suggest, and enjoy today's Video Friday selection! Teaching robots how to avoid destruction and despise humanity at the same time is never a good idea. The world's most advanced bat robot now has membrane wings, just like real bats: A microprocessor-based onboard computer, a 6 DOF IMU sensor package, five DC motors with encoder feedback for flapping and wing articulation (asymmetric wing folding and leg/tail control), power/comm electronics, carbon-fiber frame, 3D printed parts, and silicone based membrane wings -- all at 92 grams.

There's still a huge amount of radioactive waste cleanup to do at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan. Some of that cleanup can be done by careful humans. And there's some that's too dangerous for humans, but not quite dangerous enough to dissuade robots. Clearing the fuel rods out of the pool in reactor 3 is one of those tasks, and Toshiba has built a robot to tackle it. If you had to pick somewhere to eat a picnic lunch in the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, inside the containment building of reactor 3 probably wouldn't be at the top of your list, but it also wouldn't be at the very bottom.

Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your weaponized Automaton bloggers. We'll be also posting a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next few months; here's what we have so far (send us your events!): Let us know if you have suggestions for next week, and enjoy today's videos. Intel's 100-drone performance was quite a spectacle: It's worth clicking through to Intel's page on this to see all the pretty pictures. To navigate snowy roads, Ford autonomous vehicles are equipped with high-resolution 3D maps – complete with information about the road and what's above it, including road markings, signs, geography, landmarks and topography.

Since their flawless (well, almost flawless) second place finish at the DRC Finals, Team IHMC has been keeping their ATLAS robot busy. Because if you have a multi-million dollar robot from the U.S. Government, you might as well get it to sweep up your Nerf darts with a broom. We spoke with John Carff, ATLAS robot operator at IHMC, about what was going on behind the scenes in this video (which, by the way, you're watching at 20x normal speed). Our first question was why the heck IHMC is teaching ATLAS to clean house, and sadly, the answer is not "because we're about to announce the availability of that robot butler you've always wanted." Rather, it's because ATLAS needs to be run often to make sure that code updates don't break anything, and running the same tasks (like DRC tasks) over and over again gets boring.