Robotics

News, deep dives, and analysis — every Robotics story, newest first.

126

Articles

Beats covered

Reporters on beat

Nov 11

Last updated

Drone robotics coverage sits underneath the finished product: the autonomy, sensing and manufacturing systems that make a drone work, or that stretch what a drone even looks like.

Sensing research is finding real alternatives to cameras and LiDAR: a Duke University drone tracks another drone using only its sound, an autonomy approach that keeps working when visual tracking is blocked or when a target is actively trying to avoid detection.

The manufacturing side of robotics matters just as much as the flying hardware. Corvus Robotics drones cut GNC backorders to 98 a day, a production-automation story about the supply chain behind drone components rather than about any single finished aircraft.

Experimental builds outside the standard rotor-and-camera format get coverage too: Cuddle-Fish is a soft, floating helium robot built to keep you company, a project that pushes the definition of “drone” well past its usual boundaries. The broader drone technology desk and artificial intelligence desk cover related autonomy work. Every drone robotics story is in the feed below.

Key facts

What this covers: The robotics layer of drones: autonomy research, sensing systems, and manufacturing robotics that support production at scale
Autonomy edge case: Research is pushing drones past camera and LiDAR sensing entirely, toward alternative methods like acoustic tracking
Manufacturing angle: Robotics coverage extends to the production side, where automation is cutting order backlogs for drone component makers

Start here

Duke University Drone Tracks Another Drone Using Only Its Sound — August 18, 2026
Corvus Robotics Drones Cut GNC Backorders to 98 a Day — June 27, 2026
Cuddle-Fish: The Helium Robot Built To Keep You Company — July 16, 2026

Last updated November 11, 2026 — the feed below updates with every new story.

Orange and blue Corvus One inventory drone with four blue lights hovering in a dark, narrow aisle between tall racks of cardboard cases

Robotics · Corvus Robotics

Asics Says Corvus Drones Find Lost Shoes 60% Faster in Mississippi

Asics flies Corvus One drones seven times a night in Byhalia, Mississippi and no longer holds back 12 to 15% of its stock from online marketplaces.

Haye KestelooNov 113 min read

Ring Drone Cam

Ring's $250 Drone Cam Finally Ships January 27, Pending FCC Approval

Ring's $249.99 Drone Cam ships January 27, six years after the Always Home Cam reveal, pending FCC authorization under the Covered List rules.

Haye KestelooNov 10

Three small quadcopters, each circled in red, flying between trees in a sunlit park with a railing in the foreground

China

Chinese Drone Swarm Maps Woods on Its Own, and Withholds the Code

Tongji University flew three lidar drones through Shanghai park trees with no ground station and beat HKUST's Racer in simulation. The code is withheld.

Haye KestelooNov 8

White DJI ROMO 2 robot vacuum parked in front of its tall white self-cleaning base station against a grey studio background

DJI

DJI Gives ROMO 2 Its Drone Offline Mode, Eight Months After the Hack

DJI's Local Data Mode cuts the ROMO 2 vacuum off from the cloud, eight months after 7,000 ROMOs leaked camera feeds, on a robot Americans cannot buy.

Haye KestelooNov 4

Yellow FANUC industrial robot arm fitted with a blue welding head and bundled cables on a factory floor, with a second robot arm behind it

US Government

Trump Gives Robots Trade Talks After Drones Got Up to 100% Tariffs

Trump's Section 232 robotics order skips tariffs for now and sets a 180-day check-in. Drones got their own 25% to 100% duties in August.

Haye KestelooOct 28

Black quadcopter with a Livox Mid-360 LiDAR dome on top and MARS lettering on its frame, hovering in front of blurred mountains

Analysis

Purdue's "From Scratch" Drone Video Names a Hong Kong Lab's Planner

A Purdue lab says it built its viral forest drone from scratch. Its telemetry names SUPER and FAST-LIO, open-source code from the University of Hong Kong.

Haye KestelooOct 26

Black quadcopter drone with tall landing legs and a camera gimbal flying against a cloudy sky

Belgium

DJI Dock 4 Demoed for Belgian First Responders. US Teams Can't Buy It

Belgium's state drone pilot course turned 10 at PLOT in Genk, where DJI Dock 4 got a live demo two days after launch. US rescuers can't buy it.

Haye KestelooOct 20

Rows of semiconductor manufacturing tools and monitors under yellow light inside an Intel cleanroom

FCC Filing

Intel Asks FCC to Spare Its Fab Robots From the Drone-Ban Playbook

Intel asked the FCC on October 16 to waive Covered List rules for the foreign-made robots in its fabs, the origin-based ban that hit DJI drones in 2025.

Haye KestelooOct 20

Frequently asked questions

What is the Duke University sound-tracking drone research about?

A Duke University drone tracks another drone using only its sound, an autonomy approach that doesn't depend on cameras or LiDAR at all, useful in situations where visual tracking is blocked or where a target drone is specifically trying to avoid visual detection.

Does drone robotics coverage include manufacturing automation, not just the drones themselves?

Yes. Corvus Robotics drones cut GNC backorders to 98 a day, a supply-chain and manufacturing robotics story rather than a story about a specific consumer or enterprise drone product, reflecting how automation affects the whole production pipeline, not just the finished aircraft.

What kind of experimental or unconventional robotic builds get covered here?

Genuinely novel designs outside the standard quadcopter mold. Cuddle-Fish is a soft, floating helium robot built to keep you company, an experimental robotics project that stretches what counts as a drone well past the conventional camera-and-rotors format.

Robotics

Key facts

Start here

Frequently asked questions

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