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An electric new era for Atlas

bostondynamics.com

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Re: An electric new era for Atlas

#271

Post by antisthenes »

Tiereven wrote: post #264

As we enter an era of wide scale robotic deployment, we need to think long and hard about what the maintenance bottleneck will look like. We need to advocate now for reliable and open upgrades, replacement parts, service documentation, and diagnostics. Right to repair will be even more important for this technology than autos or general computing.

> Right to repair will be even more important for this technology than autos or general computing.

It's going to be kneecapped far worse than phones or tractors. A general purpose humanoid robot is orders of magnitude more complex than a simple gps farming tractor or a cheap android phone.

Companies will absolutely NOT want to give up that moat after developing such tech for 10-20 years.

Re: An electric new era for Atlas

#272

Post by jvanderbot »

modeless wrote: post #231

Does anyone else think the joints seem stiffer than the hydraulic version? The head and torso are receiving a lot of shock forces with each step. That seems like a downgrade from the previous one. It clearly has a much larger range of motion and if it is also stronger as claimed then I can't wait for the acrobatics videos that are surely coming. But I think the most exciting thing is that it has hands from the start.…

Electric motors dont have a lot of "give", like hydraulics do. But yes force-torque controllers can be tuned to be squishier. Someday I think electric motors will be the muscles and we'll have some kind of elastic tendons. For energy efficiency, it seems obvious to harness impact energy in a mechanical spring system, as nature does.

Or just use wheels / a wheel. This whole humanoid thing strikes me as an addiction to old sci Fi stories.

Re: An electric new era for Atlas

#273

Post by chasd00 »

doesn't it make more sense to have robots like these drive cars? Then any car, even an old clunker, can be a "self-driving car".

You could offload the heavy processing to a larger computer in the back seat. Then even the robots get to suffer with backseat drivers :)

Re: An electric new era for Atlas

#275

Post by barrenko »

WASDx wrote: post #181
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.

It looks like CGI to me, the way to camera moves together with the depth of field and that things appear too shiny. They don't state anything about it so I don't know what to believe.

Video games should have prepared you to better detect CGI.

Re: An electric new era for Atlas

#276

Post by kevindamm »

geodel wrote: post #242
HarHarVeryFunny wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'll know AGI has really arrived when we do have factory robots backflipping and doing stupid stuff to amuse themselves.

I feel Robot Unions will have to make backflipping as part of collective bargain agreement.

What do we want??

BACKFLIPS.

When do we want them?

[backflips]

Re: An electric new era for Atlas

#277

Post by chasd00 »

nebula8804 wrote: post #266
r0ckarong wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

New York and Los Angeles at least use them (Spot) already. Nestle and AB InBev in their facilities apparently. Paris uses it for Metro inspections. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFRcle4Szo4 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=a2Y52zjZYXo https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9pZQ29RSz4I https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XPOpnJSldUg https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=p535RRR5MqM

SpaceX has one for what I imagine is PR purposes. [1]: https://youtu.be/aajbFO7xwBM?t=36

They use flying drones all the time, you can see them flying around in the Starbase live streams. I can't think of anything off the top of my head that a flying drone can't do but spot would be able to do at Starbase. Unless Spot can crawl into a pipe or tank maybe.

Re: An electric new era for Atlas

#278

Post by bluGill »

squigz wrote: post #140
bluGill wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do I want a general purpose robot? I don't need one robot that does it all, I'm happy with a separate robots for washing my dishes, and vacuuming my floors. Sure both can be improved on, but they don't need to converge. In fact I'm glad those two are separate as I can let both of them run at the same time and get the work done faster, while a general purpose robot can only do one at a time. The goal is to make my…

You want a separate robotic appliance for every thing you want done? That sounds... hectic. I'm also not sure it's important that laundry and dishes get done at the exact same time - if it is, you should probably do 1 of those tasks yourself - especially since a robot would be able to stuff at night, etc, giving it more time to complete tasks Also, GP mentions stairs, and adding wheel support to that. So not only do…

I just want the tasks done without thinking about them. How it happens doesn't matter to me, just get it done. 1 robot, 1 million - I don't care, just so long as I can afford them and they stay out of my way.

While I don't care if everything gets done at once, I care that things are done right and not otherwise inconvenient for me. Maybe the best way to have robots that work slow and then apply a lot of then.

The important thing to note here is robots for many of the things I want do not exist. When they come we will see. Maybe is a a specialized robot, maybe it is more general purpose. That is irrelevant.

Re: An electric new era for Atlas

#279

Post by klowrey »

jvanderbot wrote: post #272
modeless wrote: post #231

Does anyone else think the joints seem stiffer than the hydraulic version? The head and torso are receiving a lot of shock forces with each step. That seems like a downgrade from the previous one. It clearly has a much larger range of motion and if it is also stronger as claimed then I can't wait for the acrobatics videos that are surely coming. But I think the most exciting thing is that it has hands from the start.…

Electric motors dont have a lot of "give", like hydraulics do. But yes force-torque controllers can be tuned to be squishier. Someday I think electric motors will be the muscles and we'll have some kind of elastic tendons. For energy efficiency, it seems obvious to harness impact energy in a mechanical spring system, as nature does. Or just use wheels / a wheel. This whole humanoid thing strikes me as an addiction to…

Hydraulics shouldn't have any give, as the working fluid is considered "incompressible". Of course in the real world the tubing can expand slightly and there are friction losses, but the reason they went with hydraulics in the first place is they can set a position and not have to use more energy to hold it there (since the cylinders are pressurized).

If the gear ratio on these motors is high, then there can only be faked compliance in the tuned force-torque controllers you mentioned. MIT's little cheetah robot, on the other hand, deliberately used low-gear ratios to keep things naturally squishy if needed. This is the way to go; putting elastic tendons or spring elements seems like a good idea but then you can't actually model the non-linearity well (the 1st order motor becomes a 2nd or higher order system).

Re: An electric new era for Atlas

#280

Post by fragmede »

jvanderbot wrote: post #272
modeless wrote: post #231

Does anyone else think the joints seem stiffer than the hydraulic version? The head and torso are receiving a lot of shock forces with each step. That seems like a downgrade from the previous one. It clearly has a much larger range of motion and if it is also stronger as claimed then I can't wait for the acrobatics videos that are surely coming. But I think the most exciting thing is that it has hands from the start.…

Electric motors dont have a lot of "give", like hydraulics do. But yes force-torque controllers can be tuned to be squishier. Someday I think electric motors will be the muscles and we'll have some kind of elastic tendons. For energy efficiency, it seems obvious to harness impact energy in a mechanical spring system, as nature does. Or just use wheels / a wheel. This whole humanoid thing strikes me as an addiction to…

It's not because of science fiction stories, it's because things designed for human to use, is designed for a humanoid form factor. If you want to accomplish a task, it's going to be reflected by that machine. Eg a conveyor belt doesn't look like a human. But if you want swap a robot where a human used to be, it's far easier if that robot is humanoid and has the same approximate capabilities. Thus, we have humanoid robots.
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