CES 2026 showed that humanoid and embodied AI systems still have a long way to go before delivering real-world value, particularly in homes. At the same time, there is a growing sense that the path to deployment is becoming clearer. A consensus has emerged across platforms: multi-camera perception, often wrist-mounted, paired with VLA models, is sufficient for most tasks. Increasingly, tactile hands and VTLA software are added. There was a clear split between industrial and home-care humanoids.

Grasping object,whether they are flat, round, or narrow and whether they have regular or irregular shapes,introduces difficulties in determining the ideal grasping posture, even for the most state-of-the-art grippers. In this article, we presented a reconfigurable pneumatic gripper with fingers that could be set in various configurations, such as hooking, supporting, closuring, and pinching. Each finger incorporates a dexterous joint, a rotating joint, and a customized plug-and-play visuotactile sensor, the DigiTac-v1.5, to control manipulation in real time. We propose a tactile kernel density manipulation strategy for simple and versatile control, including detecting grasp stability, responding to disturbances and guiding dexterous manipulations. We develop a double closed-loop control system that separately focuses on secure grasping and task management, demonstrated with tasks that highlight the capabilities above. The gripper is relatively easy to fabricate and customize, offering a promising and extensible way to combine soft dexterity and tactile sensing for diverse applications in robotic manipulation.

Claire talked to Dr Paul Dominick Baniqued from The University of Manchester all about brain-computer interface technology and rehabilitation robotics. Paul Dominick Baniqued received his PhD in robotics and immersive technologies at the University of Leeds. His research tackled the integration of a brain-computer interface with virtual reality and hand exoskeletons for motor rehabilitation and skills learning. He is currently working as a postdoc researcher on cyber-physical systems and digital twins at the Robotics for Extreme Environments Group at the University of Manchester. Sean Katagiri is a robotics engineer who has the pleasure of being surrounded by and working with robots for a living.

Left: The display that carers will see in the Milbotix app. Inventor Dr Zeke Steer quit his job and took a PhD at Bristol Robotics Laboratory so he could find a way to help people like his great-grandmother, who became anxious and aggressive because of her dementia. Milbotix's smart socks track heart rate, sweat levels and motion to give insights on the wearer's wellbeing – most importantly how anxious the person is feeling. They look and feel like normal socks, do not need charging, are machine washable and provide a steady stream of data to carers, who can easily see their patient's metrics on an app. Current alternatives to Milbotix's product are worn on wrist straps, which can stigmatise or even cause more stress.

Depending on the robot's work, sustainability could look different from machine to machine. In general, making a more sustainable robot starts with ethically sourced recycled or sustainable materials, functioning as energy efficiently as possible. Then the robot has to be repairable if broken and recyclable when it's time to retire. While some sensors or computer chips might not currently be recyclable or reusable, those pieces wouldn't make up a large percentage of the machine. Some definitions of sustainability include the robot's function.

Results from the DOTS competition were released yesterday, after an intense month with teams from around the world designing new algorithms for robot swarms tasked with delivering emergency food parcels. The Scenario Increases in the number of emergency food parcels distributed by food banks have accelerated over the course of the coronavirus pandemic, particularly in those going to children. Robot swarms could help streamline the distribution of these emergency food parcels, while freeing up time for volunteers and workers to interface with the users and provide human contact. What if you could unbox a swarm of robots and immediately use them to power your organisation and transport needs? You could use them to organise the stock room of a small retail shop, or retrieve boxes in a pop-up distribution centre for school lunches.

Part of the UK Government's aim to give people five years of longer, healthier life, it has announced a £34 million investment to develop robots capable of providing support for Britons and making caring responsibilities easier. With one in seven people in the UK now expected to be over 75 years old by 2040, care robots could help provide the UK's dedicated adult social care sector with more assistance for those who need it most. The Government has launched the UK's biggest research programme entirely dedicated to making autonomous systems safe and trustworthy for public use with investment that could help develop robots to one day fulfil tasks such as helping an elderly person up after a fall and raising the alarm, delivering food to an older person at mealtimes, and ensuring they take crucial medication at the correct time. This cutting-edge programme will undertake research into their design, for example ensuring robots are better protected against cyber-attacks and that they demonstrate principles like respect, fairness and equality, enabling them to eventually be used in environments like care homes and hospitals. In the healthcare sector, this dedicated programme could enable care robots work alongside professionals to assist and complement their work, and help relieve pressures.

Our work published today in Science Robotics describes how we grow fully self-organised shapes using a swarm of 300 coin-sized robots. The work was led by James Sharpe at EMBL and the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG) in Barcelona – together with my team at the Bristol Robotics Laboratory and University of Bristol. Here's a video summarising the results, or you can read the paper here: Nature is capable of producing impressive functional shapes throughout embryonic development. Broadly, there are two ways to form these shapes. Cells have access to information about their position through some coordinate system, for example generated through their molecular gradients.

The European Robotics League (ERL) announced the winners of ERL Emergency Robots 2017 major tournament, during the awards ceremony held on Saturday, 23rd September at Giardini Pro Patria, in Piombino, Italy. The ERL Emergency Robots 2017 competition consisted of four scenarios, inspired by the nuclear accident of Fukushima (Japan, 2011) and designed specifically for multi-domain human-robot teams. The first scenario is The Grand Challenge made up of three domains – sea, air, land, and the other three scenarios are made of only two domains. The Awards, given for each scenario to the best performing teams, were introduced by Alan Winfield from Bristol Robotics Laboratory and ERL Emergency Coordinator. "The energy, enthusiasm and spirit of cooperation among the teams competing in ERL Emergency was amazing. We witnessed not only great performances from the teams and their robots, but also the drama and excitement of last minute field repairs and workarounds to the robots", said Alan Winfield.

German authorities have launched a six-month trial of automatic facial recognition technology at a Berlin railway station. More than 200 people volunteered to have their names and two photos stored for the project at Suedkreuz station, where three cameras film an entrance and an escalator. While German authorities are optimistic about the programme, security experts say that there is a high potential for errors, which could allow criminals to slip through the system. Three cameras have been installed at Suedkreuz station that will film an entrance and an escalator. Footage will automatically be scanned by a computer programme, which will compare it with photos stored in a database.