In the MARIOW project, an innovative underwater welding robot has been developed that can perform semi-autonomous welding tasks on maritime infrastructure. 
The robot features a robotic arm developed at the DFKI. It can operate at depths of up to 6,000 meters, offers six degrees of freedom, and has a reach of two meters. 
The video shows the final phase of the project at DFKI in Bremen, including underwater testing of the robot, demonstration of the flux-cored arc welding process, and AI-based seam detection. 

The aim of the RoLand project is to develop a semi-autonomous, mobile harvesting system that can reliably pick fruit in open fields. Unlike previous solutions, which are mainly used in greenhouses, the robot is specially designed to cope with the challenges of real-world environmental conditions such as changing weather or uneven terrain. Due to its versatility and cost-efficiency, the system is also of interest to smaller farms. In addition, the work output can be flexibly scaled by operating several compact units in parallel.
The video shows the first public field test of the SHIVAA robot at the Glantz strawberry farm in August 2025. In it, the project partners explain the goals and advantages of the system.

Robotic systems will play a key role in future lunar missions, and a great deal of research is currently being conducted in this area. The SAMLER-AI project is also conducting research in this area.. The project focuses on the conceptual design of a semi-autonomous micro rover that is capable of surviving lunar nights while remaining within the size class of a micro rover. During development, conditions on the Moon such as dust exposure, radiation, and the vacuum of space are taken into account, along with the 14-Earth-day duration of a lunar night.
For a reference mission, the surroundings of the Reiner Gamma region were selected. This example mission is planned to start on 16 March 2030 at 21:00:00 Barycentric Dynamical Time (TDB) and will last for two lunar days, concluding on 27 April 2030 at 13:00:00 TDB. The highlight of the mission will be the rover surviving the lunar night, allowing it to continue its journey into the second lunar day.
The animation shows the approach developed so far by DFKI and FH Aachen.

Parabolic flight with exoskeleton: DFKI and the University of Duisburg-Essen are researching innovative space training in zero gravity

The autonomous navigation of Coyote 3 is presented while a steep slope is traversed. The map below on the right shows the traversable areas as green, and the obstacles in red. The planned path to be followed is also displayed in the visualization.

Wir blicken auf ein ereignisreiches Jahr 2024 zurück, das uns viele spannende Entwicklungen in der Robotik gebracht hat. Nun möchten wir Euch mit einem besonderen Weihnachtsgruß in die Feiertage entlassen.