Ready For Tomorrow #66

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Quick check-in from the world of robots.

What’s new, what’s weird, and what’s worth your time.

All in under 5 minutes. Let’s roll.

The humanoid took off. Literally.

Straight out of the Italian Institute of Technology, the robot iRonCub3 lifted off the ground. A humanoid with four jet engines. It hovered about half a meter in the air and stayed there. Stable, balanced, fully under control.

Sounds like a scene from Iron Man? Exactly. Just without the suit. Instead, it's got a titanium spine and AI instead of Jarvis.

iRonCub3 weighs 70 kilos. Two engines on its arms. Two more on its back. Altogether, over a thousand newtons of thrust and a fiery exhaust blasting at 800 degrees Celsius.

What keeps it steady is a set of algorithms built with Milan Polytechnic and Stanford. Systems that analyze airflow in real time and keep the robot balanced mid-air.

After two years of testing, it finally worked. The results were published in Nature Communications Engineering. And the world of robotics just got one step closer to machines that don’t just walk but also fly. Rescue missions are next on the list.

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The hydraulic bodybuilder from Korea – ARMstrong Dex lifts 40 kilos

A test video from the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute shows ARMstrong Dex in action. A humanoid robot doing a bicep curl with a 40-kilogram weight.

This isn’t a stunt for likes. It’s a real test of strength and precision, where stability, movement control, and the durability of the entire hydraulic system matter.

ARMstrong Dex is a two-armed humanoid robot, built to human scale. Designed for rescue missions in extreme conditions, the kind of places where you can’t send people but still need the precision of human movement.

Why does this matter?

Because in situations like

• moving rubble after an earthquake

• opening jammed valves in contaminated zones

• or pulling people out of wreckage

you need more than just finesse. You need raw power. And lightweight robots with electric motors usually can’t deliver that.

Forty kilos is a threshold most modern humanoid robots can’t cross. If ARMstrong Dex can combine hydraulic strength with precise manipulation, it could be the first real rescue partner that won’t think twice about lifting a half-ton beam and placing it exactly where it needs to go.

ANYmal sniffs out gas before it gets dangerous

The Swiss four-legged inspection robot ANYmal just got a serious upgrade. A modular gas detector and a 360° acoustic camera. With these tools, it can detect gas leaks, locate where they’re coming from, measure how fast the gas is escaping, and even calculate how much money the leak is costing.

Sounds like sci-fi, but this is hardcore industry stuff. ANYmal can identify steam, hydrocarbons, ammonia, and even electrical discharges you can’t see with the naked eye. All in real time, with a report sent straight to the cloud.

Why does this matter?

Because invisible leaks are silent thieves. They steal money and safety.

A single valve with a tiny leak can cost a plant up to 50,000 dollars a year. And there are thousands of those valves.

Manual inspections? Rare, expensive, and unreliable.

ANYmal? It goes where humans can’t, and sees what humans don’t.

This isn’t just a cool gadget. It’s a tool built to protect health, money, and the reputation of production companies.

600 million for the simulation master. Applied Intuition hits 15 billion

Applied Intuition is a California-based company that builds brains and virtual worlds for self-driving vehicles. Their software simulates extreme road scenarios. The kind of situations you can't easily recreate in real life but that can mean the difference between life and death.

They just raised 600 million dollars from big names like BlackRock and Kleiner Perkins. That pushed their valuation up to 15 billion dollars. It’s a clear sign that autonomous driving isn’t the future anymore. It’s already a massive, serious business.

Applied works with nearly all of the world’s top car makers. They’re also building systems for the military. Their tech helps companies test and roll out autonomy in weeks, not years.

And from the looks of it, they’re just getting started.

SLAPBOT, the robot that almost slaps you

Here’s SLAPBOT. An art installation that looks like a Terminator who just finished a self-defense class with his mother-in-law, but in reality… it doesn’t touch anyone.

It’s the work of Hooman Samani and Chandler Cheng. A moving robotic arm with an inflatable hand that delivers slaps into thin air. It doesn’t hit faces. It simulates a hit, like it wants to but just can’t.

The bot runs on air pressure and leans more toward performance than violence. It explores the relationship between humans and machines, power, and the limits of physical interaction.

A robot with the will to strike, but the soul of an artist.

It doesn’t hit. It just threatens.

It doesn’t touch. But anyone who looks at it feels the slap morally.

That’s it for this week’s robot rundown.

Stay sharp, keep building, and let’s get back to work.

Cheers, Jacek