Winged robo-birds take flight

PLUS: 7-foot humanoid built in 7 months

AuthorAuthor

Jennifer Mossalgue & Rowan Cheung
September 22, 2025

Good morning, robotics enthusiasts. Chinese engineers just unveiled RoboFalcon 2.0, a flapping-wing robot that mimics real birds with eerie precision, solving flight challenges that have stumped engineers for decades.

Could this soaring machine be the breakthrough that finally cracks the code of natural flight?

In today’s robotics rundown:

  • Robo-bird masters natural takeoff and flight

  • 7-foot humanoid built at lightning speed

  • Figure’s massive video training project

  • Robotic beehives help save the bees

  • Quick hits on other robotics news

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS

ROBOFALCON

Image source: Science Advances

The Rundown: Chinese engineers have cracked the code of natural flight with RoboFalcon 2.0 — a morphing-wing robot that beats its wings like a bat, soars like a bird, and launches itself skyward without any human assistance.

The details:

  • The 800g machine packs a reconfigurable wing system that seamlessly blends flapping, sweeping, and folding motions within each individual wingbeat cycle.

  • Unlike its grounded predecessor, RoboFalcon 2.0 achieves true bird-style takeoff from a standstill and maintains controlled low-speed flight.

  • During takeoff, the mechanism uses ventral-anterior downstrokes and tucked upstrokes, closely mimicking how real birds generate sufficient lift and thrust.

  • Flight demos validated that the robot can perform sharp maneuvers, roll with agility, and modulate wing morphing for stability.

Why it matters: For decades, engineers have struggled to replicate the elegant efficiency of biological flight, with most attempts producing clunky, energy-inefficient machines. Unlike noisy rotorcraft, RoboFalcon 2.0 could operate undetected in sensitive environments while consuming far less energy than conventional drones.

HUMANOID

Image source: Humanoid

The Rundown: Humanoid — a London-based company billing itself as the UK’s first AI and robotics trailblazer — has just revealed the HMND 01 Alpha, a towering industrial humanoid built at lightning speed. 

The details:

  • HMND 01 Alpha stands over 7 feet tall and moves at speeds up to 7.2 km/h, making it among the tallest and fastest industrial humanoids ever built.

  • The machine can lift and manipulate up to 15 kg with both arms while reaching heights of 2 meters, perfect for warehouse shelving and assembly lines.

  • Its arms pack 29 active degrees of freedom, with hot-swappable end-effectors; a bipedal version is expected to “come online” this year.

  • Advanced AI enables autonomous pick-and-place, sorting, and precision kitting tasks while maintaining ±0.1 mm accuracy over extended shifts.

Why it matters: HMND 01 Alpha went from concept to working prototype in just seven months, while Tesla and Boston Dynamics spent years perfecting their humanoids. If nimble startups can match corporate giants in a fraction of the time, capable humanoids could flood the market far sooner than anyone expected.

FIGURE

Image source: Figure

The Rundown: Fresh off its $39B valuation, robotics startup Figure launched Project Go-Big, an initiative to create the world's largest video dataset of real human behavior in homes, designed to train truly general-purpose household robots.

The details:

  • Partnering with global real estate giant Brookfield, Figure is installing cameras across potentially thousands of residential units to capture domestic routines.

  • CEO Brett Adcock calls this approach essential, noting that robotics has suffered from a chronic lack of "internet-scale" training data.

  • Figure's robots are now acquiring complex skills directly from this real-world footage, moving far beyond the controlled demos typical of robotics labs.

  • The company's Helix AI model reportedly enables robots to navigate unpredictable home environments using only natural language commands.

Why it matters: Figure hints that the company has unprecedented access to data from 100K real homes, potentially creating robotics' first truly massive, authentic training dataset. If successful, this could finally give humanoids the diverse, real-world experience needed to handle the chaos and unpredictability of actual households.

BEEWISE

Image source: Beewise

The Rundown: To help save bees from climate change and pesticides, California-based Beewise has invented a robotic, AI-powered beehive that mimics the functions of a seasoned beekeeper, only faster, more precise, and on a far greater scale.

The details:

  • Each BeeHome unit houses up to 24 bee colonies and is fully autonomous, using robotics to handle daily care, pest control, and environmental regulation.

  • Advanced cameras and AI-powered computer vision continuously monitor individual bees and frame conditions, enabling precise health assessment.

  • Robotic arms automate feeding, equalize brood frames, harvest honey, and can even prevent swarming by altering internal conditions as needed.

  • Growers can rent the BeeHome for around $400/month, with no added charges for delivery, setup, or maintenance.

Why it matters: Backed by nearly $170M in funding, Beewise’s approach shifts beekeeping from a sporadic, in-person craft to a 24/7, data-driven system that puts real-time alerts and autonomous care at the core. In most pilots, the units slashed bee mortality rates from 40% to under 10%, so the results are promising so far.

QUICK HITS

Ashish Kumar, Tesla’s AI lead for Optimus, left to join Meta as a research scientist, just two weeks after Musk said Optimus would make up 80% of Tesla's future value. 

Icarus Robotics, which aims to bring embodied AI and robotic labor to space missions, where human work is scarce and costly, raised $6.1M in seed funding.

Abu Dhabi’s Technology Innovation Institute and Nvidia launched a joint research hub in the UAE to develop next-gen AI models and robotics platforms.

Texas A&M University students built a 112g micro air vehicle that folds down to smartphone size and automatically unfolds in midair to stabilize itself within seconds.

Robin, an AI-powered companion designed to provide emotional support in pediatric units and nursing homes, expanded to 30 U.S. healthcare facilities.

Researchers at the Italian Institute of Technology developed Frasky, a robotic prototype capable of autonomously navigating and performing tasks within vineyards.

OpenMind announced OM1, the first open-source operating system designed to let any robot perceive, adapt, and act autonomously in real-world environments.

The first batch of L3Harris T4 multi-mission bomb disposal robots has just been deployed with British Army and Royal Navy EOD teams across the UK.

Researchers created light-powered micrometer-scale gears, paving the way for the world’s smallest on-chip motors, small enough to fit inside a single strand of hair.

Gecko Robotics launched StratoSight, a drone-based inspection service that uses AI and sensors to automate roof inspections.

COMMUNITY

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