Robots For Real-World Work: Training Challenges And How To Solve Them

InnovationRobots For Real-World Work: Training Challenges And How To Solve ThemByExpert Panel®,Forbes Councils Member.for Forbes Technology CouncilCOUNCIL POSTExpertise from Forbes Councils members, operated under license. Opinions expressed are those of the author. | Membership (fee-based)Jun 01, 2026, 01:15pm EDT gettyRobots are no longer limited to carefully controlled lab settings. They’re sorting packages, navigating warehouses, assisting on factory floors and supporting a growing range of business operations, but the real world remains one of their toughest training grounds.A robot that performs well in a controlled simulation can struggle when conditions change, people behave unpredictably or the environment doesn’t match what it was trained to expect. Below, Forbes Technology Council members share the challenges companies often underestimate when training robots for real-world environments and how leaders can better prepare for them.Sensory VariabilityA big challenge is sensory variability. Robots are trained under conditions including inconsistent lighting, surfaces and object placement, and they tend to fail when real conditions shift. To address this, robots must be trained with diverse, real-world data. Use sim-to-real transfer and build in adaptive learning so robots update continuously from live feedback rather than static training. - Ambika Saklani Bhardwaj, Walmart Inc. Low-Fidelity SimulationsMany companies underinvest in simulation and digital twin infrastructure. Low-fidelity “clean” simulations fail to capture real-world friction, contact and variability, hurting deployment. Leaders should treat simulation as a strategic capability: a staged-fidelity pipeline anchored by high-fidelity digital twins and synthetic data to surface edge cases before deployment, not just boost benchmarks. - Brandon Wang, Synopsys Forbes Technology Council is an invitation-only community for world-class CIOs, CTOs and technology executives. Do I qualify?Real-World Trai...