Gamingdeputy reported on April 17th that the field of humanoid robots is now competing with hundreds of schools of thought, but industry pioneer Boston Dynamics has made a surprising decision: officially announcing the retirement of its own hydraulically driven humanoid robot Atlas.
Gamingdeputy noted that this decision seems to be contrary to the current booming development trend in the field of humanoid robots. You know, major companies are now spending hundreds of millions of dollars to develop humanoid robots. However, analysts pointed out that the retirement of Atlas may not mean the end, but more like making way for the company's new projects in the future.
Advertisement
In recent years, Boston Dynamics has been committed to commercializing technology products. The acquisition of Hyundai Motor and the appointment of Rob Playter, the second CEO in the company's history, have further accelerated this process. Coupled with the strong interest in humanoid robot companies such as Agility, Figure, 1X and Apptronik, it is not difficult to speculate that Boston Dynamics has at least seriously considered getting involved in the field of commercial humanoid robots.
In fact, Boston Dynamics has always been at the forefront of the industry in the development of humanoid robots. The Atlas robot made its debut in 2013, and it has been 10 years since its debut. Initially, the development of Atlas was funded by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), and it emerged in the Robotics Challenge held by DARPA.
DARPA said: “Atlas was one of the most advanced humanoid robots at the time when it was first introduced, but it was essentially just a physical carrier of the software 'brain' and 'nerves.'” Gill Pratt, DARPA project manager at the time ) compared Atlas to a baby, “a one-year-old that waddles around and falls over. When we compare these robots to science fiction, remember, this is where we are now.” “
Atlas has come a long way over the past decade and continues to appear in Boston Dynamics’ research and promotional videos. However, today marks the end of the Atlas robot journey. While its many breakthroughs in locomotion remain impressive, technologies such as hydraulic actuation are somewhat outdated in today's robotics landscape.
Advertisement
Interestingly, just in February this year, Boston Dynamics also released a video called “Atlas Struts”, showing the latest capabilities of Atlas, seemingly hinting that the project is about to be commercialized. The video shows off Atlas’ cool augmented reality sensing capabilities and a new gripper designed specifically for factory floor operations. Considering the background of modern cars, it is not difficult to imagine that the “descendants” of Atlas will appear on the production lines of automobile manufacturing in the future.
As a farewell gift, Boston Dynamics released a video looking back at Atlas’s highlights and hilarious falls. It’s both a tribute and a showcase of the hard work that goes into those perfectly choreographed videos.