Two words: Nightmare fuel.
An electric new era for Atlas
71–80 of 443 posts
Re: An electric new era for Atlas
#72A 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
The ultimate goal is to produce general-purpose robots. If we want robots that can do everything a human can, then legs are definitely useful. One simple example: getting in and out of a car. Another thing to consider is that a legged robot can tilt itself for balance while carrying heavy objects. To carry a similar weight with a wheeled robot you'll need a much wider wheel base. And then of course, if you want to bu…
Prediction: we'll have self-driving cars that can match our driving before we have legged robots that can match our stability, agility etc.
Have you not seen Boston Dynamics tilting wheeled robots that work very well? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iV_hB08Uns
Re: An electric new era for Atlas
#73The success of old Atlas was partly due to the compactness and high power of hydraulic actuators. There’s a lot of actuators to pack into a humanoid robot and it takes a lot of power to do backflips.
I am betting that this one is less powerful, no backflip.
Re: An electric new era for Atlas
#74Love how they applied first principles to standing up. Can’t wait to see how the robot deals with “disarm human.”
Spoiler alert: dis-arm.
Re: An electric new era for Atlas
#75If 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 for publicity, but googling, I guess that's not the case.
Re: An electric new era for Atlas
#76I'm thinking the humanoid approach to robotics is now a gimmick. In most--if not all--cases, a robot in human form is not necessary at all if the approach is to get work done.
Maybe there's a natural 'wisdom' to the humanoid shape after countless iterations over millions of years, though?
Re: An electric new era for Atlas
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think we very much do. Robots are currently very expensive, so where do you want to send a robot that you can't use a worker? Probably somewhere at least potentially dangerous. You want to use the robot to inspect a tunnel in danger of collapse, or a factory that may be leaking a poisonous chemical out of a pipe. And in such cases you very much want something that can navigate obstacles about as well as a human. Yo…
drones, my friend
Drones are cool, but would have a hard time getting through a closed door, or turning a valve.
Re: An electric new era for Atlas
#78Funny, just after the all electric Optimus. For sure they have been working on this for a long time. I predict that they will also move toward neural nets for all the vision, control and understanding of the world (like Tesla)
"move towards neural nets ... like Tesla"
You sound confused.
Re: An electric new era for Atlas
#79I'm thinking the humanoid approach to robotics is now a gimmick. In most--if not all--cases, a robot in human form is not necessary at all if the approach is to get work done.
Something like GERTY from Moon would be all you need around the home. And you wouldn't need to worry about charging him either.