A supplier of drone technology to dozens of state and local law enforcement and public safety agencies, located in the United States and a handful of other countries, will stop working with Chinese drone manufacturers, citing security concerns.

Frank Marino sat in a repurposed U.S. Coast Guard boat bobbing in Boston Harbor one morning late last month. He pointed the boat straight at a buoy several hundred yards away, while his colleague Mohamed Saad Ibn Seddik used a laptop to set the vehicle on a course that would run right into it.

Sixteen teams of robotics researchers are traveling to Japan this week to help Amazon.com Inc. solve its warehouse problem.