Drones that fly like birds of prey

PLUS: Atlas humanoid now learns by watching

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Jennifer Mossalgue & Rowan Cheung
August 25, 2025

Good morning, robotics enthusiasts. UK engineers are building fixed-wing drones that perch on ledges, slip through tight gaps, and rule the skies with raptor-like precision.

These aren’t your everyday quadcopters — they fly with bird-like agility. Could the future of drones be less machine, and more creature?

In today’s robotics rundown:

  • Birds of prey inspire new breed of drones

  • Boston Dynamic’s Atlas gets brain upgrade

  • These robot dogs are training for Mars

  • Waymo rolls its robotaxis into NYC

  • Quick hits on other robotics news

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS

DRONES

Image source: University of Surrey

The Rundown: Engineers at the University of Surrey are designing fixed-wing drones inspired by owls and raptors, giving them the ability to perch on surfaces and weave through tight urban spaces with the agility of birds of prey.

The details:

  • The Learning2Fly project is engineering fixed-wing drones that mimic owls and raptors to master precise perching and agile maneuvers.

  • These drones are designed for energy efficiency and long-range operation, improving on the limited agility of conventional fixed-wing UAVs.

  • The team gathers real flight data via motion-capture tests and onboard sensors to train ML models that anticipate and control drone behavior.

  • Lightweight prototypes — some retrofitted from toy aircraft — are tested inside a motion-capture lab, with 3D flight data used to refine its algorithm.

Why it matters:  

BOSTON DYNAMICS

Image source: Boston Dynamic

The Rundown: Boston Dynamics gave its Atlas humanoid a major upgrade in the form of a Large Behavior Model (LBM) co-developed with the Toyota Research Institute, which allows the bot to coordinate its entire body to perform manipulation tasks.

The details:

  • Atlas’s LBM is a 450-million-parameter diffusion transformer, ingesting images, proprioceptive signals, and language prompts to plan coordinated actions.

  • It enables Atlas to perform diverse manipulation tasks, like folding textiles and tying ropes, using data-driven demos rather than code.

  • The robot’s inference can be sped up by 1.5x to 2x at runtime, executing tasks much faster than human teleoperation, with minimal loss of dexterity or balance.

  • The model unifies whole-body manipulation, treating hands and feet almost interchangeably, which enables the bot to move a bit more like a human.

Why it matters: With LBMs, adding new skills is no longer a painstaking process — advanced capabilities can now be integrated rapidly through data-driven learning, without writing any additional code. For now, Atlas can coordinate its entire body (somewhat) fluidly to take on new complex skills all within one unified control policy.

MISSION TO MARS

Image source: Oregon State University

The Rundown: At White Sands National Park, Oregon State University researchers are putting quadruped robot dogs through their paces in five days of rigorous field trials designed to simulate the harsh and unpredictable landscapes of Mars.

The details:

  • The robots are being trained to autonomously scout, map, and suggest optimal sampling locations, acting as field partners for astronauts.

  • Their articulated legs let them sense surface stability in real time, helping both robots and human explorers avoid hazardous or unstable terrain.

  • The bots gather valuable mechanical and geoscientific data, with the goal to work on Mars alongside humans, rovers, and other robots.

  • This research builds on earlier moon-analogue fieldwork on Mount Hood and is part of a NASA Moon to Mars initiative.

Why it matters: These tests show how a robot’s feet can sense surface stability in real time, adjusting movement just as humans would. For the first time, a robot operated with true autonomy, choosing its own routes while scientists monitored from mission control, simulating how distant teams on Earth and Mars could collaborate.

WAYMO

Image source: Waymo

The Rundown: Waymo’s robotaxis are heading to NYC. In a first, the city’s Department of Transportation has greenlit Waymo to operate autonomous vehicles — with safety drivers — across Manhattan and Downtown Brooklyn through September.

The details:

  • The permit allows Alphabet’s subsidiary to deploy up to eight Jaguar I-Pace robotaxis, marking NYC as a testing ground for robotaxis.

  • Compared to Waymo rollouts in San Francisco or Phoenix, the NYC pilot features some of the nation’s toughest regulatory and safety requirements.

  • Every vehicle must have a trained human operator with at least one hand on the wheel, and regular check-ins and data sharing with DOT are mandatory.

  • Testing cannot include paid ride-hailing or for-hire service — current Taxi and Limousine Commission rules prohibit fully autonomous public rides.

Why it matters: Waymo’s team spent years mapping and preparing its tech for these unique urban challenges, with NYC being one of the densest pedestrian, cyclist, and traffic environments in the country — a true stress test for next-gen autonomy. The pilot runs through September, with the option to extend if all goes well.

QUICK HITS

📰 Everything else in robotics today

Beijing’s robot shopping mall has reportedly sold more than 19K robots and related products, racking up over 330M yuan ($46M) in sales.

AgiBot has launched a six-product lineup, including humanoids, dexterous hands, and a robotic dog, on its own e-commerce site and JD.com.

Chipotle is testing autonomous drone delivery with Zipline, dubbed “Zipotle,” for select Dallas-area customers, enabling digital orders to be flown directly to homes.

UK’s Nottinghamshire Police is trialing AI robot dogs with weapon detection to enter high-risk scenes instead of officers, eyeing national use by 2026.

Just Eat Takeaway.com has launched a pilot in Zurich with Swiss robotics startup RIVR to test autonomous, stair-climbing delivery robots for food orders.

University of Waterloo researchers have created tiny magnetic robots that dissolve kidney stones in the urinary tract, offering a non-surgical alternative for rapid treatment.

Researchers engineered a tiny robot with fans that passively open and close at high speed, modeled after Rhagovelia water striders, for quick movement across water.

COMMUNITY

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See you soon,

Rowan, Jennifer, and Joey—The Rundown’s editorial team