In Episode 212 of The Robot Report Podcast, hosts Steve Crowe and Mike Oitzman recap the major robotics news of the week. Joining them the show this week is Scott Kuindersma, vice president of robotics research at Boston Dynamics.
Scott Kuindersma, VP of robotics development, Boston Dynamics
Kuindersma discusses the development and testing of large behavior models (LBMs) for the Atlas humanoid robot. Boston Dynamics‘ team collected 20 hours of teleoperation data to train LBMs, which generalize manipulation tasks.
The team demonstrated the LBMs with Atlas performing bi-manual manipulation tasks, such as picking and placing parts for the company’s Spot quadruped. The process involved data collection, annotation, model training, and evaluation.
Kuindersma also discusses the importance of simulation data and human demonstration data. Boston Dynamics’ plans include testing Atlas in Hyundai facilities and exploring AI-centric results to enhance humanoid manipulation and dynamic behaviors.
Show timeline
- 05:43 – News of the week
- 27:17 – Conversation with Scott Kuindersma, VP of robotics research at Boston Dynamics
News of the week
Serve Robotics acquires assets of Voysys to support autonomous delivery
Serve Robotics has acquired the assets of Phantom Auto Inc. and its subsidiary, Voysys AB, for about $5.75 million in cash. This acquisition will enhance Serve’s technology stack with Voysys’ low-latency video streaming capabilities, supporting the growth of Serve’s autonomous delivery robot fleet.
Voysys will enable the Serve Robotics team to maintain remote monitoring video of robots in the field, which is something that every field autonomous robot needs.
“Reliable connectivity to enable teleoperation or tele-assist is pretty critical to Level 4 as you scale a fleet into many different cities, many different neighborhoods,” said Dr. Ali Kashani, co-founder and CEO of Serve Robotics. “We are in five cities already, and we’re on track to be in six by the end of the year.”
“So having this be reliable as you deploy 2,000 robots was super critical,” he told The Robot Report. “It was a problem we absolutely had to solve.”
Zoox bets big, launches robotaxi service on Vegas Strip
Amazon subsidiary Zoox has launched its robotaxi service to the public on and around the Las Vegas Strip. Rides are free and available through the Zoox app, which can be downloaded on both iOS and Android devices, the company said.
Zoox said it can produce up to 10,000 of these vehicles a year in its production facility.
The Foster City, Calif.-based company is also testing its purpose-built robotaxis in San Francisco and Foster City. During the testing phase, its vehicles are open to Zoox employees so the company can refine the riding experience. It has further plans to test in Austin and Miami.
AWS RoboMaker shuts down after failing to gain traction
Amazon Web Services (AWS) has officially discontinued RoboMaker, its cloud-based robotics simulation platform. This marks the end of a service that seemed to be misaligned from the start.
RoboMaker offered cloud simulation at scale through the open-source Gazebo physics engine. The system made it possible to spin up thousands of randomized environments and generate pass/fail metrics across them.
RoboMaker users have been encouraged to pivot to AWS Batch. The company told The Robot Report that Batch stands out as RoboMaker’s alternative with its multi-container support, allowing multiple containers to run in a single job. AWS wrote a blog for those looking to transition off of RoboMaker.
The Robot Report spoke with multiple sources, who wished to remain anonymous. They said the product was misaligned with market needs and obviously didn’t gain enough traction. One source who previously worked for RoboMaker said the product was “spun up,” essentially for iRobot.
“It worked well for iRobot,” the source said. “But there wasn’t much due diligence to see if it was useful for anyone else in the market.”
A cobot isn’t a cobot anymore
Friend of the show Aaron Prather, director of ASTM International‘s Robotics and Autonomous Systems Program, announced that the revised ISO 10218 (2025) – the flagship international robot safety standard – pointedly omits any definition of “collaborative robot.”
Prather went on to state that in a published FAQ, the standards committee makes it clear: “The terms ‘collaborative robot’ and ‘collaborative operation’ will not be found in the revised ISO 10218. ‘Collaborative application’ is used instead, as only the actual use of the robot can be designed, tested, and confirmed as a collaborative application.”
In other words, you won’t find the word cobot in the new ISO rulebook at all. The American National Standards (ANSI/A3) followed suit. The updated ANSI/RIA R15.06-2025 (the U.S. industrial robot safety standard adapted from ISO 10218-1/-2:2025) likewise eschews the term “collaborative robot,” replacing it with the more precise concept of a collaborative application.
Catch the latest on humanoid development at RoboBusiness 2025. Join Deepu Talla, vice president of robotics and edge AI at NVIDIA, for a keynote titled “Physical AI for the New Era of Robotics.”
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