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The most mind-blowing thing you’ve ever seen a robot do is no longer parkour, it’s a robot searching for a tool bag, retrieving it and delivering it to a human worker.
This week Boston Dynamics posted its latest Atlas Robot demonstration video (opens in new tab), but this one was different. In previous videos, we’ve seen the humanoid bipedal robot walk, run, dance, climb stairs and do parkour. We’ve even seen it perform synchronized dances with a robot dog (Spot), but we’ve never seen anything like it.
In the screenplay, featuring Boston Dynamics’ first human actor, a construction worker builds scaffolding until he realizes he forgot his tools. Enter Atlas. The now well-known robot is equipped with grippers. In the video, it appears to be looking for a path to reach the worker, which must include finding a wooden plank and building a bridge between the stairs and the scaffolding.
Atlas then locates the tool bag, grabs it, walks up the stairs, across the plank, and when he is just one level below the work platform, expertly throws the bag at the worker.
Naturally, Atlas cannot come down as a normal worker and, after pushing a huge wooden box off the platform, jumps onto it and then jumps off the box and lands on the ground.
It’s fun to watch unless you’re a construction worker worried about your job.
For technologists, the routine is a feat of engineering and programming. In a next video (opens in new tab), Boston Dynamics engineers explained how they programmed Atlases’ built-in software to use the two cameras (one for color images and one for depth location) to identify and locate objects. There’s also new programming to ensure that when Atlas lifts, throws, and moves objects, he can understand the forces of objects on his body and won’t fall over when lifting something heavy.
In other words, Atlas has to use his body in much the same way humans do when lifting and carrying packages.
“One of the hardest things about grabbing things and moving them with the robot is that it creates a whole new set of challenges in trying to decide where that object is that I’m manipulating and how it’s moving,” explains a Boston Dynamics . engineer in the video.
As impressive as Atlas’ moves are, the programming is first done in a simulation to understand how one of these moves might work on the real robot. Atlas doesn’t naturally know how to do anything. The simulation may work, but Boston Dynamics has to constantly reprogram and reconfigure the robot to try to make these moves. The last somersault with a spin (or “sick trick,” as it’s called in the video) is something Atlas couldn’t do a year ago.
You wonder what Atlas can do in a year. The plan is for such a robot to eventually end up in production or construction, but we think it could also be quite handy at home.