Optical Tech Would Update a Robot’s AI on the Fly

Source: IEEE Spectrum Robotics·2026-07-26 21:00Publish time unverified

Atop a lab bench, Cornell Tech postdoctoral researcher Yifan He positions the lens of an optical receiver almost a meter away from an LED emitting a beam of red light. The computer monitor attached to the receiver takes a beat to refresh, then displays an array of squares that resemble a QR code. When you hold your phone camera up to a QR code, light strikes the image sensor as only a first step to revealing the data hidden behind the black-and-white matrix.