This year, Bell Labs celebrates its hundredth birthday. In a centennial celebration held last week at the Murray Hill, New Jersey campus, the lab’s impressive technological history was celebrated with talks, panels, demos, and over a half dozen gracefully aging Nobel laureates. During its impressive 100 year tenure, Bell Labs scientists invented the transistor, laid down the theoretical grounding for the digital age, discovered radio astronomy which led to the first evidence in favor of the big bang theory, contributed to the invention of the laser, developed the Unix operating system, invented the charge-coupled device (CCD) camera, and many more scientific and technological contributions that have earned Bell Labs ten Noble prizes and five Turing awards. “I normally tell people, this is the ‘Bell Labs invented everything’ tour,” said Nokia Bell Labs archivist Ed Eckert as he led a tour through the lab’s history exhibit. The lab is smaller than it once was. The main campus in Murray Hill, New Jersey appears like a bit of a ghost town, with empty cubicles and offices lining the halls. Now, it’s planning a move to a smaller facility in New Brunswick, New Jersey sometime in 2027. In its heyday, Bell Labs boasted around 6,000 workers at the Murray Hill location. Although that number has now dwindled to about 1,000, more work at other locations around the world The Many Accomplishments of Bell Labs Despite its somewhat diminished size, Bell Labs, now owned by Nokia, is alive and kicking. “As Nokia Bell Labs, we have a dual mission,” says Bell Labs president Peter Vetter. “On the one hand, we need to support the longevity of the core business. That is networks, mobile networks, optical networks, the networking at large, security, device research, ASICs, optical components that support that network system. And then we also have the second part of the mission, which is help the company grow into new areas.” Some of the new areas for growth were represented in live demonstrations at the centennial. A team at Bell Labs is working on establishing the first cellular network on the moon. In February, Intuitive Machines sent their second lunar mission, Athena, with Bell Labs’ technology on board. The team fit two full cellular networks into a briefcase-sized box, the most compact networking system ever made. This cell network was self-deploying: Nobody on Earth needs to tell it what to do. The lunar lander tipped on its side upon landing and quickly went offline due to lack of solar power, Bell Labs’ networking module had enough time to power up and transmit data back to Earth. Another Bell Labs group is focused on monitoring the world’s vast network of undersea fiber-optic cables. Undersea cables are subject to interruptions, be it from adversarial sabotage, undersea weather events like earthquakes or tsunamis, or fishing nets and ship anchors. The team wants to turn these cables into a sensor network, capable of monitoring the environment around a cable for possible damage. The team has developed a real-time technique for monitoring mild changes in cable length, so sensitive that the lab-based demo was able to pick up tiny vibrations from the presenter’s speaking voice. This technique can pin changes down to a 10 kilometer interval of cable, greatly simplifying the search for affected regions. Nokia is taking the path less travelled when it comes to quantum computing, pursuing so-called topological quantum bits. These qubits, if made, would be much more robust to noise than other approaches, and are more readily amenable to scaling. However, building even a single qubit of this kind has been elusive. Nokia Bell Labs’ Robert Willett has been at it since his graduate work in 1988, and the team expect to demonstrate the first NOT gate with this architecture later this year. Beam-steering antennas for point-to-point fixed wireless are normally made on printed circuit boards. But as the world goes to higher frequencies, toward 6G, conventional printed circuit board materials are no longer cutting it—the signal loss makes them economically unviable. That’s why a team at Nokia Bell Labs has developed a way to print circuit boards on glass instead. The result is a small glass chip that has 64 integrated circuits on one side and the antenna array on the other. A 100 gigahertz link using the tech was deployed at the Paris Olympics in 2024, and a commercial product is on the roadmap for 2027. Mining, particularly autonomous mining that avoids putting humans in harm’s way, relies heavily on networking. That’s why Nokia has entered the mining business, developing smart digital twin technology that models the mine and the autonomous trucks that work on it. Their robo-truck system features two cellular modems, three Wifi cards, and twelve ethernet ports. The system collects different types of sensor data and correlates them on a virtual map of the mine (the digital twin). Then, it uses AI to suggest necessary maintenance and to optimize scheduling. The lab is also dipping into AI. One team is working on integrating large language models with robots for industrial applications. These robots have access to a digital twin model of the space they are in and have a semantic representation of certain objects in their surroundings. In a demo, a robot was verbally asked to identify missing boxes in a rack, and it successfully pointed out which box wasn’t found in its intended place, and when prompted travelled to the storage area and identified the replacement. The key is to build robots that can “reason about the physical world,” says Matthew Andrews, a researcher in the AI lab. A test system will be deployed in a warehouse in the United Arab Emirates in the next six months. Despite impressive scientific demonstrations, there was an air of apprehension about the event. In a panel discussion about the future of innovation, Princeton engineering dean Andrea Goldsmith said, “I’ve never been more worried about the innovation ecosystem in the US.” Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt said in a keynote that “The current administration seems to be trying to destroy university R&D.” Nevertheless, Schmidt and others expressed optimism about the future of innovation at Bell Labs and the US more generally. “We will win, because we are right and R&D is the foundation of economic growth,” he said.

This is a sponsored article brought to you by Amazon. The cutting edge of robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) doesn’t occur just at NASA, or one of the top university labs, but instead is increasingly being developed in the warehouses of the e-commerce company Amazon. As online shopping continues to grow, companies like Amazon are pushing the boundaries of these technologies to meet consumer expectations. Warehouses, the backbone of the global supply chain, are undergoing a transformation driven by technological innovation. Amazon, at the forefront of this revolution, is leveraging robotics and AI to shape the warehouses of the future. Far from being just a logistics organization, Amazon is positioning itself as a leader in technological innovation, making it a prime destination for engineers and scientists seeking to shape the future of automation. Amazon: A Leader in Technological Innovation Amazon’s success in e-commerce is built on a foundation of continuous technological innovation. Its fulfillment centers are increasingly becoming hubs of cutting-edge technology where robotics and AI play a pivotal role. Heath Ruder, Director of Product Management at Amazon, explains how Amazon’s approach to integrating robotics with advanced material handling equipment is shaping the future of its warehouses. “We’re integrating several large-scale products into our next-generation fulfillment center in Shreveport, Louisiana,” says Ruder. “It’s our first opportunity to get our robotics systems combined under one roof and understand the end-to-end mechanics of how a building can run with incorporated autonomation.” Ruder is referring to the facility’s deployment of its Automated Storage and Retrieval Systems (ASRS), called Sequoia, as well as robotic arms like “Robin” and “Cardinal” and Amazon’s proprietary autonomous mobile robot, “Proteus”. Amazon has already deployed “Robin”, a robotic arm that sorts packages for outbound shipping by transferring packages from conveyors to mobile robots. This system is already in use across various Amazon fulfillment centers and has completed over three billion successful package moves. “Cardinal” is another robotic arm system that efficiently packs packages into carts before the carts are loaded onto delivery trucks. “Proteus” is Amazon’s autonomous mobile robot designed to work around people. Unlike traditional robots confined to a restricted area, Proteus is fully autonomous and navigates through fulfillment centers using sensors and a mix of AI-based and ML systems. It works with human workers and other robots to transport carts full of packages more efficiently. The integration of these technologies is estimated to increase operational efficiency by 25 percent. “Our goal is to improve speed, quality, and cost. The efficiency gains we’re seeing from these systems are substantial,” says Ruder. However, the real challenge is scaling this technology across Amazon’s global network of fulfillment centers. “Shreveport was our testing ground and we are excited about what we have learned and will apply at our next building launching in 2025.” Amazon’s investment in cutting-edge robotics and AI systems is not just about operational efficiency. It underscores the company’s commitment to being a leader in technological innovation and workplace safety, making it a top destination for engineers and scientists looking to solve complex, real-world problems. How AI Models Are Trained: Learning from the Real World One of the most complex challenges Amazon’s robotics team faces is how to make robots capable of handling a wide variety of tasks that require discernment. Mike Wolf, a principal scientist at Amazon Robotics, plays a key role in developing AI models that enable robots to better manipulate objects, across a nearly infinite variety of scenarios. “The complexity of Amazon’s product catalog—hundreds of millions of unique items—demands advanced AI systems that can make real-time decisions about object handling,” explains Wolf. But how do these AI systems learn to handle such an immense variety of objects? Wolf’s team is developing machine learning algorithms that enable robots to learn from experience. “We’re developing the next generation of AI and robotics. For anyone interested in this field, Amazon is the place where you can make a difference on a global scale.” —Mike Wolf, Amazon Robotics In fact, robots at Amazon continuously gather data from their interactions with objects, refining their ability to predict how items will be affected when manipulated. Every interaction a robot has—whether it’s picking up a package or placing it into a container—feeds back into the system, refining the AI model and helping the robot to improve. “AI is continually learning from failure cases,” says Wolf. “Every time a robot fails to complete a task successfully, that’s actually an opportunity for the system to learn and improve.” This data-centric approach supports the development of state-of-the-art AI systems that can perform increasingly complex tasks, such as predicting how objects are affected when manipulated. This predictive ability will help robots determine the best way to pack irregularly shaped objects into containers or handle fragile items without damaging them. “We want AI that understands the physics of the environment, not just basic object recognition. The goal is to predict how objects will move and interact with one another in real time,” Wolf says. What’s Next in Warehouse Automation Valerie Samzun, Senior Technical Product Manager at Amazon, leads a cutting-edge robotics program that aims to enhance workplace safety and make jobs more rewarding, fulfilling, and intellectually stimulating by allowing robots to handle repetitive tasks. “The goal is to reduce certain repetitive and physically demanding tasks from associates,” explains Samzun. “This allows them to focus on higher-value tasks in skilled roles.” This shift not only makes warehouse operations more efficient but also opens up new opportunities for workers to advance their careers by developing new technical skills. “Our research combines several cutting-edge technologies,” Samzun shared. “The project uses robotic arms equipped with compliant manipulation tools to detect the amount of force needed to move items without damaging them or other items.” This is an advancement that incorporates learnings from previous Amazon robotics projects. “This approach allows our robots to understand how to interact with different objects in a way that’s safe and efficient,” says Samzun. In addition to robotic manipulation, the project relies heavily on AI-driven algorithms that determine the best way to handle items and utilize space. Samzun believes the technology will eventually expand to other parts of Amazon’s operations, finding multiple applications across its vast network. “The potential applications for compliant manipulation are huge,” she says. Attracting Engineers and Scientists: Why Amazon is the Place to Be As Amazon continues to push the boundaries of what’s possible with robotics and AI, it’s also becoming a highly attractive destination for engineers, scientists, and technical professionals. Both Wolf and Samzun emphasize the unique opportunities Amazon offers to those interested in solving real-world problems at scale. For Wolf, who transitioned to Amazon from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the appeal lies in the sheer impact of the work. “The draw of Amazon is the ability to see your work deployed at scale. There’s no other place in the world where you can see your robotics work making a direct impact on millions of people’s lives every day,” he says. Wolf also highlights the collaborative nature of Amazon’s technical teams. Whether working on AI algorithms or robotic hardware, scientists and engineers at Amazon are constantly collaborating to solve new challenges. Amazon’s culture of innovation extends beyond just technology. It’s also about empowering people. Samzun, who comes from a non-engineering background, points out that Amazon is a place where anyone with the right mindset can thrive, regardless of their academic background. “I came from a business management background and found myself leading a robotics project,” she says. “Amazon provides the platform for you to grow, learn new skills, and work on some of the most exciting projects in the world.” For young engineers and scientists, Amazon offers a unique opportunity to work on state-of-the-art technology that has real-world impact. “We’re developing the next generation of AI and robotics,” says Wolf. “For anyone interested in this field, Amazon is the place where you can make a difference on a global scale.” The Future of Warehousing: A Fusion of Technology and Talent From Amazon’s leadership, it’s clear that the future of warehousing is about more than just automation. It’s about harnessing the power of robotics and AI to create smarter, more efficient, and safer working environments. But at its core it remains centered on people in its operations and those who make this technology possible—engineers, scientists, and technical professionals who are driven to solve some of the world’s most complex problems. Amazon’s commitment to innovation, combined with its vast operational scale, makes it a leader in warehouse automation. The company’s focus on integrating robotics, AI, and human collaboration is transforming how goods are processed, stored, and delivered. And with so many innovative projects underway, the future of Amazon’s warehouses is one where technology and human ingenuity work hand in hand. “We’re building systems that push the limits of robotics and AI,” says Wolf. “If you want to work on the cutting edge, this is the place to be.”

For more than a century, women and racial minorities have fought for access to education and employment opportunities once reserved exclusively for white men. The life of Yvonne Young “Y.Y.” Clark is a testament to the power of perseverance in that fight. As a smart Black woman who shattered the barriers imposed by race and gender, she made history multiple times during her career in academia and industry. She probably is best known as the first woman to serve as a faculty member in the engineering college at Tennessee State University, in Nashville. Her pioneering spirit extended far beyond the classroom, however, as she continuously staked out new territory for women and Black professionals in engineering. She accomplished a lot before she died on 27 January 2019 at her home in Nashville at the age of 89. Clark is the subject of the latest biography in IEEE-USA’s Famous Women Engineers in History series. “Don’t Give Up” was her mantra. An early passion for technology Born on 13 April 1929 in Houston, Clark moved with her family to Louisville, Ky., as a baby. She was raised in an academically driven household. Her father, Dr. Coleman M. Young Jr., was a surgeon. Her mother, Hortense H. Young, was a library scientist and journalist. Her mother’s “Tense Topics” column, published by the Louisville Defender newspaper, tackled segregation, housing discrimination, and civil rights issues, instilling awareness of social justice in Y.Y. Clark’s passion for technology became evident at a young age. As a child, she secretly repaired her family’s malfunctioning toaster, surprising her parents. It was a defining moment, signaling to her family that she was destined for a career in engineering—not in education like her older sister, a high school math teacher. “Y.Y.’s family didn’t create her passion or her talents. Those were her own,” said Carol Sutton Lewis, co-host and producer for the third season of the “Lost Women of Science” podcast, on which Clark was profiled. “What her family did do, and what they would continue to do, was make her interests viable in a world that wasn’t fair.” Clark’s interest in studying engineering was precipitated by her passion for aeronautics. She said all the pilots she spoke with had studied engineering, so she was determined to do so. She joined the Civil Air Patrol and took simulated flying lessons. She then learned to fly an airplane with the help of a family friend. Despite her academic excellence, though, racial barriers stood in her way. She graduated at age 16 from Louisville’s Central High School in 1945. Her parents, concerned that she was too young to attend college, sent her to Boston for two additional years at the Girls’ Latin School and Roxbury Memorial High School. She then applied to the University of Louisville, where she was initially accepted and offered a full scholarship. When university administrators realized she was Black, however, they rescinded the scholarship and the admission, Clark said on the “Lost Women of Science” podcast, which included clips from when her daughter interviewed her in 2007. As Clark explained in the interview, the state of Kentucky offered to pay her tuition to attend Howard University, a historically Black college in Washington, D.C., rather than integrate its publicly funded university. Breaking barriers in higher education Although Howard provided an opportunity, it was not free of discrimination. Clark faced gender-based barriers, according to the IEEE-USA biography. She was the only woman among 300 mechanical engineering students, many of whom were World War II veterans. “Y.Y.’s family didn’t create her passion or her talents. Those were her own. What her family did do, and what they would continue to do, was make her interests viable in a world that wasn’t fair.” —Carol Sutton Lewis Despite the challenges, she persevered and in 1951 became the first woman to earn a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the university. The school downplayed her historic achievement, however. In fact, she was not allowed to march with her classmates at graduation. Instead, she received her diploma during a private ceremony in the university president’s office. A career defined by firsts Determined to forge a career in engineering, Clark repeatedly encountered racial and gender discrimination. In a 2007 Society of Women Engineers (SWE) StoryCorps interview, she recalled that when she applied for an engineering position with the U.S. Navy, the interviewer bluntly told her, “I don’t think I can hire you.” When she asked why not, he replied, “You’re female, and all engineers go out on a shakedown cruise,” the trip during which the performance of a ship is tested before it enters service or after it undergoes major changes such as an overhaul. She said the interviewer told her, “The omen is: ‘No females on the shakedown cruise.’” Clark eventually landed a job with the U.S. Army’s Frankford Arsenal gauge laboratories in Philadelphia, becoming the first Black woman hired there. She designed gauges and finalized product drawings for the small-arms ammunition and range-finding instruments manufactured there. Tensions arose, however, when some of her colleagues resented that she earned more money due to overtime pay, according to the IEEE-USA biography. To ease workplace tensions, the Army reduced her hours, prompting her to seek other opportunities. Her future husband, Bill Clark, saw the difficulty she was having securing interviews, and suggested she use the gender-neutral name Y.Y. on her résumé. The tactic worked. She became the first Black woman hired by RCA in 1955. She worked for the company’s electronic tube division in Camden, N.J. Although she excelled at designing factory equipment, she encountered more workplace hostility. “Sadly,” the IEEE-USA biography says, she “felt animosity from her colleagues and resentment for her success.” When Bill, who had taken a faculty position as a biochemistry instructor at Meharry Medical College in Nashville, proposed marriage, she eagerly accepted. They married in December 1955, and she moved to Nashville. In 1956 Clark applied for a full-time position at Ford Motor Co.’s Nashville glass plant, where she had interned during the summers while she was a Howard student. Despite her qualifications, she was denied the job due to her race and gender, she said. She decided to pursue a career in academia, becoming in 1956 the first woman to teach mechanical engineering at Tennessee State University. In 1965 she became the first woman to chair TSU’s mechanical engineering department. While teaching at TSU, she pursued further education, earning a master’s degree in engineering management from Nashville’s Vanderbilt University in 1972—another step in her lifelong commitment to professional growth. After 55 years with the university, where she was also a freshman student advisor for much of that time, Clark retired in 2011 and was named professor emeritus. A legacy of leadership and advocacy Clark’s influence extended far beyond TSU. She was active in the Society of Women Engineers after becoming its first Black member in 1951. Racism, however, followed her even within professional circles. At the 1957 SWE conference in Houston, the event’s hotel initially refused her entry due to segregation policies, according to a 2022 profile of Clark. Under pressure from the society’s leadership, the hotel compromised; Clark could attend sessions but had to be escorted by a white woman at all times and was not allowed to stay in the hotel despite having paid for a room. She was reimbursed and instead stayed with relatives. As a result of that incident, the SWE vowed never again to hold a conference in a segregated city. Over the decades, Clark remained a champion for women in STEM. In one SWE interview, she advised future generations: “Prepare yourself. Do your work. Don’t be afraid to ask questions, and benefit by meeting with other women. Whatever you like, learn about it and pursue it. “The environment is what you make it. Sometimes the environment is hostile, but don’t worry about it. Be aware of it so you aren’t blindsided.” Her contributions earned her numerous accolades including the 1998 SWE Distinguished Engineering Educator Award and the 2001 Tennessee Society of Professional Engineers Distinguished Service Award. A lasting impression Clark’s legacy was not confined to engineering; she was deeply involved in Nashville community service. She served on the board of the 18th Avenue Family Enrichment Center and participated in the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce. She was active in the Hendersonville Area chapter of The Links, a volunteer service organization for Black women, and the Nashville alumnae chapter of the Delta Sigma Theta sorority. She also mentored members of the Boy Scouts, many of whom went on to pursue engineering careers. Clark spent her life knocking down barriers that tried to impede her. She didn’t just break the glass ceiling—she engineered a way through it for people who came after her.

Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your friends at IEEE Spectrum robotics. We also post a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next few months. Please send us your events for inclusion. RoboSoft 2025: 23–26 April 2025, LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND ICUAS 2025: 14–17 May 2025, CHARLOTTE, NC ICRA 2025: 19–23 May 2025, ATLANTA, GA London Humanoids Summit: 29–30 May 2025, LONDON IEEE RCAR 2025: 1–6 June 2025, TOYAMA, JAPAN 2025 Energy Drone & Robotics Summit: 16–18 June 2025, HOUSTON, TX RSS 2025: 21–25 June 2025, LOS ANGELES ETH Robotics Summer School: 21–27 June 2025, GENEVA IAS 2025: 30 June–4 July 2025, GENOA, ITALY ICRES 2025: 3–4 July 2025, PORTO, PORTUGAL IEEE World Haptics: 8–11 July 2025, SUWON, KOREA IFAC Symposium on Robotics: 15–18 July 2025, PARIS RoboCup 2025: 15–21 July 2025, BAHIA, BRAZIL RO-MAN 2025: 25–29 August 2025, EINDHOVEN, THE NETHERLANDS CLAWAR 2025: 5–7 September 2025, SHENZHEN World Robot Summit: 10–12 October 2025, OSAKA, JAPAN IROS 2025: 19–25 October 2025, HANGZHOU, CHINA IEEE Humanoids: 30 September–2 October 2025, SEOUL CoRL 2025: 27–30 September 2025, SEOUL Enjoy today’s videos! MIT engineers developed an insect-sized jumping robot that can traverse challenging terrains while using far less energy than an aerial robot of comparable size. This tiny, hopping robot can leap over tall obstacles and jump across slanted or uneven surfaces carrying about 10 times more payload than a similar-sized aerial robot, opening the door to many new applications. [ MIT ] CubiX is a wire-driven robot that connects to the environment through wires, with drones used to establish these connections. By integrating with various tools and a robot, it performs tasks beyond the limitations of its physical structure. [ JSK Lab ] Thanks, Shintaro! It’s a game a lot of us played as children—and maybe even later in life: unspooling measuring tape to see how far it would extend before bending. But to engineers at the University of California San Diego, this game was an inspiration, suggesting that measuring tape could become a great material for a robotic gripper. [ University of California San Diego ] I enjoyed the Murderbot books, and the trailer for the TV show actually looks not terrible. [ Murderbot ] For service robots, being able to operate an unmodified elevator is much more difficult (and much more important) than you might think. [ Pudu Robotics ] There’s a lot of buzz around impressive robotics demos — but taking Physical AI from demo to real-world deployment is a journey that demands serious engineering muscle. Hammering out the edge cases and getting to scale is 500x the effort of getting to the first demo. See our process for building this out for the singulation and induction Physical AI solution trusted by some of the world’s leading parcel carriers. Here’s to the teams likewise committed to the grind toward reliability and scale. [ Dexterity Robotics ] I am utterly charmed by the design of this little robot. [ RoMeLa ] This video shows a shortened version of Issey Miyake’s Fly With Me runway show from 2025 Paris Men’s Fashion Week. My collaborators and I brought two industrial robots to life to be the central feature of the minimalist scenography for the Japanese brand. Each ABB IRB 6640 robot held a two meter square piece of fabric, and moved synchronously in flowing motions to match the emotional timing of the runway show. With only three-weeks development time and three days on-site, I built custom live coding tools that opened up the industrial robots to more improvisational workflows. This level of reliable, real-time control unlocked the flexibility needed by the Issey Miyake team to make the necessary last-minute creative decisions for the show. [ Atonaton ] Meet Clone’s first musculoskeletal android: Protoclone, the most anatomically accurate robot in the world. Based on a natural human skeleton, Protoclone is actuated with over 1,000 Myofibers, Clone’s proprietary artificial muscle technology. [ Clone Robotics ] There are a lot of heavily produced humanoid robot videos from the companies selling them, but now that these platforms are entering the research space, we should start getting a more realistic sense of their capabilities. [ University College London ] Here’s a bit more footage from RIVR on their home delivery robot. [ RIVR ] And now, this. [ EngineAI ] Robots are at the heart of sci-fi, visions of the future, but what if that future is now? And what if those robots, helping us at work and at home, are simply an extension of the tools we’ve used for millions of years? That’s what artist and engineer Catie Cuan thinks, and it’s part of the reason she teaches robots to dance. In this episode we meet the people at the frontiers of the future of robotics and Astro Teller introduces two groundbreaking projects, Everyday Robots and Intrinsic, that have advanced how robots could work not just for us but with us. [ Moonshot Podcast ]