“For nearly a decade, Atlas has sparked our imaginations, inspired the next generations of roboticists, and broken technical barriers in the field. Now it’s time for our Atlas hydraulic robot to relax,” indicates in the preamble Boston Dynamics. The next generation of robots will therefore be electric or it will not be.
Noting that the robotics landscape has changed significantly since 2013, the American company – now owned by the Hyundai group – therefore wishes to create a new model of its robot in partnership with the R&D teams of its parent company. “The team Hyundai is building the next generation of automotive manufacturing capabilities, and it will serve as an ideal testing ground for new Atlas applications.”
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In the months and years to come, the Boston Dynamics teams therefore plan to present some of the real applications possible in the laboratory or in the factory.
A more powerful electric version
“The electric version of the Atlas will be more powerful, with a wider range of motion than any of our previous generations,” assures Boston Dynamics. For the record, its Atlas HD model could already lift and maneuver a wide variety of heavy and irregular objects and the company plans to build on its existing capabilities to meet a range of handling needs expected in corporate client environments.
At the same time, Boston Dynamics intends to continue its efforts in software. It has equipped its robots with reinforcement learning and computer vision tools to ensure that they can operate and adapt relatively quickly to complex real-world situations. Previously, these automatons were only capable of executing manually pre-recorded routines. This process is now greatly simplified.
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In video presentation, Boston Dynamics reveals some of the capabilities of this second version of Atlas. In the future, the company plans to integrate its Orbit software – a centralized platform for managing an entire robot fleet, site plans and data – with Atlas. It is now available for Spot, but Stretch and Atlas did not benefit from it until now.
10 years of good and bad memories with Atlas
This latest iteration of the Atlas robot should therefore be stronger, more dexterous and more agile than its predecessor. Released in 2013, the humanoid robot has clearly caused a sensation over time, particularly in certain videos where we see its potential for dancing and doing parkour.
In August 2021, two Atlas robots moved through a small obstacle course that requires jumping a one-meter gap, moving forward on diagonal platforms, going down and up steps and even going over a bar parallel. The scene ends by two backflips.
Of course, Atlas is not only synonymous with success. The biped also suffered some serious falls as evidenced by the video published this week by Boston Dynamics, paying tribute to its flagship robot. If he is able to move in the real world and perceive his entire environment, Atlas also has some hiccups, further emphasizing the resemblance to humans.
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