Boston Dynamics’ humanoid Robot Atlas has been in development for nearly 10 years and is constantly learning new skills like a child. If you remember, the last video of Atlas making the parkour was shared last year.
A video showing Atlas’ new capabilities was posted on Boston Dynamics’ YouTube channel today. Let’s take a closer look at the new movements of these humanoid robots together.
He does things that even humans can’t do easily.
As you can see in the video, Atlas throws his toolbox forward on a test scaffolding, then pushes the box to make a new path for himself and ends his show with a beautiful 540-degree somersault. Of course, this video may seem meticulously edited or simply fake, but Atlas’ engineers explain their work on Atlas for 1 year in another video they shared.
According to the information given in the video, Atlas can now move on its own without the need for a remote control. All you have to do is tell Atlas what to do. To give an example, the command that made him do all the movements in the video you just watched was a simple command like “Bring me the repair kit”. Following this command, Atlas simultaneously scans his surroundings with a color and a depth camera on his head, detects obstacles and makes a way for himself, and finally detects the bag. Of course, Atlas doesn’t know for sure if it’s a bag because the robot doesn’t yet have sensors to detect it. Atlas matches the objects he sees with the information in his memory and tries to understand whether the shape he sees is a bag or a box.
According to the engineers’ statement, Atlas has made great progress in the last 1 year in moving, overcoming obstacles, moving objects and analyzing its environment. In fact, our humanoid robot can now more or less predict how it should carry an object it sees for the first time. Of course, it should not be forgotten that Atlas constantly calculates the next step during all these movements and decides instantly on everything from how much pressure to walk with which foot to how to balance with the object he is carrying. It was also announced that most of the software development process of Atlas was completed in simulations.
Finally, the 540-degree somersault you see at the end of the video is of great importance for Atlas engineers. Stating that the robot could barely do a 360 degree somersault a year ago, engineers state that Atlas learned how to do somersaults using the laws of physics just like a track runner, but that its parts were damaged due to falling many times during this process.
Video explaining the development phase of Atlas
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