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An electric new era for Atlas

bostondynamics.com

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Re: An electric new era for Atlas

#171

Post by pixl97 »

itslennysfault wrote: post #121
pixl97 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It turns out the humanoid shape when making a general purpose robot is useful because humans have designed all the things around us, for humans.

That's kinda a weird conclusion to reach. They discontinued this (old, hydraulic) humanoid robot to focus on their new (fully electric) humanoid robot. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29ECwExc-_M

I'm assuming you didn't read the parent comment to mine saying "humanoid robots are dumb", so I'm not sure what you're trying to say.

Re: An electric new era for Atlas

#173

Post by bamboozled »

lukan wrote: post #112
bamboozled wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think so too but I can see how it’s desirable as a drop in for spaces where a person would normally work. Mostly wheels just seem like a better idea. For rough terrain, why not just fly ?

"For rough terrain, why not just fly ? " Weight (You need way more energy to do anything)

True but how much can a bipedal robot carry ?

Re: An electric new era for Atlas

#174

Post by kmacleod »

smusamashah wrote: post #82
jack_riminton wrote: post #34

A hill I'm willing to die on: bipedal robots are an evolutionary path that machines don't need to go down, we have lovely bearings and wheels that work perfectly with electric motors. Yes obviously there are limitations i.e. stairs and uneven terrain but there are wheeled/tracked solutions for those too Most of these robots will be used in factories that have very nice flat concrete floors

Once they get walking wit legs perfected, they can install wheels on those or do whatever wheel thing they want. That will probably be an easier addon.

This. I've seen kids with wheelies these days. They can go from climbing to zipping around the place with the simplest of natural transition.

Re: An electric new era for Atlas

#175

Post by TechDebtDevin »

benjijay wrote: post #172

That first video of the bot standing from the floor and turning towards the camera one joint at a time does something strange to the uncanny valley horror movie part of my brain.

Well I think it's ironically mimicking The Exorcist or one of those movies so makes sense.

Re: An electric new era for Atlas

#176

Post by InSteady »

simplicio wrote: post #75
dkobia wrote: post #11

If all Boston Dynamics did was make Youtube videos, they'd have a pretty good business.

Is that their business? They've been around for 30+ years and I don't think they've ever successfully commercialized a product. So far as I can tell, they just hop from DARPA grant to DARPA grant and make cool videos of the results. I don't have any particular problem with that, but its a little weird? I figured they were a more traditional industrial robotics company that just did the humanoid robots as a side line…

They have been on the bleeding edge of autonomous robotics R&D for a very long time now. If they were more focused on commercialization for the past 20 years then they wouldn't have pushed the tech forward as far and as fast as they have.

The whole point of the article is speculating that they are specifically retiring their hydraulic robot because it was never going to be commercially viable. Which makes it look like they are finally ready to pivot from pure R&D to commercial production. Thus they want fully electronic robots instead of hydraulics that are messy and require more (almost constant?) maintenance.

I'm not an engineering guy but I assume the hydraulics were more useful for pushing the boundaries of possible motion with such a heavy, robust, and versatile design. Now that the AI systems controlling vision, motion, proprioception/spatial awareness, etc are more fully developed, they can create more specialized and scaled down versions of the robot for specific applications that are lighter and don't require hydraulics to perform their tasks reliably? Just guessing here, am happy to be corrected or given more a nuanced take.

Re: An electric new era for Atlas

#177

Post by wdh505 »

itslennysfault wrote: post #121
pixl97 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It turns out the humanoid shape when making a general purpose robot is useful because humans have designed all the things around us, for humans.

That's kinda a weird conclusion to reach. They discontinued this (old, hydraulic) humanoid robot to focus on their new (fully electric) humanoid robot. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29ECwExc-_M

If a robot were to pilot a analog aircraft, it would need to be roughly human shape or specifically designed.

If a robot were to reach an AED without frying it with magnets, it would need to be tall enough and have fingers.

I agree with you that there are more efficient shapes out there (like the robot from interstellar) but a humanoid at slightly shorter than the average adult (for fear related reasons) shape is the best general purpose shape because it is so backward compatible in all sorts of not yet imagined emergency scenarios.

Re: An electric new era for Atlas

#179

Post by giva »

jack_riminton wrote: post #34

A hill I'm willing to die on: bipedal robots are an evolutionary path that machines don't need to go down, we have lovely bearings and wheels that work perfectly with electric motors. Yes obviously there are limitations i.e. stairs and uneven terrain but there are wheeled/tracked solutions for those too Most of these robots will be used in factories that have very nice flat concrete floors

> Most of these robots will be used in factories that have very nice flat concrete floors

Are you sure? We had robots in factories for more than 50 years, and they don't usually move.

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