In today’s hot humanoid robot track, Boston Dynamics is one of the early entrants. In the past few years, Atlas humanoid robots have attracted worldwide attention for their dynamic parkour capabilities, and later we saw Atlas moving around on simulated construction sites. Atlas is still a development platform and won't work in the real world yet, in part because of its hydraulically driven design.
However, a newly released demonstration video by Boston Dynamics shows that Atlas, like other humanoid robots, can complete difficult manipulation tasks, including manipulating heavy objects when properly equipped.
In the video, Atlas steadily grabbed a screw that was thicker than his own arm and carried it to the target location:
In fact, Atlas had no fingers for a long time, but two black spheres. Early last year, Boston Dynamics installed "crab clips" on the ends of its arms. Now, its fingers have evolved into three. Although they are not as dexterous and soft as five human fingers, they are still enough to firmly grasp round screws:
Switch to the first perspective and look like this:
Continue to carry the next one. During the process of reaching the new target, Atlas almost fell, but finally stabilized:
It can be seen that this screw is not as heavy as usual, and it was a bit difficult for Atlas to pick it up:
Boston Dynamics has long been known for its groundbreaking innovations in robotics, including Atlas, a bipedal humanoid robot that can run, jump and perform a variety of amazing moves.
However, Atlas is not the only humanoid robot "ready to enter the factory."
As the competition for humanoid robots heats up, humanoid robots from companies such as Agility Robotics, Apptronik, and Figure are also approaching the level of finding jobs in the real world. The valuations of these companies have also risen. For example, according to people familiar with the matter, Microsoft and OpenAI are negotiating to participate in Figure’s new round of financing, in which Microsoft may invest approximately US$95 million and OpenAI will invest US$5 million.
Figure's first humanoid robot.
The technology and implementation progress of humanoid robots have always attracted much attention. Although some people once questioned: "What's the point of making it a humanoid robot? Any robotic arm can complete this task 10 times faster and with ideal accuracy, this seems to be just a cheap hype."
But at least for Boston Dynamics, the company can invest more than ten years in the research and development of humanoid robots while operating at a loss. It is obviously not for hype.
In the long run, humanoid robots will be suitable for more application scenarios due to their small footprint and flexible movements.
Brett Adcock, Figure founder and CEO, said: "For decades, the commercial market for single-purpose robotics has become saturated, but the potential of general-purpose robotics has not been tapped at all." Figure's humanoid robot is also ready to enter the factory, and its first job is at BMW's Spartanburg plant in South Carolina, USA.
Tesla is also working hard to build and commercialize a bipedal humanoid robot. The robot is named "Optimus" and has been updated to OptimusGen2. According to Tesla's preliminary statement, Optimus should be priced at around $20,000.
A previous video has shown Optimus folding shirts independently:
In the latest video released, "Optimus Prime" has achieved autonomous walking without help, with light steps, and the robotic arm can still swing with the steps (albeit slowly):
Assuming that humanoid robots can really replace humans to complete work, it may cause employment in some industries to decline or even disappear, but there is no doubt that we still look forward to this day coming as soon as possible.